Scotland’s James V was born on April 10, 1512,
and his father James IV was killed fighting
at Flodden Field on September 9, 1513.
John Stewart, Duke of Albany, who lived in France
and did not know Scottish but was next in line,
came to Scotland in May 1515, and the Parliament
elected him regent, replacing Henry VIII’s sister,
Queen mother Margaret, who had married
Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus.
Albany went back to France in June 1517
and formed an alliance with the French
at Rouen on August 26 against England.
He stayed in France for four years,
and Scotland did not ratify the treaty
until December 28, 1521.
Meanwhile Scotland was governed by a regency commission
of two archbishops, the earls of Angus, Huntly, Arran,
and Argyll, and Albany’s man Antoine d’Arcy de la Bastie.
In revenge for the execution of Alexander Home,
the Home clan murdered a French knight.
D’Arcy tried to investigate,
but George Home killed him on September 18, 1517.
The English provided asylum for the murderers.
While the archbishops and earls enforced law in their regions,
the death of Bastie and the Home feud
resulted in lawlessness in the southeast.
Arran led the council, but Angus favored the Homes.
In April 1520 the Hamiltons drove
the Douglases out of Edinburgh.
The Duke of Albany’s wife was related to Pope Leo X
by the marriage of Albany’s wife’s nephew,
and on June 19, 1520 Leo issued a bull protecting Scotland
and supporting Albany’s authority.
Margaret left Angus and supported Albany,
hoping he could get the Pope to grant her a divorce.
Albany returned to Scotland on November 19, 1521,
and in February 1522 England’s Henry VIII refused to renew
a truce unless the Scots removed Albany from power.
France finally ratified the Scottish alliance on June 13, 1522.
Albany tried to get the Scots to fight England,
but they refused and agreed to a truce on September 11.
Albany left Scotland again on October 23 to get French aid,
and the following summer they sent 500 soldiers.
Although the English burned Kelso in June and Jedburgh
in September, the Scots refused to take the offensive.
Albany returned to Scotland on September 24, 1523
with about 4,000 men and some 500 horses.
They prepared for war and attacked Wark Castle,
but the Scots were on the edge of mutiny.
They complained that French forces in Edinburgh
were wasting fuel and even burning furniture.
By this time Margaret was supporting
her son James V against Albany.
The Scottish Parliament demanded that French forces leave
their country, and Albany left Scotland again on May 20, 1524.
The Earl of Arran, next in line after Albany, reconciled with
Margaret, and other nobles helped them invest James V
with symbols of sovereignty on July 26.
The next week many officers resigned their positions
for his sake, and he reinstated most of them.
James allied with Henry VIII who sent 200 soldiers
for his bodyguard and two English counselors to advise him.
Archbishop Beaton of St. Andrews and five bishops still
supported Albany along with the
earls of Argyll, Lennox, and Moray.
Albany did not return by the promised date in September,
and in November force was used to arrest Beaton
and the Bishop of Aberdeen, though Beaton was released
and given the great seal back in the spring of 1525.
Arran and Margaret controlled the castle of Edinburgh,
but Angus and Lennox held the town.
On August 3 the estates warned Margaret that
she would lose authority if she did not cooperate.
The appeal to arms she and Arran made in January 1526
failed, and she married Henry Stewart in March.
That year Tyndale’s English translation
of the New Testament reached Scotland.
On June 14, 1526 the authority of King James V
was proclaimed, and in July the great seal was taken
from Beaton and given to Angus
who became chancellor a year later.
Arran was reconciled but stopped attending the council.
For several years crime was not controlled in Scotland,
but in the spring of 1526 the court of session
began functioning again.
Lennox and other nobles tried to liberate James from Angus;
but during a failed attempt at Linlithgow
on September 4, Lennox was killed.
By 1528 no earls were attending the council.
However, on July 6 James and his leading supporters
entered Edinburgh, and one week later
he summoned Angus to face treason charges.
The Douglases held out in their castles, and on December 5
they were allowed to escape to England
if they gave up their castles.
The King’s sieges failed, but Angus gave up Tantallon
and took refuge in England in May 1529.
That year Alexander MacDonald of Islay and the
MacLeans plundered Campbell lands,
and the Campbells attacked Mull, Morvern, and Tiree.
The young Earl of Argyll and the Earl of Moray fought
the western Highlanders and Islesmen,
and Argyll tried to get the council to make them
pay dues or leave the country.
Lady Glamis, the sister of Angus, was suspected of
poisoning her husband in 1532 and was burned
for plotting against the King in 1537,
and five days later the Master of Forbes
was executed for planning to shoot the King.
James V negotiated for a wife and formed commercial
treaties with the Netherlands in July 1531.
On September 13 Pope Clement VII issued a bull urging
James V to set up a college of justice for civil cases
with Scottish prelates contributing 10,000 ducats annually.
