Framed by military disaster at Flodden Field at one end of the period and James VI's succession to the English throne at the other, early modern Scotland is often portrayed as the "bread and butter period between two layers of jam". "Court, Kirk and Community" focuses on the events and consequences of the Reformation and shows that, in fact, this was a period of tremendous secular as well as spiritual change. It describes how a series of formidably powerful and highly cultured rulers (with the exception of Mary Queen of Scots) governed a society whose economy and social bonds were still "medieval" in essence, but which was being transformed by an increasing professionalism in law and government, and by the growth in lay literacy.