While our understanding of early modern Scotland has advanced greatly in recent years, we still lack comprehensive biographies of the era's historical actors. Particularly in respect to the nobility, this is an area that is ripe for growth: as a number of scholars have shown, prior to 1625, and for some time afterward, Scottish nobles were essential brokers of royal power and exerted pronounced influence at court and in the localities. What is noteworthy about Miles Kerr-Peterson's study of George Keith, fifth Earl Marischal (1554–1623), is that he should choose to focus on a noble who was, as the author himself claims, wholly unremarkable. Marischal is a prime example “of long-term, stable, moderate Protestant lordship” (189), especially when compared to the “roguish” streaks of his contemporaries like Huntly and Bothwell. Here we are presented with a study of sustained, “successful,” Protestant lordship in Scotland.

The author highlights what the exercise of noble power and successful lordship looked like. Stable lordship was based primarily on fostering the earldom's development and handling internal political, religious, and economic affairs. Throughout this study, Kerr-Peterson is in conversation with Jenny Wormald, Keith Brown, and Julian Goodare, whose seminal works on the early modern Scottish nobility and high politics provide the bedrock of this biography. Thus the author makes no new claims about the nature of early modern lordship. Rather, he provides much-needed detail to strengthen our understanding of noble power and society. This study confirms the key findings of previous historians who argued that, despite the immense transformations of this period, continuities in Scottish noble power far outweighed any changes. The Protestant Reformation and the Union of the Crowns had, save for a few exemplary cases, a limited impact on lordship. Marischal's example was thus one of adaptation and survival.

Kerr-Peterson reaches this conclusion in eight largely thematic chapters that focus on feuding and court politics, the earl's service to the Scottish state, the nature of rule within Marischal's earldom, Keith family dynamics, lordship and the Reformed Church of Scotland, the earl's economic activities, and, finally, the founding of the college that bears Marischal's name. Of particular note is chapter 3, where we are given an enlightening look into the noble's action, and inaction, in respect to central government, with particular focus on Marischal's interaction with James VI/I, his service on the Privy Council, and his role as sheriff of the Mearns. The author concludes that the earl only took an active role in governance insofar as it met the needs of his earldom. This did not signal any “aloofness” toward central government, but rather demonstrated the earl's desire to maintain his land and wealth, which did not require that he overexert himself politically.

In chapter 6, Kerr-Peterson examines the earl's relationship with the Kirk, sifting through the sparse documentary evidence to study Marischal's dealings with the parishes in his earldom, focusing primarily on church patronage. Marischal was not a staunch Calvinist ideologue; instead, he was concerned with maintaining social order, which certainly caused friction with the Kirk. But Marischal's record shows that he presented able and committed Reformed Protestants to benefices. In this respect, Marischal's actions mirrored those of his Lowland noble contemporaries and were therefore not emblematic of some distinctive, religiously conservative northeast of Scotland, further revising a long-standing historical trope.

The final chapter focuses on the founding of Marischal College, the event for which the earl is best known. Drawing on a greater number of available sources, Kerr-Peterson refocuses the founding away from the local town council to the earl. The founding, then, was less about correcting the ills of neighboring King's College, and more about the earl's prestige and authority. The creation of the abortive college at Fraserburgh by a rival, coupled with the earl's desire to exert greater control and, perhaps most importantly, to memorialize his life by founding an educational monument, emerge as key reasons for the college's founding. That Marischal took a largely hands-off approach to the college's operations after its foundation does not suggest a limited role; instead, it exemplified how Marischal exercised lordship. Thus Kerr-Peterson renders perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Marischal's lordship unremarkable, neatly capping this informative and important study.