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A great deal of excellent poetry was composed in Scotland in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. In 1603, when James Stewart became also king of England and Ireland, several Scottish poets moved to London, and commented on events at Court. Others preferred to remain in their homeland, at a distance from the metropolis; and some who had gone south soon returned home. In addition to the perennial themes of love and religion, attention was given to topics such as national identity, foreign travel, civil society, monarchy, the good life, friendship, retreat, and the nature and language of literature itself. Poets faced the political and cultural challenges inherent in the novel concept of Great Britain in a variety of ways, and the thistle and the rose bloomed together in the Jacobean garden of verses.

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Contents:

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
About this anthology

Introduction: Steps to Parnassus

Poets and poems:
Simion Grahame

James Cockburne

Walter Quin

Elizabeth Melville

Robert Ayton

Alexander Craig

David Murray

William Alexander

Alexander Gardyne

William Drummond

William Mure

Patrick Gordon

Patrick Hannay

William Lithgow

Robert Allan

Robert Kerr

George Lauder

Notes
Bibliography
First-line index

Cover image: Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640): The Apotheosis of King James I, The Rubens Ceiling, Banqueting House, Whitehall, c. 1629–34 (oil on canvas)

Cover design: Mark Blackadder