ABSTRACT
Together with the Union of Crowns (1603) and the Union of Parliaments (1707), the Reformation is often seen as one of the key factors which hindered, if not stopped, the development of a fully fledged ‘high’ register in Scots prose: owing to the adoption of an English Psalter and of English Bibles, the influence of Southern English models proved particularly significant. However, in religious and political controversy, the choice of language could be seen as indexical of allegiance to one side or the other, John Knox himself being accused, for example, of having forgotten ‘our auld plane Scottis’, as we will later see.
