John Ballard and his constant companion Barnard Maude were spies seemingly living by the motto `Trust no One`. Ironically, they appear to have trusted one another and claimed to be soldiers surveying possible road routes. Under the tutelage of Ayrshire farmer, Mackenzie Cunninghame, they learnt to be cattle drovers and travelled Scotland establishing the strength and location of support for Mary, Queen of Scots. Ballard, a Jesuit Priest, Catholic missionary and advocate of restoring Mary to the throne of England also favoured a Spanish invasion and the assassination of Queen Elizabeth I. He was much involved in the Babington Plot and was executed for it. He trusted Barnard Maude who was in fact an English spy for Sir Francis Walsingham, who thus knew of Ballard`s intrigues, and those of Sir Anthony Babington, which enabled Walsingham to entrap Mary Queen of Scots for treason. Mackenzie Cunninghame, the enigmatic farmer from Coylton, unwittingly became a part of the English spy network.

A Layman's Guide to the Scottish Reformation relates the story of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland and the subsequent trials and tribulations of the nascent Presbyterian Church. Covering the period from about 1530 to 1690 it is one of the busiest periods in Scottish and English history ranging across the reigns of Mary Queen of Scots and the Stuart Kings, James VI/I, Charles I, Charles II and James II. For added spice there are the complications of the Wars of the three kingdoms, rebellion in Ireland, and Cromwell's republican rule of the Commonwealth. Through this heady cocktail of events runs the story of the Presbyterian Kirk, the battle against the Divine Right policies of the Kings' and their demands for uniformity with the Episcopalian Church of England; and, the stubborn dissent and bloody persecution of the Covenanters in their stand for religious freedom. The Guide is the sister work to the author's first book As God is my Witness (Heritage Books Inc, 2002) which told the story of the people of the Reformation. The Guide deals with the events of the Reformation and is very widely referenced to many early works by clerical historians that are mainly now in archives and antiquarian collections. A very substantial and detailed Time Line provides a consecutive record of events. The bulk of the work is in a dictionary format of augmented notes on several hundred topics ranging from the 'Aberdeen Assembly, 1605' to 'Zeal - defence of Presbyterianism.' A substantial Glossary is provided along with a Dramatis Personae of the main character of the Reformation. Lavishly illustrated, it also has a lengthy bibliography as a source for further reading, and some 24 appendices (primarily text) of rare documents relevant to the early history of Presbyterianism.

The Reformation was as much about political reform as about religion, and was driven by the sweeping changes of the Renaissance and a restoration of beliefs that were consonant with the Gospel. For the first time there was organised protest against Rome, its doctrines and intervention in civil or secular matters. The momentum of change also chimed with the aspirations of the people for a national identity, and freedom of both mind and body from the thraldom of the Middle Ages.

This work is the product of over forty years interest in the origins of the Orr family. Research of an old family story-a relationship to William Orr, an Irish Patriot executed in 1798-led to research of the origin of the Orr families in Ulster, and the e