* David Hamilton ( diarist ) ( 1663 – 1721 ), Scottish diarist and doctor to Queen Anne

* Thomas Kincaid ( 1661 – 1726 ), Scottish diarist, golfer and archer

C. Wheeler Barnes of Denver, head of the Scottish Rite in Colorado, praised Pike as a historian, author, poet, journalist, lawyer, jurist, soldier and musician, who devoted most of his mature years to the strengthening of the Masonic Order.

* 1718 – Hugh Blair, Scottish preacher, author, and rhetorician ( d. 1800 )

At a Braveheart Convention in 1997, held in Stirling the day after the Scottish Devolution vote and attended by 200 delegates from around the world, Braveheart author Randall Wallace, Seoras Wallace of the Wallace Clan, Scottish historian David Ross and Bláithín FitzGerald from Ireland gave lectures on various aspects of the film.

The author based part of his narrative on the story of the Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk, who spent four years stranded on the island of Juan Fernandez.

* 1954 – Iain Banks, Scottish author

* Robert Henryson ( Scottish, 15th century ), author of The Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian.

* 1802 – Robert Chambers, Scottish author and journalist ( d. 1871 )

The Keswicks have maintained a relationship with another prominent Scottish family, the Flemings, of which the author Ian Fleming was also a member.

* 1860 – J. M. Barrie, Scottish author ( d. 1937 )

* 1869 – F. A. Forbes, Scottish author ( d. 1936 )

* 1780 – Thomas Chalmers, Scottish pastor, social reformer, author, and scientist ( d. 1847 )

Scottish author Nigel Tranter based one of his historical novels on the historical figure, MacBeth the King.

Ashley Cowie, Scottish author, historian, and archaeologist, and his team search the U. K. for treasures said to have been hidden away by Merlin in the 5th episode of season 1's " Legend Quest ".

Ossian is the narrator and purported author of a cycle of epic poems published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson from about 1760.

Scottish author Hugh Blair's 1763 A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian upheld the work's authenticity against Johnson's scathing criticism and from 1765 was included in every edition of Ossian to lend the work credibility.

* 1969-1971: Scottish author Nigel Tranter wrote a trilogy, considered largely accurate, based on the life of King Robert: The Steps to the Empty Throne, The Path of the Hero King and The Price of the King's Peace.

* 1832 – Walter Scott, Scottish author, poet, and playwright ( b. 1771 )

* 1958 – Irvine Welsh, Scottish author

* 1905 – George MacDonald, Scottish minister, author, and poet ( b. 1824 )

Scottish author Neil Forsyth was appointed as President of the Sealand Football Association.

One notable example of a technological and libertarian socialist utopia is Scottish author Iain Banks ' Culture.

* February 1 – Muriel Spark, Scottish author ( d. 2006 )

* September 7 – Gavin Maxwell, Scottish naturalist and author ( b. 1914 )

** James Herriot, Scottish veterinarian and author ( d. 1995 )

The Church of Scotland separated from the Roman Catholic Church with the Scottish Reformation in 1560, and the split from it of the Scottish Episcopal Church began in 1582, in the reign of James VI of Scotland, over disagreements about the role of bishops.

* 1773 – James Mill, Scottish philosopher and historian ( d. 1836 )

* 1983 – James McFadden, Scottish footballer

* 1327 – First War of Scottish Independence: James Douglas leads a raid into Weardale and almost kills Edward III of England.

* 1979 – James McAvoy, Scottish actor

* 1710 – James Ferguson, Scottish astronomer ( d. 1776 )

James Thomson Callender, a Scottish citizen, had been expelled from Great Britain for his political writings.

The central argument in Principles was that the present is the key to the past – a concept of the Scottish Enlightenment which David Hume had stated as " all inferences from experience suppose ... that the future will resemble the past ", and James Hutton had described when he wrote in 1788 that " from what has actually been, we have data for concluding with regard to that which is to happen thereafter.

The term was introduced by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier ( 1808 – 1864 ).

On 6 October 1854, Scottish miner James Scobie was murdered at the Eureka hotel.

The Scottish lords forced her to abdicate in favour of her son James, who had been born in June 1566.

* 1837 – Sir James Murray, Scottish lexicographer and philologist ( d. 1915 )

* The Ossian cycle of ancient Celtic poetry supposedly rediscovered and published in 1760 by Scottish poet James Macpherson was actually written in the eighteenth century, possibly based on some fragments of earlier verses.

In 1843 James Braid, a Scottish physician proposed the term hypnosis for a technique derived from magnetism but more limited in its claimed effects, and also different in its conception.

The theory was proposed in 1795 by James Hutton, a Scottish physician and gentleman farmer, and was later incorporated into Charles Lyell's theory of uniformitarianism.

A fundamental principle of geology advanced by the 18th century Scottish physician and geologist James Hutton, is that " the present is the key to the past.

Most of the Scottish nobility were killed along with James himself.

King James I & VI as he was styled became the first monarch to rule the entire island of Great Britain, although it was merely a union of the English and Scottish crowns, and both countries remained separate political entities until 1707.

In 1468 the last significant acquisition of Scottish territory occurred when James III married Margaret of Denmark, receiving the Orkney Islands and the Shetland Islands in payment of her dowry.

James IV's reign is often considered to have seen a flowering of Scottish culture under the influence of the European Renaissance.

Although James had tried to get the Scottish Church to accept some of the High Church Anglicanism of his southern kingdom, he met with limited success.

He and other Scottish Enlightenment thinkers developed what he called a ' science of man ', which was expressed historically in works by authors including James Burnett, Adam Ferguson, John Millar and William Robertson, all of whom merged a scientific study of how humans behave in ancient and primitive cultures with a strong awareness of the determining forces of modernity.

The focus of the Scottish Enlightenment ranged from intellectual and economic matters to the specifically scientific as in the work of William Cullen, physician and chemist, James Anderson, an agronomist, Joseph Black, physicist and chemist, and James Hutton, the first modern geologist.