IT was in a chapter published in 1999 that Roger Mason outlined, with characteristic lucidity and cogency, the iconography utilised in the reigns of James III, James IV, and James V as a means of conveying the concept of imperial monarchy. In producing such visual propaganda these Scottish monarchs projected an idea of themselves as rulers – emperors within their own kingdoms – who possessed full jurisdictional authority over their realm. No doubt James V was influenced by events of the 1530s in England where Henry VIII – even if he did not become a Protestant – did go so far as to break with Rome on the grounds that England was an empire and he himself an emperor. Even before his personal rule began, however, in November 1526, the Scottish parliament had claimed such jurisdiction on James’ behalf, asserting that he ‘and his maist noble progenitouris has evire bene fre and emperouris within thame self, nocht subject to na erdlie creature undir God in thar temporalite’. It was Mason's contention that James V was equally conscious of his imperial status, and that, if he did not need or want to challenge the pope's supremacy over the church, he did set about enforcing the crown's supremacy over temporal lords and lordships within his kingdom. A symbol of this assertion of his imperium, argued Mason, was his ‘virtual circumnavigation of the kingdom’ as the king led ‘a heavily armed, seaborne expedition’ to Orkney and the Western Isles in 1540. This expedition resulted in a number of interventions in the peripheries beyond the usual warding of Hebridean chiefs and included: the 1540 Act of Annexation which saw the North and South Isles, Kintyre, and Orkney and Shetland now firmly in crown hands; the commencement of a survey of these newly acquired crown lands in the west and a subsequent significant increase in returns to the crown; the granting of a new tack of crown lands in Orkney and Shetland to Oliver Sinclair (who was said to be a favourite of the king at that time) which also saw significantly increased rentals; and James’ nomination of Robert Reid, abbot of Kinloss, as successor to Robert Maxwell as bishop of Orkney.