George Buchanan

In 1561, Queen Mary’s subjects welcomed her with a serenade her French attendants thought showed more heart than art. Around the same time, George Buchanan returned to Scotland after twenty-two years abroad—poet, scholar, and soon both the queen’s friend and political opponent.

This late-nineteenth-century biography follows Buchanan from his years among Europe’s scholars to a Scotland caught between old and new ways of rule. At fifty-five, he enters public life armed with a brilliant command of Latin, broad learning, and a sharp eye for political affairs. He has little taste for wealth or ambition, but when money runs short he can make a request to a powerful patron sound like a joke—and a clever one. As friendship with Mary gives way to political conflict, Buchanan’s words carry more than literary force. How will the scholar’s convictions shape the struggle unfolding in his homeland?

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