Robert III, born John Stewart, was King of Scots from 1390 to his death. He was known primarily as the Earl of Carrick before ascending the throne at age 53. He was the eldest son of Robert II and Elizabeth Mure and was legitimated with the...

James I, King of Scots (reign: 1406 – 37), was the son of Robert III and Annabella Drummond. He was probably born in late July 1394 in Dunfermline as youngest of three sons. By the time he was eight years of age both of his elder brothers w...

James II who reigned as king of Scots from 1437 on, was the son of James I and Joan Beaufort. Nothing is known of his early life, but by his first birthday his twin and only brother, Alexander, who was also the older twin, had died, thus ma...

James III was King of Scots from 1460 to 1488. James was an unpopular and ineffective monarch owing to an unwillingness to administer justice fairly, a policy of pursuing alliance with the Kingdom of England, and a disastrous relationship w...

James IV, King of Scotland (1488–1513), son and successor of James III. He was an able and popular king, and his reign was one of stability and progress for Scotland. After suppressing an insurrection of discontented nobles early in his rei...

John Knox was a Scottish clergyman and a leader of the Protestant Reformation who is considered the founder of the Presbyterian denomination in Scotland. Influenced by early church reformers such as George Wishart, he joined the movement to...

James V, king of Scotland (1513–42), son and successor of James IV. His mother, Margaret Tudor, held the regency until her marriage in 1514 to Archibald Douglas, 6th earl of Angus, when she lost it to John Stuart, duke of Albany. The factio...

Some of the Protestant reformers, in particular Andreas Karlstadt, Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin, encouraged the removal of religious images by invoking the Decalogue's prohibition of idolatry and the manufacture of graven images of God...

Mary, Queen of Scots, also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, reigned over Scotland from 14 December 1542 to 24 July 1567. Mary, the only surviving legitimate child of King James V of Scotland, was six days old when her father d...

John Napier was a Scottish mathematician, physicist, astronomer & astrologer, and also the 8th Laird of Merchistoun. He was the son of Sir Archibald Napier of Merchiston. John Napier is most renowned as the discoverer of the logarithm. Napi...

James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death. The kingdoms of England and Scotland were individu...

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader and later Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. Cromwell was one of the signatories of King Charles I's death warrant in 1649, and, as a member o...

Charles I was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles was the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne in 1...

Napier's bones are an abacus invented by John Napier for calculation of products and quotients of numbers. Also called Rabdologia. Napier published his invention of the rods in a work printed in Edinburgh at the end of 1617 also entitle...

Charles II was the King of England, King of Scots, and King of Ireland from 1649 until his death. His father Charles I had been executed in 1649, following the English Civil War; the monarchy was then abolished and the Kingdom of England an...