The Pope also granted James a tax on the Scottish church
that provided £10,000 a year.
The next year the Pope conceded that Scottish cases
under church jurisdiction would first be judged by
ecclesiastics in Scotland appointed by the King
as long as he was obedient to Rome, and in May 1532
the Scottish Parliament passed two related statutes.
By September all the Scottish bishops were opposed
to the King except Glasgow, Dunkeld, and Aberdeen,
the three he named for the trial of Beaton for treason in 1533.
Many heretics were prosecuted in Scotland
during the 1530s, but few were executed.
The Parliaments of 1535 and 1541 passed reforms such as
improving justice in sheriff courts, appointing an advocate
for the poor, protecting tenants from eviction,
and abolishing mortuary dues levied by churches.
Revenues from crown lands increased from £5,300 in 1535
to £9,300 in 1539 and more than £15,000 in 1542.
Royal revenue reached £46,000 in 1539.
James V was believed to have acquired a fortune
of 300,000 livres in Edinburgh Castle.
Church revenues financed his building programs,
and clerical taxes were used to fund
his lavish household expenses of £10,000 a year.
James Hamilton of Finart was master of works
and received so many gifts that he was tried
and executed on August 16, 1540.
That year the Parliament approved the act of revocation
that allowed James V to acquire more wealth.
Negotiations for a bride for James V continued,
and in September 1536 he went to Dieppe.
The French agreed to provide a dowry of 100,000 livres for
Princess Madeleine with an annual pension of 125,000 livres,
and they married in France on January 1, 1537.
She also brought more than 100,000 crowns
worth of plate, clothes, and jewels.
They returned to Scotland on May 19,
but she died of tuberculosis on July 7.
James then agreed to wed the widow Mary of Guise
who brought a dowry of 150,000 livres.
They married on June 12, 1538 at St. Andrews.
She bore him two sons, but they both died in April 1541.
Their daughter Mary was born on December 8, 1542.
David Lyndsay (1490-1555) was educated
at the University of St. Andrews,
and he served the child James V for twelve years.
In 1540 Lyndsay’s Pleasant Satire of the Three Estates
in Commendation of Virtue and Vituperation of Vice
was performed at court as an interlude
and then as a longer play in public in June 1552.
The play is an allegory.
King Humanity is served by Solace, Wantonness,
and Placebo, and he gives in to Sensuality.
The Vices Flattery, Falsehood, and Deceit pretend
to be Devotion, Sapience, and Discretion,
and they drive away Good Counsel.
Verity and Chastity are put in the stocks,
but King Correction arrives and releases them.
Charity and Diligence also act like Vices.
The Pauper joins with John Commonweal to demand
reform, and they expose the failures of the three estates
represented by Spirituality, Temporality, and Merchant.
Spirituality cannot give up lechery and greed.
Flattery tries to betray Falsehood and Deceit,
but all three are hanged.
This morality play reflects the change
occurring during the Reformation
and included attacks on relics and clerical abuses.
James V also patronized the humanist scholars
Giovanni Ferrerio and George Buchanan.
In July 1541 Cardinal David Beaton was sent to France
to ask for aid against England, but King François was trying
to get Henry VIII’s support against Emperor Charles V.
James promised to meet Henry VIII at York in September,
but the council would not let him go, angering his uncle.
After his mother Margaret died on October 18,
James went to war against England.
At Hadden Rig on August 24, 1542 about 2,000 Scots
defeated more than 3,000 English; but at the battle
of Solway Moss on November 24 more than 15,000 Scots
were disastrously defeated by 3,000 English.
Hundreds of Scots drowned, and about 1,200 were captured.
James was not at the battle and became ill
with fever and died on December 14.
The Earl of Arran was proclaimed governor of Scotland
on January 3, 1543, and Cardinal David Beaton
became chancellor one week later.
They were assisted by the earls of Moray, Huntly, and Argyll.
The Earl of Angus left England and returned to Scotland
with his brother George Douglas and the Earl of Bothwell.
Arran received them on January 25,
and two days later Cardinal Beaton was under arrest.
Arran considered the Pope a “very evil bishop.”
On March 13 the Parliament rescinded the forfeittures
paid by Angus and others under James V.
They encouraged the distribution of Bibles in English
while Henry VIII was restricting reading of the Bible.
The Scottish council banned heretical literature
and legislated against heresy.
Mary Stuart was crowned Queen of Scotland
on September 9 before her first birthday.
Angus and his brother demonstrated against Edinburgh
and organized a pro-English party in Leith.
Their associate Lennox used French supplies,
and Lord Ruthven and his son helped him take Glasgow
and Paisley; but the Governor besieged Glasgow
in April 1544, and they surrendered.
Angus was protected, and Lennox went to England in May.
