PANALBA

On the 24th of August 1560 the Scottish Parliament, sitting by its own consent, rather than that of their absent queen Mary, ratified a number of reforming bills that would alter irrevocably the religion of Scotland: and in due course lead to discourse and war. The principal bill enacted by the Reformation Parliament was the ‘Papal Jurisdiction Act’, which swept away the Catholic church in Scotland, overthrowing the authority of the Pope, his bishops and church; replacing it instead with the Calvinist, Presbyterian Kirk. The road to Reformation in Scotland was long, winding, bloody and revolutionary – from the dour stoicism of Calvinism to the bright light of the Enlightenment; and it changed Scotland forever. Pandora’s Box however had been opened many years earlier in Germany, and when the wave reached Scotland it was laced with intrigue, political ambition, personal tragedy and fate.

In 1517 the Catholic preacher Martin Luther wrote a number of thesis railing against the corruption, power-lust and detachment of the Papacy and the church in general. He wasn’t the first to try and change the church, but his fanaticism and the support he received from several German monarchies catapulted his Protest from a note pinned on the church door at Wittenberg to a tidal wave that swept across the continent and changed the world forever. Luther was swept along by the floodwaters as much as anyone, and for the rest of his life he struggled to contain the beast he’s unleashed. It would be for others to direct the Reformation, give it form and direction – and no-where more so than in Scotland.

For centuries politics in Scotland had been dominated by her relationship with the two heavyweights to the south – England and France, and the nation’s allegiances ping-ponged between the two with a monotonous regularity, depending on who held power at home: a long sequence of minority kings had exacerbated the situation. By the 1520s James V, like his uncle Henry VIII in England was a staunch supporter of the Catholic Church, and vilified Luther at every opportunity. James and his court it could safely be said were firm supporters of Henry and the English, but when his uncle broke with the Church in the 1530s and declared himself as the Head of the English Church (although Henry personally remained a Catholic for the rest of his life), the relationship soured, and he began to bounce towards the French camp. To cement the new accord, James V married the daughter of one of France’s most powerful noblemen, Marie de Guise-Lorraine.

After a string of defeats to the English, and following the news that his wife had given birth to a daughter, James fell into a deep depression and simply died – at the age of only 30. He was succeeded by the six day old Mary, Queen of Scots. Her tragic life would be so bound up in the story of the Reformation that she can claim to be its greatest victim.

Henry VIII was keen for Mary to be married to his own son (the future Edward VI), and to start with the Anglophile regent, the Earl of Arran, agreed. However, when it became apparent that Mary would have to move to London, and Scotland reduced to a mere satellite of England, Arran changed his mind. So Henry invaded and set the Borderland on fire (especially its ancient monasteries) in what became known as the Rough Wooing. In retaliation, the Scots asked for French help. Mary de Guise became Regent and Mary was promised in marriage to the Dauphin as the price for this help. As per the ping-pong, Scotland was firmly back in the French camp. The new equation however was now complicated by religion - England had now become a Protestant nation, while Scotland allied herself with Catholic France, and Mary would be raised as a devout Catholic.

In 1557 Mary Queen of Scots was finally married to the 13 year old French heir, and it now seemed inevitable that Scotland rather than becoming an English satellite would now become a French one instead. Many at home were more than worried by this state of affairs, and a clique was formed including most of the nobility in the ‘England’ camp, and the new Protestant reformation leaders, including the firebrand cleric John Knox.

Knox had been a Catholic priest, and a real fire from the pulpit one at that, but he, like Luther, had become disillusioned by the Church and found himself hating its excesses and corruption – this in due course led to his complete rejection of its doctrines. He had been member of a crude gang of reformers that stormed St Andrews in 1546, leading to the death of the hated Cardinal Beaton, but with Marie de Guise and her French soldiers at hand Knox and the other ring leaders were rounded up and imprisoned (Knox was incarcerated on a French galley ship). Following his release Knox wandered England and the continent until he ended up in Geneva in the 1550s – and under the spell of the greatest reformer of them all, Jean Calvin.

Calvin had taken the flood released by Luther, trammelled it, directed it and created a theology that would drive the Protestant Reformation on, and remains with us to this day. Without going into the doctrine of Calvinism, Knox was spellbound by the great man, and refined the theology even further and brought it home to Scotland, and a Scotland ready for change. Since his enforced exile, the Protestant movement had grown legs and was dominating politics at home, and with the marriage of their absent queen with the Dauphin this group constituted itself as the ‘Lords of Congregation’, and went on the offensive. 450 years ago, in August 1560 these Lords passed the Reformation lords and Scotland became officially a Protestant nation.  Easier said than done – Scotland still had a significant Catholic minority, particularly in the Northeast and the Highlands, and more importantly had a Catholic queen married to a powerful Catholic king. The lords also turned to Protestant Elizabeth of England for help in removing the French army, now seen by most Scots as an army of occupation. She duly delivered, and the two Protestant nations fell once again into an accord – and one that would now last, ultimately delivering the union.

François died of an ear infection after only two years of marriage, and disliked intensely by the jealous Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici, Mary came home. From the start she was harried, lambasted and harangued by the Protestant lords, but in particular by John Knox the undoubted leader of the new Church of Scotland. This new institution would have a Presbyterian constitution and because of Knox’s devotion, a Calvinist doctrine. The route to God was not through bishops and popes, but through your own personal understanding of the gospels: a truly democratic and accountable church, one that believed in education, helping the poorest in society and one that stressed the covenant between people, country, monarch and Christ. The trouble was that the monarch was a Catholic, and Knox berated her incessantly.

Mary, clued up enough to the situation, was tolerant to the new church – while practicing her own religion in private. Tolerance wasn’t a common bargain 450 years ago, and the new order wasn’t tolerant of her. Her half brother, the Earl of Moray, played the ultimate spin doctor role – saying the right things to Mary, while stoking Knox’s fire at the same time. Worse, Mary had the anti-Midas touch – everything she did or touched went wrong, from her disastrous marriages to Lords Darnley and Bothwell to her execution of her only real ally, Lord Huntly; and from her forced abdication at Loch Leven to her eventual execution by her cousin Elizabeth I in 1587. Even her only personal success – the delivering of a healthy baby boy, would cost her church dear.

James VI was proclaimed king at six months following his mother’s imprisonment at Loch Leven, and he was brought up by a number of grim-faced, joyless Calvinist tutors who brainwashed him into believing his mother was a Catholic whore. By the time of his majority he was a devoted and staunch Protestant king – the revolution had worked. That said, he may have been a Protestant, but he was more an Episcopalian or Anglican than a Calvinist – he placed bishops into the Kirk for greater royal authority, and saw his role as the head of the church. At heart James was a Stewart, and an ambitious one at that, and religion was only a tool by which to rule. On becoming the king of England in 1603 he achieved his ultimate goal – head of the Church of England, and king of the most powerful protestant nation on earth. Starting in 1604 and completed seven years later, the King James Bible would be the ultimate expression of the Protestant succession in the British Isles. Dark clouds though lay just over the horizon, and the affects of the Reformation would have serious consequences for Scotland, both good and bad for the next 150 years.