In Byways of Scottish History

Louis A. Barbé, whose title page lists The Tragedy of Gowrie House, Viscount Dundee and Kirkcaldy of Grange among his earlier books, wrote these papers on Scottish history, dated 1912. The preface says that when he came to Scotland he knew nothing of the country and little of its history, and that he began with the highways, which in the case of history meant the works of Tytler and Hill Burton.

One passage describes the reading of Mary Stuart: French poets such as Du Bellay and Ronsard, her enthusiasm for Ronsard, and the costly service of plate she sent him from prison with the inscription 'A Ronsard, l'Apollon des Français'. Another passage concerns Dumbarton Castle in 1488, when it was entrusted to the Earl of Lennox and his eldest son Matthew Stuart, who fortified it the following year in a conspiracy against the Government. Footnotes cite letters of 1565 and 1566 among Thomas Randolph, Sir William Cecil and Queen Elizabeth.