In 1586, David Hume of Godscroft recorded a dialogue that he had with his patron Archibald Douglas, the 8th earl of Angus; this dialogue provides one of the earliest instances of the Anglophone neologism “patriot” used to describe either Scottish or English politics. The values associated with it – social solidarity, political activism, and, implicitly, relative equality – became imperative in Scotland, England, France, and the Netherlands as religious upheaval convulsed all of these societies. These values resurfaced powerfully and enduringly in the mid seventeenth century. The Scottish patriot not only loved his country and simultaneously saw himself as part of an international struggle, but also was centrally exercised to construct a British society. Then and later to be Scottish and British – and even in important ways European – did not divide an individual but proved mutually reinforcing.