The work, which was apparently intended for publication but never published, is based upon the `Account of all the Religious Houses that were in Scotland at the time of the Reformation` by John Spottiswoode of Spottiswoode, Keeper of the Advocates` Library, which was first printed as an Appendix to ‘Minor Practicks’, but it contains considerable additional matter and the order is rather different. Hutton appears to have made further additions from his own researches at the end of Adv.MS.30.5.2 (folio 1 inverted) and in various places in Adv.MSS.30.5.6 and 30.5.7 (which is numbered 8 on the front cover: a notebook appears to be missing).