Later in 1543 Beaton was reinstated as chancellor,
and John Hamilton became treasurer.
On December 11 the Parliament denounced treaties
with England while confirming those with France.
Beaton was appointed papal legate in January 1544.
In June a convention in Stirling replaced Governor Arran
with Mary of Guise, and her support included bishops,
Angus and the English faction
as well as Moray, Huntly, and Argyll.
On June 26 Lennox offered Henry VIII Dumbarton
and Bute for land in England and the governorship of Scotland,
and on July 6 he married Margaret Douglas, daughter of Angus.
On August 8 Henry proclaimed Lennox lieutenant
for northern England and southern Scotland.
He attacked the Firth of Clyde that month
but could not take Dumbarton.
Arran summoned a parliament at Edinburgh on November 6
and announced that those attending Mary’s parliament
planned at Stirling on the 12th would be charged with treason.
For the next year and a half Beaton tried to manage
Arran and Mary to support his administration.
In early 1545 the English invaded and desecrated Douglas
tombs at Melrose, making Angus a loyal Scot.
He led the Scots to victory at Ancrum on February 7.
In May the English landed at the
Firth of Clyde with 36,000 men.
The French aided the Scots as the seigneur de Lorges arrived
in June with French troops who were resented as usual.
Hertford led English invasions in the southeast in September
while clans helped Lennox raid
Bute, Arran, and Argyll in the west.
In 1544 and 1545 the English destroyed church buildings.
George Wishart went with the commissioners negotiating
treaties at Greenwich, and his preaching attracted a following.
He was a Zwinglian who translated the Swiss Confederation
into English and taught at Cambridge.
He celebrated communion in St. Andrews Castle.
Wishart was arrested in January 1546, tried before
Cardinal David Beaton, and burned at the stake on March 1.
Before he was arrested, Wishart ordered Knox to escape.
John Knox (c. 1514-72) had studied with John Major
at St. Andrews University, and he was ordained a priest
on April 15, 1536 and became a papal notary in 1540.
He accompanied Wishart on his preaching tour
that began in December 1545.
Eventually reformers persuaded the reclusive
Knox to preach, and that became his calling.
By 1546 Angus, his brother, Argyll, Bothwell, Home,
and the Dumbarton captain were pensioners of France.
Henry VIII sent agents to eliminate Chancellor Beaton.
A conspiracy led by Norman Leslie of Rothes, his uncle John,
and William Kirkcaldy of Grange murdered the porter of
St. Andrews Castle and the cardinal on May 29, 1546.
They favored the marriage of Mary Stuart to Prince Edward;
but most Scots did not, and the council rejected it on June 11.
They held St. Andrews Castle while Lennox and his brother
the Bishop of Caithness took over Dumbarton Castle.
This castle was soon retaken,
but the siege of St. Andrews was prolonged.
Although John Knox had not participated in the assassination
and called the killers “gangsters,” he arrived on Easter
in 1547 and joined them in the castle.
During the truce he began preaching
in the St. Andrews parish church.
After a cannon assault for a few weeks the French took
over the castle on July 31, imprisoned the murderers,
and sent Knox to the galleys for nineteen months.
While in irons at Rouen he studied a manuscript by
Henry Balnaves on justification by faith
and supported his ideas by editing it for publication.
England’s Protector Somerset led an invasion of Scotland
with 16,800 men in September 1547, and they defeated
a disorganized Scottish army of 30,000
at Pinkie Cleugh on the 10th.
The Scots had about 10,000 killed and 2,000 captured
while the English had only about 400 men killed.
During 1548 and until the summer of 1549 the English
had garrisons at Inchcolm, Broughty Castle, Inchkeith,
and Dundee, and they conquered the countryside
up to the gates of Edinburgh.
John Hamilton was nominated for St. Andrews,
and his brother James Hamilton for Glasgow.
In June a French and Scottish force besieged Haddington,
and in a treaty on July 7 the Scots promised
that Mary would wed the Dauphin.
French ships picked up Mary at Dumbarton
and took her with two half-brothers to France.
In February 1549 Arran had been
made the Duke of Chatellerault.
After attacks by the French on the English garrison
at Boulogne in September, the English gave up Haddington.
In 1550 Mary of Guise went with some aristocrats to France,
but she returned to Scotland in November 1551.
Commissioners from England and Scotland signed a treaty
on June 10, 1551, and in 1552 the Scots did not give in
to French pressure to declare war on England.
In 1549 and 1552 Scottish church councils
amended their statutes to reform abuses.
John Hamilton organized St. Mary’s College at St. Andrew’s.
A new catechism was issued, and the radical Adam Wallace
was burned in 1550 for having different ideas.
Archbishop John Hamilton convened
national councils in 1549, 1552, and 1559.
His Catechism of the Catholic Faith published after
the 1552 council included concessions to Protestants.
