David Hume of Godscroft, a leading intellect of Jacobean Scotland, recounts the relations, manoeuvrings and ideologies of one of the most important Scottish families of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

The history recounts the House of Angus from the first earl in the fourteenth century to the death of the Godcroft's patron, the eighth earl, in 1588. Reid provides detailed notes on the individuals and events in Godscroft's text. The notes effectively unravel an extraordinary range of tangled kin relations, political manoeuvring, and ideological commitment.