IT was in a chapter published in 1999 that Roger Mason outlined, with characteristic lucidity and cogency, the iconography utilised in the reigns of James III, James IV, and James V as a means of conveying the concept of imperial monarchy. In producing such visual propaganda these Scottish monarchs projected an idea of themselves as rulers – emperors within their own kingdoms – who possessed full jurisdictional authority over their realm. No doubt James V was influenced by events of the 1530s in England where Henry VIII – even if he did not become a Protestant – did go so far as to break with Rome on the grounds that England was an empire and he himself an emperor. Even before his personal rule began, however, in November 1526, the Scottish parliament had claimed such jurisdiction on James’ behalf, asserting that he ‘and his maist noble progenitouris has evire bene fre and emperouris within thame self, nocht subject to na erdlie creature undir God in thar temporalite’. It was Mason's contention that James V was equally conscious of his imperial status, and that, if he did not need or want to challenge the pope's supremacy over the church, he did set about enforcing the crown's supremacy over temporal lords and lordships within his kingdom. A symbol of this assertion of his imperium, argued Mason, was his ‘virtual circumnavigation of the kingdom’ as the king led ‘a heavily armed, seaborne expedition’ to Orkney and the Western Isles in 1540. This expedition resulted in a number of interventions in the peripheries beyond the usual warding of Hebridean chiefs and included: the 1540 Act of Annexation which saw the North and South Isles, Kintyre, and Orkney and Shetland now firmly in crown hands; the commencement of a survey of these newly acquired crown lands in the west and a subsequent significant increase in returns to the crown; the granting of a new tack of crown lands in Orkney and Shetland to Oliver Sinclair (who was said to be a favourite of the king at that time) which also saw significantly increased rentals; and James’ nomination of Robert Reid, abbot of Kinloss, as successor to Robert Maxwell as bishop of Orkney.

In one of his earliest publications, Allan Macinnes set out to ‘redress’ the imbalance in historiography that, he argued, had reduced analysis of Scotland's relations with the Isle of Man to ‘no more than brief asides in the general histories of Scotland’. The discussion began with the twelfth-century Kingdom of Man and the Isles and placed the Isle of Man within the wider context of Anglo-Scottish relations through to 1609–10, when James VI and I confirmed the Lordship of Man on William Stanley, sixth earl of Derby, after a long succession dispute. In a sense, this early article pointed to the approach that would be taken throughout his career: a Scottish focus, albeit within wider contexts, and an ongoing engagement with historiographical developments within the New British and Irish History, in particular the three-kingdoms approach to the civil wars of the mid-seventeenth century, the Willliamite revolution, and the emergence of Jacobitism in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although his familiar stomping ground was the era of the civil wars through to Jacobite rebellions, Macinnes did discuss the concept of imperial monarchy articulated by James VI and I, which rejected any claims of the papacy to have spiritual jurisdiction within the three kingdoms and instead asserted that he, James, as king, was the ultimate source of both spiritual and temporal authority. Macinnes also engaged with the trend for studies of state formation within early modern history, repeatedly emphasising the lack of uniformity in the policies of James VI, who needed neither any ‘blanket policy’ for Gaeldom nor a one-size-fits-all approach to the establishment of colonies across the Atlantic. But to suggest, as Macinnes has, that James did not attempt to impose uniformity across his three kingdoms is, however, only a partial understanding of his policies. By focusing further on the Isle of Man and James's relationship to and governance of the island, this essay seeks to move beyond nationalist approaches to British and Irish history, or three kingdoms history, to a more nuanced, archipelagic appreciation of James VI and I and his island empire.

In the twelfth century, kings of Man and the Isles were important power brokers within the archipelago and were able to hire, or hire out, a significant maritime fleet or mercenary force.

This volume emerges from a conference held at the University of Strathclyde in 2018 that sought to acknowledge the enormous contribution made by Allan Macinnes to the study of early modern Scottish, British, and European history. Macinnes, currently Emeritus Professor at Strathclyde, retired in 2014 and, we believed, there was an urgent need to celebrate his exceptional career while also reflecting on the significance of his scholarship. Doing so has allowed us to think deeply about the transformation of Scottish History as a discipline in the past half-century as well as the development of the early modern British historiographical landscape. Colleagues, friends, and former students of Macinnes were invited to consider, therefore, how he had influenced their work and in what ways they saw it as building on, or a response to, his research. The key theme that emerged in the essays that follow was the way in which Macinnes had emphasised the need to consider Scotland – or, indeed, other territorial units – comparatively and in an international context. How, in other words, had Scotland interacted with the wider world? As will soon become clear, the wide-ranging contributions to this volume reflect, indeed, a career spent collaborating fruitfully beyond Scotland's borders and taking Scottish History to a global audience.

The volume has, however, been delayed severely by a number of unforeseen circumstances – not least serious illness, bereavement, and the impact of COVID-19. It is with great pleasure, then, that we can finally thank the institutions and individuals that helped to make the conference such a success, and who have supported the volume to publication. For their generous financial support, we thank, firstly, the Scottish Historical Review Trust and the Economic and Social History Society of Scotland. For her organisational nous and good humour, we thank Rowena Hutton. For the memorable whisky-tasting that concluded the first day of the conference, we thank Kieran German. For the provision of whisky glasses and the design of commemorative glassware, we thank Campbell McClure and Glencairn Crystal. For his fantastic last-minute discussion of the ‘Ice Pick’ on the second day, we thank Stephen Mullen. For his own heartfelt note of thanks, we are grateful to Mike Russell MSP.

Across a remarkable forty-year career that has continued apace since his retirement in 2014, Allan Macinnes has made a hugely significant contribution to Scottish, British and early modern historical scholarship. Across five monographs, nine edited books and innumerable essays and articles, Macinnes honed a distinctive style as a historian, renowned for his unrivalled coverage of Scottish and international archives and a take-no-prisoners approach to intellectual inquiry that recalled his days as a shinty player. This was later captured in the nickname he acquired among British historians in the early 1990s – Ice Pick – on account of his ‘direct’ style of engagement. Yet despite this fearsome reputation, Macinnes was also a committed teacher and advisor. As an early adopter of what is now accepted as an essential requirement of all professional historians – research-led teaching – he had incomparable success in producing a new generation of historians, many of whom remain active scholars today.

Macinnes was integral to the transformation of Scottish History as a discipline in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In his own words, he sought to avoid what he perceived to be the excessive insularity and introspection of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries by emphasising comparative history and the promotion of Scottish History internationally. Much like his historical sparring partner Archibald Campbell, Marquess of Argyll, Macinnes has been comfortable operating in Scottish, British and overseas theatres. This has been reflected similarly in his many collaborations with early modernists in Europe and North America and in the wide-ranging contributions to this collection.

Evaluating Macinnes's wide-ranging scholarship is no easy task: any attempt to do so is liable to fall short when trying to fully capture its breadth and depth. Rather than auditing a prolific and ongoing publication record, then, we have opted instead to trace three fundamental elements of his work that also serve to illuminate the broader historiographical landscape of the last half-century, and which remain major interventions in Scottish and British historiography. These elements are: (i) the study of Scottish history in a comparative international context and a rejection of Anglocentrism in British history; (ii) the study of the Scottish Highlands without recourse either to sentimentalism or the over-privileging of governmental perspectives; and (iii) the study of political economy and Scottish commerce before and after the Treaty of Union.