The English got John Knox released from the French galleys
in February 1549, and he went to England
where he preached at Berwick and Newcastle.
In 1550 he wrote A Vindication of the Doctrine
That the Sacrifice of the Mass Is Idolatry.
He became royal chaplain to King Edward VI in 1551
and helped revise the Book of Common Prayer.
In January 1554 Knox went back to Dieppe on the French
coast where he finished his Instructions on Prayer.
He believed fervent prayer was needed for true faith
and that confession and repentance assure the mercy of Christ.
He wrote letters to Mrs. Elizabeth Bowes,
went back to
Berwick, and married her daughter Marjorie Bowes in 1555.
Then Knox wrote A Faithful Admonition to Protestants
who stayed in England, but his radical ideas alienated many
facing persecution from the Catholic queen he chastised.
In May 1556 the Catholic Church summoned him
to Edinburgh to be examined for heresy,
but Mary of Guise quashed the summons.
Knox returned to Geneva where Calvin persuaded him
to go to Frankfurt to minister to English refugees.
Expelled from Frankfurt, in September 1556 he went
back
to Geneva where 5,000 Protestants came from all over Europe.
Arran, the Duke of Chatellerault, was removed from
the regency on April 12, 1554 when Mary of Guise
became regent again, finding a deficit of £30,000.
Frenchmen took charge of the treasury and the Great Seal,
and the French ambassador attended the Privy Council.
French troops garrisoned Scottish fortresses
in Broughty, Dunbar, and Inchkeith.
While Catholic Mary Tudor ruled in England,
Mary of Guise cultivated Protestant ministers
to increase her support in Scotland.
Knox went to Edinburgh in May 1556
and then returned to Geneva for two more years.
His Letter of Wholesome Counsel advised
private family worship and Bible study.
In December 1557 some Protestant nobles
organized the first Scottish Covenant pledged
to the “Word of God and his Congregation.”
In the spring of 1558 Knox published secretly in Geneva
his controversial First Blast of the Trumpet against the
Monstrous Regiment of Women, arguing against
government by women such as Mary of Guise,
Mary Tudor, Mary Stuart, and Catherine de’ Medici.
He argued that the common people have a duty
to resist a Catholic sovereign with arms.
When Elizabeth became Queen of England,
she would not allow him into that country.
During the summer Knox wrote to Regent Mary of Guise,
to the nobles, and the common people of Scotland,
and he argued that Tyndale’s doctrine
of Christian obedience to rulers is sinful.
Knox argued that the nobles have the right
to remove a tyrannical monarch,
and the commoners could set up a reformed kirk.
Mary Stuart married the Dauphin François on April 24, 1558,
and her marriage contract pledged
recognition of the reformed church.
That month Archbishop Hamilton had 82-year-old Walter Myln
burned for heresy; he was the last Protestant martyr
before Scotland became Presbyterian.
In July iconoclasts in Edinburgh caused a riot.
Catholic rule in England ended with the death
of Mary Tudor on November 17.
On January 1, 1559 the Beggars Summons was posted
on friars’ houses in Scotland urging them to do honest work
and give their riches to widows, orphans, the ill, and the poor.
That month Knox finished his Brief Exhortation to England
in which he advised accepting only
what scripture clearly commands.
A Scottish provincial council met in March and April.
Knox led the Lords of the Congregation who had
signed a covenant, and they recalled him to Scotland.
On May 4, 1559 he went to Perth where his sermon
was so enthusiastic that zealots sacked the friaries.
He talked to Regent Mary of Guise on May 10 at Stirling.
The next day he preached against idolatry at Perth,
and in a riot church icons were destroyed.
Glencairn brought a force from the west.
On May 22 the Lords of the Congregation threatened
the Regent with armed revolt if tyrannical murder
was perpetrated against the people.
An armistice was made on May 29, and Mary agreed
the French would not put a garrison in the town.
Insurgents gathered at St. Andrews
to support reform and wait for English aid.
Knox went to Edinburgh and preached on June 11.
By the end of the month Protestants
had taken over Edinburgh for a few weeks.
They occupied Perth on June 25
and moved on to Stirling and Edinburgh.
Knox was appointed minister there on July 7.
He criticized radical Pelagians and Arians such as
Miguel Serveto who believed in
free will and the unity of God
instead of predestination and the trinity.
Knox also wrote an Answer to the Anabaptists
who opposed violence and infant baptism.
A truce agreed upon by July 25 allowed the capital
to choose its religion and not be garrisoned.
After France’s Henri II died on July 10,
François II became king, making his wife Mary Stuart queen.
By September 1,800 French troops had been sent to Scotland,
but Knox raised the spirits of despairing Protestants.
On October 21 the regency of Mary of Guise was suspended.
Ten days later the Earl of Bothwell captured
thousands of pounds coming from England.
