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In 1914 the historian Evan Barron produced a highly charged interpretation of the way in which the various language groups and regional communities of late thirteenth-century Scotland had responded to the opening of the Wars of Independence. Barron’s contention was that the English-speaking inhabitants of the south and east of the realm had been, on the whole, more inclined to acquiesce to the political designs of Edward I and his successors because of their cultural, historical and linguistic affinity with the English nation. The burden of the ‘patriotic’ wars, therefore, fell largely on the shoulders of the Gael of the north and west whose determined and unyielding opposition to the English kings was fired, or at least partly explained, by clear-cut racial and linguistic animosity.1 Aspects of this argument remained attractive for a number of later historians, such as Ranald Nicholson, before being emphatically dismissed by G. W. S. Barrow, writing in 1976. Barrow’s withering critique of Barron’s thesis pointed out the inadequacy of an approach that sought to explain political attitudes and activity simply as the products of cultural and linguistic affiliation. Most obviously, as Barrow observed, any close examination of the extant historical evidence revealed the active involvement and sacrifice of many Lothian families, whose lives and property were clearly most vulnerable to the military power of English kings, in support of those who were defending the rights and status of Scottish kingship and the Scottish realm.2

James IV (1488-1513) has long been regarded as perhaps the most successful, and certainly the most charismatic, of medieval Scottish monarchs. One of the areas in which the king has been regarded as particularly successful was his handling of royal finance. Examination of royal feuing has concentrated largely, and understandably, on the fiscal implications. There has been no equivalent to Margaret Sanderson's extensive study of the feu-ferming of church lands in sixteenth-century Scotland. The winter of 1502-3 saw something very close to a regional rebellion in Highland Perthshire, a deliberate and forcible rejection of royal policies in the locality. Ranald Nicholson's survey of late medieval Scotland, published in 1974, included an account of James IV's personal rule under the upbeat chapter title 'New Monarchy Triumphant'. For scholars such as Goodare and Michael Lynch, James IV remains a straightforwardly medieval monarch. Keywords: Highland Perthshire; James IV (1488-1513); Julian Goodare; medieval Scottish monarch; Michael Lynch; Ranald Nicholson; regional rebellion; royal feuing; royal finance