Scotland: history 1513 to 1603

For the history of Scotland before 1513, see Scotland: history to 1058 and Scotland: history 1058 to 1513 (see also medieval England and Scotland).

James V
The minority of James V was one constant struggle for power between the queen mother (Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII of England) and the Red Douglas. The Red Douglas became supreme until the king, aided by the other nobles – who had grown tired of domination by the Douglas – rose against him and drove him into exile.

The reign of James V promised well. Order was restored, justice was reinstituted, and the arts and sciences were encouraged. From England, Henry VIII urged James to imitate his example and take over the leadership of the church, but James clung to the old faith. The differences between the countries deepened, and finally war was declared. In 1542 James attempted to invade England, but was overwhelmed at Solway Moss. James left the field a dying man, and two days later, worn out by the shame and grief of defeat, he died at the age of 31.

The ‘rough wooing’
Just before James V's death the news of the birth of his daughter, the future Mary Queen of Scots, was announced, and he gave utterance to the prophecy, ‘It cam' wi' a lass, it will gang wi' a lass’ (referring to the Stuart royal line, which had stemmed from Marjory Bruce). Mary was proclaimed queen, with her mother, Mary of Guise, a French princess, as regent.

Since the time of Edward I the policy of uniting England and Scotland had always been England's ambition. Now once more there was a situation like that in 1285 when the Maid of Norway was left as the successor to the Scottish throne. Henry VIII advocated the marriage of his son, the future Edward VI, to Mary Queen of Scots. The proposed marriage was not altogether disliked in Scotland, where a pro‐English party was emerging at court. However, Henry's method of wooing was deeply resented. Henry tried to force his desires on the Scottish nation by sending an army to Scotland, where it besieged Leith and burnt Edinburgh, although the English also suffered a defeat at Ancrum Moor.

After the death of Henry VIII, the Protector, the Duke of Somerset, attempted to carry out the same policy by the same means, and was successful at the Battle of Pinkie, but the young queen was dispatched to France and there married to the French dauphin (heir to the throne), who died in 1560.

The Scottish Reformation
In the meantime a great reform party had grown up in Scotland. The reformers at first desired nothing more than the purifying of the church (which, in Scotland, was notoriously corrupt) and the establishment of their doctrine on the word of the Bible.

In 1546, on the orders of Cardinal David Beaton, the reform party's leader, George Wishart, was arrested, tried as a heretic, and burnt. Wishart's followers were infuriated. St Andrews Castle was seized, and Beaton was murdered. The reformers held the castle against the troops of the regent, Mary of Guise, for some time. Finally they were overcome and sent to the galleys in France; among them went John Knox.

Mary of Guise was a Catholic, and, after the marriage of Mary Queen of Scots, could rely on the armed support of France. But Knox, now in Geneva absorbing the doctrines of John Calvin, stirred up the nobility in defence of the reformed religion. Finally an association, the Lords of the Congregation, was formed, and demanded freedom of worship for the Protestants of the country. The accession of the Protestant Elizabeth I in England in 1558 (in succession to the Catholic Mary I) strengthened the hand of the reform party in Scotland and, at about this time, Knox was able to return to Scotland, where he assumed the practical leadership of the reform party.

The Roman Catholic Church was attacked, the monasteries were broken up, and the images, pictures, and windows of the cathedrals and churches were destroyed. Mary of Guise was supported in her struggle with the reformers by troops from France, while the Lords of the Congregation looked for help to Protestant England. Elizabeth hated John Knox, and she disliked aiding rebellious subjects against their sovereign; however, she disliked even more the idea that Scotland should become a French possession, and so furtive help was dispatched to the Lords of the Congregation. A fleet blockaded the Firth of Forth, the French line of communication was cut, and finally negotiations were opened that resulted in the Treaty of Leith (1560). By this treaty the French and English were to withdraw from Scotland, and no mention was made of the religious question. The reformers, however, had won their first battle. Scotland was now avowedly Presbyterian.

Mary in Scotland
The return of Mary Queen of Scots from France in 1561 following her first husband's death brought with it no change from the Presbyterian settlement. Mary stipulated that she should be allowed personal religious toleration for herself and her dependants, but the majority of the Scots remained true to their newly adopted faith. When Mary returned to Scotland her great ambition was the throne of England, which she claimed via her descent from Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII, and for this ambition she continually schemed and plotted.

The remarriage of Mary was an important political question, and one that needed careful settlement. Elizabeth made promises that she never intended to fulfil, until finally Mary, seeing a way to immediate triumph, married her first cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, a Catholic claimant to the English throne. The marriage for the moment thwarted Elizabeth, but Mary was herself now in the worst of hands. Her marriage soon proved a failure, and after Darnley connived in the murder of her favourite, David Rizzio, her indifference to her husband turned to hatred.

When, early in 1567, Darnley was murdered – the house in which he lay ill (Kirk o' Fields in Glasgow) being blown to pieces by gunpowder – Mary was widely accused of complicity. This suspicion was increased by her marriage to the Earl of Bothwell, who was certainly one of the principals in the murder, within three months of the murder itself. Scotland was outraged by this, and in rapid succession followed the fiasco of Mary's defeat at Carberry Hill, her imprisonment and abdication, her escape from Loch Leven, her final defeat at the Battle of Langside (1568), and her flight into England. She remained a prisoner in England until her execution in 1587.

James VI's conflict with the Presbyterians
Twenty years before her execution Mary had abdicated in favour of her son by Darnley, who was born on 15 June 1566. He became king of Scotland as James VI (see James I) in 1567, and, until his accession to the throne of England in 1603, the history of Scotland is one long tale of disorder and struggle between the king, the nobles, and the church.

The policy of the crown toward the kirk (the Presbyterian church in Scotland) was to establish an episcopacy (rule by bishops) that would be dependent on the crown. The kirk, as then established, exercised and claimed powers far too great to be tolerated by a monarch who was developing his policy of the divine right of kings and his belief in ‘no bishops, no king’. Bishops were established at last in Scotland, and then, owing to the struggle of the Presbyterian ideologue Andrew Melville, disbanded, and the king again recognized the constitution of the Presbyterian church. But in 1597, by means of packing the church's General Assembly, James was again able to reintroduce an episcopacy. The episcopacy, it is true, was at first thinly disguised – the moderators of the provincial synods were to be recognized as bishops – but the king had for a time gained the upper hand.

For subsequent events in Scottish history, see Scotland: history 1603 to 1746 and Scotland: history from 1746. For the history of England during this period, see England: history 1485–1714.