Insurgents were not paid, became mutinous, and deserted.
On November 6 the lords evacuated
Edinburgh
and went to Stirling.
The mass resumed in the reconsecrated Church of St. Giles.
The French forced the lords to retreat from Stirling
to St. Andrews and Glasgow by the end of the year.
The French were based in Leith and held Inchkeith,
and they occupied Kinghorn where
they were harassed by guerilla tactics.
On January 23, 1560 the French
marched northeast from Dysart.
On February 22 the Duke of Norfolk, England’s lieutenant
in the north, made a treaty with Scottish commissioners
at Berwick to last one year longer than Mary’s marriage.
About 10,000 English troops led by Lord Grey came to
Scotland in March and organized their headquarters at Restalrig.
Regent Mary of Guise died on June 11.
English and French diplomats met in Edinburgh
and made a treaty on July 6.
English and French troops were to withdraw from Scotland,
and Queen Mary Stuart was to recognize Queen Elizabeth.
The English army left on July 15,
and French troops embarked from Leith.
Scotland’s Parliament met to choose a new governing council,
and on August 17 the Parliament voted overwhelmingly
for the Confession of Faith written by Knox and three others
based on a model from the Reformed Chuch of Geneva.
Meanwhile the Scottish church had annual revenues
of about £400,000 while the Crown took in only £40,000.
About 3,000 clergy in a population of 800,000
shared this income, and little was done to help the poor.
Religious houses were managed by commendators
who often were not even clerics.
Six illegitimate sons of James V were commendators
of abbeys, and the Hamiltons did well financially also.
During the reformation many of the religious houses
went to the descendants of the commendators prior to 1560.
Humanists tried to reform concubinage, unqualified benefices,
not residing in the diocese, holding many benefices,
and neglecting church buildings.
The Book of Reformation had been
completed by May 20, 1560.
Parliament met in August and after accepting the reformed
Confession of Faith on the 17th, they abrogated papal
authority and forbade the mass a week later.
The Archbishop of Glasgow fled to France,
and John Willock became the Bishop of Glasgow.
The death of François II on December 5 affected
Mary in Scotland as a widowed queen.
The Earl of Arran had been courting Queen Elizabeth,
and on December 8 she rejected his offer.
A convention of representatives met, and the ecclesiastical
meeting adjourned on January 15, 1561.
The Book of Discipline was written by Knox, Willock,
Spottiswood, Winram, Douglas, and Row,
all of whom had the first name of John,
and many nobles and lairds subscribed to it on the 27th.
This recommended education from parish schools
up to universities for all with no expense for the poor.
The three estates in the Parliament rejected the
Book of Discipline, leaving the churches
to organize themselves.
Clergy with livings for life agreed to support the ministers.
The Book of Common Order called for congregations
governed by elders elected annually who would aid
the minister who was also elected after their
examination by other ministers.
The final authority was a general assembly
of elders and ministers.
The convention commissioned Earl James of Arran
to bring Mary Stuart back from France,
but she did not reach Leith until August 19, 1561.
She proclaimed that there would be
no change in the state religion.
Arran led the radical reformers and wanted to wed Mary
but would not return to court as long as she attended mass.
He urged James Hamilton, Earl of Bothwell, to seize
Queen Mary, and Bothwell was imprisoned and sent into exile.
In February 1562 the lairds persuaded Mary to divide
one-third of revenues between the
government and the reformed church.
She directed a campaign against Huntly
that weakened conservatives.
Mary began a northern progress in August,
and Huntly’s heir John Gordon refused
to admit her to the Inverness Castle.
Huntly’s forces marched on Aberdeen
but were defeated at Corrichlie on October 28.
Huntly was captured and soon died,
and his heir John Gordon was executed.
Queen Mary had several suitors from Europe,
and the leading candidate was Felipe II’s son Don Carlos.
In March 1563 Queen Elizabeth suggested that Mary
wed her favorite Robert Dudley
whose wife Amy had been found dead in 1560.
John Hales wrote a treatise contending that Mary was
a foreigner and could not succeed as Queen.
Henry Stuart, Duke of Albany and called Lord Darnley,
was the son of Earl Matthew of Lennox
and grandson of Margaret Tudor.
Darnley had lived in England for twenty years
and was next in line to the Scottish throne.
Mary said she would defend the Catholic religion
and asked Pope Pius IV for a dispensation.
Before it came, they married with
Roman Catholic rites on July 29, 1565.
Darnley had professed the reform religion in England
and listened to Knox in the church at St. Giles.
Bothwell was recalled and returned to Scotland in September.
On August 22 Mary mustered an army to find some rebels
led by Moray, but on September 24
the English refused to help them.
Moray fled back to England on October 6.
