The Complaynt of Scotland is a Scottish book printed in 1549 as propaganda during the war of the Rough Wooing against the Kingdom of England, and is an important work of the Scots language. Context and authorship The book was part of the war of words between Scotland and England in the sixteenth century. English policy was directed towards Mary, Queen of Scots, marrying the son of Henry VIII of England, Edward, later Edward VI. English pamphlets were published promoting the idea of uniting the two countries, and the Scottish Complaynt was a response to these works. Another Scottish work, a dialogue similar in outlook, Ane Resonyng, by William Lamb from the same period was abandoned unpublished. The Complaynt is anonymous, probably due to its dangerous political content, and has been variously ascribed to Robert Wedderburn, James Inglis and David Lyndsay, though the 1979 Scottish Text Society edition of the work supports the Wedderburn attribution, as does the National Library of Scotland It was once thought to have been among the first books printed in Scotland but it is now believed to have been published in Paris. The book owes much of its structure, and some of its content, to the French work Alain Chartier's Quadrilogue-invectif, a similar political work also attacking England. Letter of Dedication The Complaynt was dedicated to Mary of Guise, rather than the ruler of Scotland at the time, the Regent Arran. The letter of dedication to Mary of Guise compares her to virtuous and heroic women including Valeria daughter of Publius Valerius Poplicola, Cloelia, Lucretia, Penelope, Cornelia, Semiramis, Tomyris, and Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons. The letter next references the Biblical stories of Esther and Haman and Judith and Holofernes. After mentioning the absence of Mary, Queen of Scots in France, the author relates the story of her ancestor Godfrey de Bouillon, one of the Nine Worthies. Dame Scotia The book itself, subtitled "wyth ane exortatione to the thre estaits to be vigilante in the deffens of their public weil", contains a miscellany of stories, classical legends, biblical tales, ballads and allegories emphasising Scotland's separateness and the rewards of virtue and courage. The unifying structure is the narration of Dame Scotia in the final twelve chapters. She hears the complaints of her three sons, the "Thrie Estaits" of Scottish society, and then offers her encouragement and rebuke to the clergy, nobility, and populace in turn.