John Spalding's History of the Troubles And Memorable Transactions in Scotland, from the year 1624 to 1645 is a diary-like narrative of some of the most wrenching occurances in British history, told from the point of view of a minor functionary in the Aberdeen city government, far from the center of the business then in motion, but full of deep perception about the effect of those events on the small university town on the edge of the Highlands. Spalding is a royalist, but also a shrewd observer of the actors in this important period, and of their motives.