For almost a century the islands of Orkney and Shetland were under the rule of the Stewart earls, father and son, a rule remarkable for its infamous reputation in island history. Robert Stewart was an illegitimate son of James V, king of Scots, who seized power in Orkney in the 1560s and was created earl of Shetland in 1581. Robert's son was the extraordinary and ill-starred Earl Patrick, 'Black Patie', whose execution for treason in 1615 brought the era to a close. This book has its foundations in two previous books by Peter Anderson, one on each character.

In Frontiers for Peace in the Medieval North. The Norwegian-Scottish Frontier c. 1260-1470, Ian Peter Grohse examines social and political interactions in Orkney, a Norwegian-held province with long and intimate ties to the Scottish mainland. Commonly portrayed as the epicentre of political tension between Norwegian and Scottish fronts, Orkney appears here as a medium for diplomacy between monarchies and as an avenue for interface and cooperation between neighbouring communities. Removed from the national heartlands of Scandinavia and Britain, Orcadians fostered a distinctly local identity that, although rooted in Norwegian law and civic organization, featured a unique cultural accent engendered through Scottish immigration. This study of Orcadian experiences encourages greater appreciation of the peaceful dimensions of pre-modern European frontiers.

For much of its history, Orkney had its own language, culture and institutions. The prehistoric inhabitants created monuments which are unmatched anywhere in Europe, and the medieval period saw the magnificent earldom that expressed itself through the Orkneyinga Saga and the building of St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall. Like Shetland, Orkney was heavily influenced by Viking traders and raiders from Scandinavia, and for a long period it formed an outlying part of the kingdom of Norway.Over 500 years ago, however, the islands lost their Scandinavian links and since then have had a sometimes difficult association with mainland Scotland. More recent times have seen the use of Orkney as a strategic stronghold during two world wars, and the far-reaching impact of oil and gas exploitation in the North Sea. This classic book covers the whole fascinating story and will be of interest to readers far beyond the rocky shores of Orkney itself.

Includes List of members.

A new series of the Scottish antiquary established 1886.

Medieval people viewed whales in complex and contradictory ways, from marvelous to monstrous to mundane, heaven-sent or hell-bent. Despite this, whales are conspicuous in their absence from most historical and archaeological dialogues on the Middle Ages. Drawing upon a wealth of legal, literary and material evidence, this work details the ways in which whales were sought out and scavenged at sea and shore, fought over in legal and physical battles, and prized for meat, bone and fuel. Using Old Norse sagas, laws and material culture, alongside comparative historical and ethnographic evidence, Monstrous Fishes and the Mead-Dark Sea reexamines the value of whales in the medieval North Atlantic world.

Recurring to the governing idea of her 2005 study Shakespeare on the Edge, Lisa Hopkins expands the parameters of her investigation beyond England to include the Continent, and beyond Shakespeare to include a number of dramatists ranging from Christopher Marlowe to John Ford. Hopkins also expands her notion of liminality to explore not only geographical borders, but also the intersection of the material and the spiritual more generally, tracing the contours of the edge which each inhabits. Making a journey of its own by starting from the most literally liminal of physical structures, walls, and ending with the wholly invisible and intangible, the idea of the divine, this book plots the many and various ways in which, for the Renaissance imagination, metaphysical overtones accrued to the physically liminal.

The succession to the throne, Lisa Hopkins argues here, was a burning topic not only in the final years of Elizabeth but well into the 1630s, with continuing questions about how James's two kingdoms might be ruled after his death. Because the issue, with its attendant constitutional questions, was so politically sensitive, Hopkins contends that drama, with its riddled identities, oblique relationship to reality, and inherent blurring of the extent to which the situation it dramatizes is indicative or particular, offered a crucial forum for the discussion. Hopkins analyzes some of the ways in which the dramatic works of the time - by Marlowe, Shakespeare, Webster and Ford among others - reflect, negotiate and dream the issue of the succession to the throne.

This volume represents the final definitive report on the archaeological work carried out at Spynie Palace between 1986 and 1994.