Power Play – the imposition of authority or influence by one group over another. Thomas Telford’s simple Parliamentary Churches symbolise a century of power plays that rumbled and shook Scotland: Protestants and Catholics; English language and Gaelic language; landlords and crofters; Moderates and Evangelicals; civil law and ecclesiastical law; the Kirk and dissenters; the State and the Established Church of Scotland . . . This book reveals the tension and turmoil in pulpits, parishes, parliament and beyond as competing forces played for power, hearts and minds in an ever-changing Scotland.