The only peers supporting Queen Mary now were
Huntly, Bothwell, Atholl, and Lennox,
but less than peers and foreigners such as Italian David Riccio,
Francisco de Busso, Sebastian Danelourt,
and the lawyer James Balfour hoped to influence her.
Parliament summoned for trial on March 12, 1566
Moray, Argyll, Glencairn, Rothes, Ochiltree, Boyd,
Kirkcaldy of Grange, and others.
On March 9 her private secretary Riccio was murdered
in her presence, endangering the life of her unborn child,
and Darnley’s knife was left in Riccio’s body.
He cancelled the session of Parliament
and rode off with Mary to Dunbar on the 12th.
His friends, frustrated they were not pardoned,
sent a document proving Darnley’s complicity in the murder,
and they left Edinburgh on March 17 as did Knox.
By 1566 John Knox completed the first four books of
The History of the Reformation in Scotland
covering events up to 1564.
A fifth book going to August 1567 was added later
by George Buchanan and was
published with the others in 1644.
George Buchanan (1506-82) earned his B.A. at St. Andrews
in 1525 and his M.A. at Scots College in Paris in 1528.
He innovated the teaching of Latin as regent
at the College of Sainte-Barbe.
He tutored Gilbert Kennedy, Earl of Cassilis, in the 1530s,
and they came back to Scotland.
During the persecution of Lutherans in Scotland in 1539,
Buchanan had to go into exile
after writing a poem that satirized the clergy.
He went to London and then Bordeaux where
he taught Latin at the College of Guienne
and translated the Medea and Alcestis by Euripides.
He also wrote the biblical dramas Jephthes and Baptistes.
Buchanan tutored the brilliant Montaigne
who acted in his plays and later mentioned him
in his essay “Of Presumption” as a top Latin poet.
Buchanan went back to Paris and joined humanists
at the University of Coimbra in Portugal.
The Inquisition put Buchanan in a dungeon for a
year and a half before he was transferred to a monastery.
There he made his admired translations
of the Psalms into Latin.
He was released in February 1552 and traveled to England
and back to Paris where he supported persecuted Calvinists.
Buchanan returned to Scotland and in April 1562
became Queen Mary’s tutor in the classics.
He joined the Reformed Church,
and in 1566 Regent Moray appointed him
principal of St. Leonard’s college at St. Andrews.
On June 19, 1566 Queen Mary gave birth to James
and proclaimed that Darnley was the father.
However, she had come to dislike Darnley and became
enamored of the 30-year-old James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell.
He was sheriff of Edinburgh and Haddington
and raised a force of Borderers.
In October he was wounded in a border skirmish
and was taken to his Hermitage castle.
A few days after she learned of this, Mary rode to visit him
and after returning was thought so ill
that she was reported dead on October 25.
She recovered and traveled to the eastern border before
going to her son’s baptism at Stirling on December 17.
Darnley did not attend the baptism of James
that was organized by Bothwell.
Mary told him and other advisors that she did not want
to divorce Darnley lest her son be considered illegitimate.
Lethington said he could be removed
in a way approved by Parliament.
On December 20 she gave £10,000 and other gifts
to the reformed church, and three days later the
Archbishop of St. Andrews was restored
so that he could declare null the marriage
of Mary and Darnley as well as Bothwell’s.
She pardoned Riccio’s murderers on December 24.
Darnley was staying in Glasgow,
and Mary went
there on January 20, 1567 and returned with him.
During the night of February 9, 1567 a large explosion
of gunpowder in the Kirk o’ Field abbey
left Darnley smothered and dead in the garden.
Many were suspected including Bothwell and Mary.
The Privy Council ordered a trial
on April 12 with Lennox prosecuting.
One week later Queen Mary put the reformed church
under her protection, and the estates approved gifts to
Lethington, Morton, Moray, Robert Stuart,
Huntly, and Bothwell.
On the same day 8 bishops, 10 earls, and 11 lords approved
of Bothwell’s suit for Mary’s hand in marriage.
Bothwell’s countess had him convicted of adultery in the
commissary court of Edinburgh on May 2,
and Archbishop John Hamilton of St. Andrews
granted their divorce five days later.
Mary wedded James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell,
at Holyrood on May 15 in a Protestant rite
before a few conservative notables.
Their marriage was widely condemned
as shameful and disgraceful.
During the honeymoon Mary wanted to kill herself.
Mary and Bothwell fled to Dunbar and raised an army.
Huntly and Crawford were the
only earls attending council meetings.
Two armies met at Carberry on June 15, and Bothwell tried
to arrange a single combat with Moray or another champion.
Mary made sure that Bothwell was safe
before she surrendered, and Bothwell fled.
She was taken to Edinburgh and was forced
to abdicate on July 24 in favor of her son James,
and she nominated the Earl of Moray as regent.
On July 29 Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney,
anointed and crowned one-year-old James VI at Stirling.
