The Articles of Leith were the terms of truce drawn up between the Protestant Lords of the Congregation and Mary of Guise, Regent of Scotland and signed on 25 July 1559. This negotiation was a step in the conflict that led to the Scottish Reformation. Although its immediate effect was the withdrawal of Protestant forces from Edinburgh, subsequent disputes over the content and observance of the treaty fuelled the crisis in Scotland.
Following religious riots which began at Perth, the Protestant Lords had taken up arms against Mary of Guise and the French troops that supported her rule in Scotland. The Lords occupied Edinburgh in June 1559, taking Holyroodhouse and seizing the coining equipment from the Scottish Mint. News came that Henry II of France had died, which cheered John Knox who supposed this might halt further French intervention. However, a Catholic army approached from Dunbar, and the Captain of Edinburgh Castle, Lord Erskine, declared for the Queen Regent. The French troops moved into Leith, which surrendered without resistance, in part due to the persuasion of Robert Logan of Restalrig. The Lords of the Congregation marshalled themselves at Craigengalt. Under these circumstances, they were compelled to seek terms and withdraw from Edinburgh, rather than fight a battle they could not win. The resultant articles of truce were drafted at Leith Links on 24 July 1559.
The next day the Earls of Argyll and Glencairn, Lord James and other Lords of the Congregation met Guise's supporters, the Duke of Châtellerault and Earl of Huntly at the 'Quarrel Holes' between Edinburgh and Leith, and they promised to withdraw their support for Guise if she broke any point of the articles. [1] The articles were subscribed by the Lords on 25 July 1559, and included important concessions to their religion. Henri Cleutin, the Earl of Huntly and the Duke of Châtellerault signed on behalf of Mary of Guise. [2] William Kirkcaldy of Grange sent news of the agreement to James Croft at Berwick-upon-Tweed. [3]
A copy of the articles written in French as agreed with Mary of Guise on 23 July 1559 survives. She promised a review of the religious settlement and church property in the Parliament of Scotland on 10 January 1560. In summary:
Although the Lords of the Congregation withdrew from Edinburgh to Stirling after the conclusion of the 'Leith Agreement,' it did not lead to six months of relative tranquillity until a parliament in January 1560. Instead, numbers of French troops arrived in support of the Regent. The Lords claimed that this was in contravention of an article of the Leith agreement that proscribed garrisons of soldiers in Edinburgh. However, French copies of the articles lack this specific item. [5] As early as 28 August 1559, Guise made a public proclamation that she had not violated the truce and rumours that she had breached the appointment were the work of the Congregation. [6] In respect of the sixth article of the agreement, the Duke, Huntly, and the Provost of Edinburgh, Lord Seton, could not persuade the town to allow the Catholic Mass in St Giles. [7]
The congregation continued to gain support; Châtellerault changed sides after his son, the Earl of Arran was smuggled home from France by English agents. Sir James Croft had told Scottish agents when the Leith agreement was made that Elizabeth I of England could not deal with a 'confused multitude' and Arran's presence was required to lay a foundation. [8] With the former Regent as its figurehead the Congregation was able to broker English military support by the Treaty of Berwick. After the death of Mary of Guise, and the conclusion of the Siege of Leith, Scotland became a Protestant country with a Catholic monarch.
John Knox was a Scottish minister, Reformed theologian, and writer who was a leader of the country's Reformation. He was the founder of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
Mary of Guise, also called Mary of Lorraine, was a French noblewoman of the House of Guise, a cadet branch of the House of Lorraine and one of the most powerful families in France. She was Queen consort of Scotland from 1538 until 1542, as the second wife of King James V. As the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, she was a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that marked mid-16th-century Scotland, ruling the kingdom as Queen regent on behalf of her daughter from 1554 until her death in 1560.
James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Châtellerault, 2nd Earl of Arran, was a Scottish nobleman and head of the House of Hamilton. A great-grandson of King James II of Scotland, he was heir presumptive to the Scottish throne. Arran was Regent of Scotland during the minority of Mary, Queen of Scots from 1543 to 1554, when he lost the regency to Mary of Guise. At first pro-English and Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1543 and supported a pro-French policy. He reluctantly agreed to Mary's marriage to Francis, eldest son of King Henry II of France, and was rewarded by Henry by being made Duke of Châtellerault in 1549. During the Scottish Reformation, Châtellerault joined the Protestant Lords of the Congregation to oppose the regency of Mary of Guise, and lost his French dukedom as a result.
James Hamilton, 3rd Earl of Arran (1537–1609) was a Scottish nobleman and soldier who opposed the French-dominated regency during the Scottish Reformation. He was the eldest son of James Hamilton, Duke of Châtellerault, sometime regent of Scotland. He was of royal descent, and at times was third or fourth in succession to the Scottish crown; several royal marriages were proposed for him, but he eventually never married. He went to France with Mary, Queen of Scots, where he commanded the Scots Guards. After returning to Scotland, he became a leader of the Protestant party against Mary and her French supporters. However, he went insane in 1562 and was confined for the rest of his life.
The Lords of the Congregation, originally styling themselves "the Faithful", were a group of Protestant Scottish nobles who in the mid-16th century favoured a reformation of the Catholic church according to Protestant principles and a Scottish-English alliance.
