SOURCE: Rae, Thomas I. “The Historical Writing of Drummond of Hawthornden.” The Scottish Historical Review 54, no. 157 (April 1975): 22-62.

In the following essay, Rae analyzes The History of the Five Jameses, examining the circumstances of its publication, Drummond's sources, and what the work reveals the author's political attitudes.

William Drummond of Hawthornden is a figure well-known to the student of Scottish literature for his poetry, and to the scholar and bibliographer for his gift of books in 1627 to the then recently-founded library of Edinburgh University. He is less well-known as a writer of history, a pursuit he turned to in his later years; in this he followed in the footsteps of his English contemporaries and friends, Samuel Daniel and Michael Drayton, who similarly turned their attention from the writing of lyric poetry to the writing of history. Drummond's major historical work was The History of the Five Jameses, the...