How historians in the central Middle Ages rewrote the past to meet the needs of a changing present.

This book is the first comprehensive publication on Scottish portraiture from the period 1644 to 1714, with an emphasis on the painters David Scougall (1625-1685), and his son John Scougall (1657-1737).

This innovative volume of pre-modern cultural history offers the opportunity to compare the ways in which gender and status competition intersect across periods and places.