Only five earls and eight lords were present,
and Knox preached a sermon.
Moray returned on August 11
and was proclaimed regent eleven days later.
The Earl of Bothwell fled to Norway where the Danish
relatives of his former mistress captured him
and held him until his death in 1578.
In 1567 George Buchanan published
The True Law of Kingship.
That year Buchanan became Moderator of the
Church of Scotland’s General Assembly.
He exposed Queen Mary’s relations with Darnley that led
to his death and then became a tutor of the child James VI.
In his last years Buchanan worked on completing Knox’s
history and his own De Jure Regni Scotos
(A Dialogue
Concerning the Rights of the Crown in Scotland).
Buchanan has himself discussing Scotland’s current
political and legal issues with Thomas Maitland.
He argued that kings are elected
by the people to maintain their laws.
The party of King James VI held their first Parliament
in December 1567 and enacted the legislation of 1560
that had not been ratified by Mary Stuart.
She had been imprisoned at Lochleven,
but she escaped on May 2, 1568.
She was supported by 9 earls, 9 bishops, 12 commendators,
and 18 lords who raised a force of more than 5,000 men.
Regent Moray was at Glasgow and was outnumbered;
but they managed to defeat Mary’s army
at Langside on May 13, and she fled to England.
Elizabeth sent Throckmorton to Mary
who refused to divorce the Earl of Bothwell.
On June 8 Elizabeth wrote offering to restore her
if Moray was prosecuted for the rebellion
but could submit evidence against Mary who agreed.
On July 12 Mary appointed the Duke of Chatellerault
to govern for her with Argyll acting as her
lieutenant until Chatellerault returned from France.
A three-way conference met at York in early October
and at Westminster on November 25.
Maitland of Lethington was in Moray’s delegation
but favored recognizing Mary as Elizabeth’s heir.
The Duke of Norfolk led Elizabeth’s diplomats at York
and wanted to become Mary’s consort after her divorce.
When they met again in London, Cecil assured them that
English commissioners would find Mary guilty.
The Casket Letters written by Mary and Bothwell
were shown privately, and Moray charged Mary with murder.
On January 10, 1569 Cecil announced that Elizabeth
did not consider that Moray’s honor
or Mary’s had been impaired.
Elizabeth loaned Moray’s government £5,000
and sent some military aid for the Borders,
and in the spring Huntly and Argyll recognized the Regent.
Mary adopted the English religion for a while.
In late July 1569 Mary began divorce proceedings
from Bothwell so she could be restored.
A convention at Perth attended by 37 notables
rejected 40-9 her proposed marriage to Norfolk.
His allies started an uprising in northern England
in November that threatened Moray as well as Elizabeth.
The Earl of Northumberland fled to Scotland and was
arrested by Moray who asked Elizabeth for another loan.
However, Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh with the foreknowledge
of the Archbishop murdered Moray
at Linlithgow on January 23, 1570.
Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth on February 25.
In April the Earl of Sussex led a punitive invasion across the
border of Scotland that destroyed castles of the Borderers
and helped the King’s forces besiege Dumbarton Castle.
The King’s party accepted Elizabeth’s choice of Lennox
as the next regent in July.
The Marians opposed him, and civil war continued
until the English mediated a six-month truce in September.
Then the war resumed, and the King’s forces
captured Dumbarton Castle in April 1571.
Archbishop Hamilton was taken and hanged.
The King’s party gathered in the “creeping parliament”
in the Canongate in May, and Mary’s party
held a parliament in Edinburgh in June.
During the summer Argyll, Cassilis, Boyd, and Elinton
went over to King James VI, and their Parliament at Stirling
in late August was well attended.
Kirkcaldy’s attempted coup failed,
but Lennox was killed on September 3.
John Erskine, Earl of Mar, became regent while James Douglas,
Earl of Morton, led the King’s party and succeeded
Mar after his death from illness on October 28.
The Archbishop of St. Andrews appointed by Mar was so
unpopular that ministers accepted the Concordat of Leith
as a compromise in 1572 that allowed the crown
to select bishops with the approval of the church.
France made a treaty with England at Blois in April
and agreed to the pacification of Scotland.
The Regent regained the town of Edinburgh in the fall,
and Knox went home where he died on November 24.
On February 23, 1573 the English envoy Killigrew
persuaded Chatellerault, Lord Claud, Huntly, and Seton
to recognize James VI in the Pacification of Perth.
The English helped the Scots besiege Edinburgh Castle
which fell on May 28.
Kirkcaldy was executed, and William Maitland
killed himself before he could be hanged.
Regent Morton tried to pacify the Borders by taking hostages,
imposing heavy fines, maintaining a standing army,
and by offering clemency.
He tolerated Andrew Melville’s movement for Calvinist reforms.
