George Keith, fifth Earl Marischal (1554–1623) is known, if at all, principally as the founder of Marischal College in Aberdeen. He is perhaps sometimes recognised as King James VI's ambassador to Denmark in 1589, when he married Princess Anna as James’ proxy, and maybe, occasionally, as the founder of the towns of Stonehaven and Peterhead. Yet he had a much richer and more distinguished life and career than just these fleeting moments. As well as being a key agent in, and witness to, the political struggles in the early part of James’ reign, he is a fascinating case study of noble power and, in particular, Protestant noble power. This is especially so at this crucial time of change, when the Scottish nobility had to cope with the long and contested aftermath of the Protestant Reformation of 1560, combined with the rule of a highly intelligent and somewhat unusual king, as well as the loss of that king to England in 1603. Rather than a narrow biographical study of one forgotten rich man, this book aims to be a study of the management of the earldom that man represented. This will be explored from three particular perspectives: the political, the religious and the regional. In the broadest terms, this book aims to explore the strategies behind long-term, stable, Protestant lordship in Scotland during the reign of James VI. The primary aim is to explore how an earldom was managed in this period, and what that entailed. The secondary aim is to see how this fits into the wider trends we know about Scottish noble power at this time.

A number of factors make Marischal worthy of further exploration. He appears regularly in contemporary records, across a broad range of spheres. From about 1544 the Earls Marischal were identified as Protestants: remarkably early converts and especially so for noblemen of the north-east, which is usually characterised as religiously conservative and Catholic. Because of his Protestantism, Marischal was keenly observed by the English ambassadors to Scotland, whose dispatches provide a wealth of evidence for his activities, albeit sometimes coloured by court gossip, misinformation and rumour.