George Buchanan was a Scottish historian and humanist scholar. He is thought to be the most profound intellectual in sixteenth century Scotland. His ideology of resistance to royal usurpation gained widespread acceptance during the Scottish Reformation. Buchanan grew up poor, but his uncle, James Heriot, saw to his education in Paris. On Heriot's death, he returned to Scotland and graduated from the University of St. Andrews in 1525 and became a professor at the prestigious Sainte-Barbel school. He began to take a critical stance against Catholicism, coming to the attention of James V, who engaged him as tutor to one of his natural sons. His writings made him a target of the Franciscan order and he was fled to London and then Bordeaux during the Lutheran Persecution in 1539.

In 1547 Buchanan joined a band of French and Portuguese humanists, and as the result of a 1549 commission of inquiry was sentenced to abjure his errors and to be imprisoned in the monastery of São Bento in Lisbon. Here he began to translate the Psalms into Latin verse, completing the greater part of a magnificent work. On his release he made his way to Paris, where he became a Calvinist.

In 1561 he returned to Scotland, and became tutor to the young Mary, Queen of Scots, and joined the Protestant Reformed Church. He eventually became Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland, a post which entitled him to a seat in the parliament. He appears to have continued in this office for some years, at least till 1579. His last years were occupied with completion and publication of two of his major works, De Jure Regni apud Scotos (1579) and Rerum Scoticarum Historia (1582). He died in Edinburgh in 1582 and was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard.