I had no idea, when I first began research into early freemasonry in Scotland, that I would end up arguing that the essentials of the complicated cocktail of diverse influences and trends that make up modern freemasonry were brought together in Scotland. Rather this was a conclusion that was gradually forced on me by the evidence. I first became aware of the fact that there were masonic lodges in seventeenth-century Scotland nearly 20 years ago. In the course of postgraduate research on the covenanters I came across a reference to two covenanter generals being admitted to membership of the Lodge of Edinburgh. My reaction was one of bewilderment, for I had no idea that masonic lodges had existed at that time. What did it mean to be a mason in the 1640s? Nothing I found to read threw significant light on the matter. The reference was therefore consigned to a file as an intriguing oddity for later investigation. When I at last blew the dust off the file and tried to make sense of the reference, thinking it might provide the basis of an interesting article, I soon found I had entered into a major research topic on which a vast amount had been published, though academic historians like myself had largely ignored or overlooked it. As a result, the projected article grew into two books. The present one seeks to trace the influences which formed early free-masonry and to analyse the evidence relating to its emergence primarily in Scotland and its subsequent spread to England.