John Willock was a Scottish reformer. He appears to have been a friar of the Franciscan House at Ayr. Having joined the party of reform before 1541, he fled for his life to England. There he became noted as a zealous and taking preacher. This led to his arrest for heresy under an Act of Henry VIII., "for abolishing diversity of opinion" in matters of religion. He was found guilty of preaching against purgatory, holy water, priestly confession, and prayer to the saints, and of holding that priests might lawfully be married, he was for some time confined in the Fleet prison. After the accession of Edward VI he was chaplain to Henry, Duke of Suffolk, who had married King Henry's niece, and is best known as the father of Lady Jane Grey. He preached for a time in London, in St Katherine's Church, when both he and John Knox, his fast friend, were granted general license to preach anywhere in England. Henry, Earl of Huntingdon, presented him to the rectory of Loughborough in Leicestershire, a living which he continued to hold during King Edward's reign, and again during that of Queen Elizabeth for the rest of his life. Thus in his later years he was in the unique position of being at the same time a parish minister in both England and Scotland. When Mary Tudor came to the English throne in 1553, Willock fled to Embden, in the Protestant Duchy of Friesland. There he practised as a physician with much success, and rose to some eminence. In 1555, and again in 1556, the Duchess Anne of Friesland sent him to Scotland as her Commissioner on matters of trade. In 1558 he returned home, and preached for some time in Dundee, with much acceptance among the friends of reform. In 1559, when John Knox had to leave Edinburgh in peril of his life, Willook took his place as the evangelist of the Reformation. It was then that he conducted in St Giles what is believed to have been the earliest public celebration of the Holy Communion in Scotland after the reformed ritual. In 1560, when Queen Mary of Guise lay dying, the Earls of Argyll and Moray, and other Lords of the Congregation advised her to "send for a godly, learned man of whom she might receive instruction"; and Willock was chosen to minister to her, which he faithfully did. That same year he was made Superintendent of Glasgow and the West. He was also one of the six Johns entrusted with the drawing up of the First Book of Discipline, the others being John Knox, John Winram, John Spottiswood, John Douglas, and John Row. Sometime in that year he went to England, and brought home his wife, Katherine Picknavell, an English lady. He was chosen Moderator of the General Assembly in 1563, 1564, 1565, and 1568. In 1565 Queen Mary endeavoured to put a stop to his activity by having him imprisoned in Dumbarton Castle; but the Reformers were now too strong for her, and she had to depart from her purpose.
The Scottish Reformation Parliament was the assembly commencing in 1560 that claimed to pass major pieces of legislation establishing the Scottish Reformation, most importantly the Confession of Faith Ratification Act 1560; and Papal Jurisdiction Act 1560.
John Douglas was Protestant Archbishop of St. Andrews from 1571 to 1574. As was tradition from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, the Archbishop also took on the role of Chancellor of the University of St Andrews, as the University had strong links with the Pre-Reformation church.
The Treaty of Berwick was negotiated on 27 February 1560 at Berwick-upon-Tweed. It was an agreement made by the representative of Queen Elizabeth I of England, the Duke of Norfolk, and the group of Scottish nobles known as the Scottish Lords of the Congregation. The purpose was to agree the terms under which an English fleet and army would come to Scotland to expel the French troops who were defending the Regency of Mary of Guise. The Lords were trying both to expel the French and to effect the Scottish Reformation, and this led to rioting and armed conflict.
Cupar Muir or Cuparmuir is a hamlet or small village situated just outside the town of Cupar, Fife. Lying around 25.5 miles (41 km) north of Edinburgh, it had a population of around 229 in 2011.
The siege of Leith ended a twelve-year encampment of French troops at Leith, the port near Edinburgh, Scotland. The French troops arrived by invitation in 1548 and left in 1560 after an English force arrived to attempt to assist in removing them from Scotland. The town was not taken by force and the French troops finally left peacefully under the terms of a treaty signed by Scotland, England and France.
Sir James MacGill, Lord Rankeillor of Nether Rankeillour. was a Scottish courtier and Senator of the College of Justice.
Henri Cleutin, seigneur d'Oisel et de Villeparisis, was the representative of France in Scotland from 1546 to 1560, a Gentleman of the Chamber of the King of France, and a diplomat in Rome 1564-1566 during the French Wars of Religion.
Jacques de la Brosse, cupbearer to the king, was a sixteenth-century French soldier and diplomat. He is remembered in Scotland for his missions in 1543 and 1560 in support of the Auld Alliance.
The Battle of Glasgow, 18 March 1560, was fought by supporters of the Scottish Reformation against French troops.
George Seton V, 7th Lord Seton (1531–1586), was a Lord of the Parliament of Scotland, Master of the Household of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Provost of Edinburgh. He was the eldest son of George Seton, 6th Lord Seton, and Elizabeth Hay, a daughter of John Hay, 3rd Lord Hay of Yester. His childhood and schooling were in France.
Corbeyran de Cardaillac de Sarlabous was a 16th-century French soldier who served in Scotland as Captain of Dunbar Castle, and was Governor of Le Havre for twenty years. He was usually called Captain Sarlabous in Scottish and English letters of his time. A contemporary French writer calls him the "sieur de Sarlaboz." Sarlabous is a place in the Hautes-Pyrénées where Corbeyran held lands.
Robert Sempill, 3rd Lord Sempill was a Scottish lord of Parliament.
Patrick Lindsay, 6th Lord Lindsay of the Byres, (1521–1589), Scottish courtier and Confederate lord.
Sir John Wishart of Pitarrow was a Scottish lawyer, courtier, comptroller of the exchequer, and rebel.