Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
regarded their relationship with the Church purely in economic terms, and forty
percent of known illegitimate births were the product of the “celibate” clergy's liaisons.
Another spur to the Scottish Reformation was the identification of Protestantism
with anti-French feeling. In 1554
Mary of Guise
, the French mother of the absent
Queen Mary, had become regent, and her habit of appointing Frenchmen to high
o
ce was seen as an attempt to subordinate Scotland's interests to those of France.
here was considerable resentment, and in 1560, with English military backing,
Protestant nobles succeeded in deposing the French regent. When the Scottish
Parliament assembled it asserted the primacy of Protestantism by forbidding the Mass
and abolishing the authority of the pope. he nobility proceeded to confiscate
two-thirds of Church lands, a huge prize that did much to bolster their new beliefs.
The return of Mary, Queen of Scots
Even without the economic incentives, Protestantism was a highly charged political
doctrine.
Luther
had argued that each individual's conscience was capable of discerning
God's will. his meant that a hierarchical priesthood, existing to interpret God's will,
was unnecessary. his point was made very clearly to Queen Mary by the Protestant
reformer
John Knox
at their first meeting on her return in 1561. Subjects, he told her,
were not bound to obey an ungodly monarch.
Mary ducked and weaved, trying to avoid an open breach with her Protestant
subjects. At the same time, she was engaged in a balancing act between the factions of
the Scottish nobility. Her di
culties were exacerbated by her disastrous second
marriage to
Lord Darnley
, a cruel and politically inept character, whose jealousy led to
his involvement in the murder of Mary's favourite, David Rizzio, who was dragged
from the queen's supper room at Holyrood and stabbed 56 times. he incident
disturbed the Scottish Protestants, but they were entirely scandalized in 1567 when
Darnley himself was murdered and Mary promptly married the
Earl of Bothwell
, widely
believed to be the murderer. he Scots rose in rebellion, driving Mary into exile in
England at the age of just 25. he queen's illegitimate half-brother, the Earl of Moray,
became regent, and her son, the infant James, was left behind to be raised a Protestant
prince. Mary, meanwhile, became perceived as such a threat to the English throne that
Queen Elizabeth I had her executed in 1587.
Knox could now concentrate on the organization of the reformed Church, or
Kirk
,
which he envisaged as a body with power over the daily lives of the people.
Andrew
Melville
, another leading reformer, wished to push this theocratic vision further. He
proposed the abolition of all traces of the rule of bishops in the Church and that the
Kirk should adopt a
Presbyterian
structure, administered by a hierarchy of assemblies,
part-elected and part-appointed.
The religious wars
James VI
disliked Presbyterianism because its quasi-democratic structure appeared
to threaten his authority. He was, however, unable to resist the reformers until,
strengthened by his installation as James I of England after Elizabeth's death in
1603, he restored the Scottish bishops in 1610. Raised in Episcopalian England,
James's son
Charles I
had little understanding of Scottish reformism. His belief in
1371
1413
1468
Robert II becomes the first
of the Stewart (Stuart)
kings to rule Scotland.
University of St Andrews
is founded.
James III marries Margaret of Denmark
and receives Orkney and Shetland as
part of her dowry.
