Using untapped archival sources from Britain, France and America, Talbott presents a comparative view of British relations with France over the long seventeenth century. Contrary to the accepted view, she argues that the Scottish-French alliance continued undiminished following the 1560 Treaty of Edinburgh and the British Unions of 1603 and 1707. Informal trading - invisible in the official documents, but attested to in private papers - went on between France and Scotland much as before, without England dominating Scottish interests. Finally, Talbott situates the Franco-Scottish relationship within the broader British and European economic and political climate of the time.