John Major (1469-1550), historian and scholastic divine, was a native of East Lothian. After attending university at Cambridge and Paris, he soon won renown as a teacher, publishing his first work on logic in 1503 and lecturing on scholastic divinity at the Sorbonne. In 1518 he returned to Scotland to take up the post of professor of philosophy and divinity at the university of Glasgow. Before leaving France he had written the chief part of his 'History of Greater Britain, both England and Scotland'. He now completed the work, having it published by Badius Ascensius in Paris in 1521. In a preface to James V, then nine years of age, he admits that he might have written in a more ornate style, but doubts whether that would have served his purpose better. This is the first history of Scotland 'written in a critical spirit', and despite Major's patriotism as a Scot it advocates union with England. Folio 55 of the work contains the first printed reference to Robin Hood (cf. Compact DNB, 1302).