Morton imposed few taxes, and the deficit of £33,000
in 1564 increased to £61,000 in 1569.
By 1574 the King owed £37,000.
Morton did impose a tax of £4,000
for an expedition to the Borders.
On March 5, 1578 the earls of Atholl and Argyll asked
James VI to settle differences between them and the Regent.
Morton said he needed the authority to punish
or he would resign, and his opponents
persuaded the King to remove him.
A council began acting in the King’s name,
ending Morton’s regency,
but in the fall Morton regained his power.
In 1579 George Buchanan wrote his
Law of the Scottish Kingship which was published in 1582.
This book was controversial,
and a proclamation ordered people to turn in all copies.
On March 5, 1580 James persuaded
Robert Stewart, Earl of Lennox, to resign.
Esmé Stewart, seigneur d’Aubigny, became the
Duke of Lennox in 1581, plus commendator of Arbroath
and keeper of Dumbarton Castle.
Scottish Protestants aligned themselves with the English
against the Catholics who favored Queen Mary.
In January 1581 James VI signed the
Negative Confession denouncing papistry.
Melville persuaded the General Assembly to adopt the
Second Book of Discipline which considered bishops
no better than pastors and ministers.
In 1582 James granted a charter for the
University of Edinburgh which was founded in 1583.
Presbyterians complained about Lennox and seized
King James in August 1582 during the “Ruthven raid.”
Lennox went to England and then in December
to France where he died in May 1583.
William Ruthven, Earl of Gowrie, had been Treasurer
since 1571, and recently the deficit
had risen from £36,000 to £45,000.
In April 1583 the King sent an embassy to London
asking to let him have the English estates of Lennox,
£10,000 and £5,000 annually,
but Elizabeth only offered £2,500,
which the Scots considered too small to accept.
Arran had been imprisoned during the Ruthven rise
and rejoined the council in August.
He with Mar, Glamis, and the Lords John
and Claud Hamilton took over Stirling Castle in April 1584.
The King sent a force, and they fled to England.
Gowrie had already been arrested,
and he was executed on May 2.
Arran was Knox’s brother-in-law and became chancellor
on May 15 with Maitland of Thirlstane as his secretary.
Andrew Melville was to be tried for seditious speech
from the pulpit and had fled to England in March.
In May the Black Acts authorized the King to denounce
the new presbyteries while reaffirming the bishops.
More than a dozen ministers went into exile with Melville.
On July 27, 1585 the Earl of Bedford’s son Francis Russell
was killed in a border fight by Arran’s ally,
and Elizabeth’s envoy Edward Wotton accused Arra
of trying to break the league formed that month
between England and Scotland.
James promised to reign in Chancellor Arran
but changed his mind.
Patrick Gray persuaded Elizabeth to release the exiled lords
who came back from England
and gathered before Stirling on November 2.
Elizabeth came to an agreement on July 5, 1586
but refused to increase her subsidy to Scotland from £4,000.
On October 11 an English commission was appointed to
try Mary Stuart for conspiracy to assassinate Elizabeth,
and she was found guilty on November 12.
Parliament asked for her execution,
and Elizabeth signed the death warrant on February 1
but told William Davison not to carry it out
without her permission; but he did,
and Mary was beheaded one week later.
Notables offered to support her son James VI
in avenging her death, and Borderers raided northern England;
but James himself did not want to hinder his succession
to the throne of England and accepted her death.
John Maitland of Thirlstane became chancellor
on July 29, 1587, and he was more tolerant of the
Presbyterians than Arran had been.
The Act of Annexation appropriated ecclesiastical powers
to the crown, lessening the authority of bishops.
In 1513 Gerald FitzGerald known as Gearoid Og
(Young Gerald) succeeded his father
to become the 9th Earl of Kildare.
In 1514 he led an attack on Breifne, killing O’Reilly
and other leaders, and in 1518 he destroyed
the fortress of the O’Neills at Dungannon.
On January 12, 1519 Kildare was
summoned to the English court.
Gerald appointed a deputy and went to London
where he argued with Cardinal Woolsey in the King’s Council.
England’s King Henry VIII sent Henry Howard,
Earl of Surrey, and he arrived in Dublin on May 23, 1520
with 1,100 soldiers including 220 of the royal guard.
The council of Anglo-Irish magnates met at Dublin
and were ordered not to attack the Gaelic Irish
without authorization from the Governor.
The Gaelic Irish were required to swear loyalty
to the King and the Governor, and they must
observe English laws and use their courts of justice.
With Kildare restrained, other Irish lords attacked.
Surrey retaliated by ravaging the midland Mores
and in August invaded the Ulster lords O’Neill and MacMahon.
Surrey wrote to Henry VIII in September
that the Irish lords were pacified.
When he visited Clonmel and Waterford in early October,
the Earl of Desmond submitted.
In the southwest MacCarthy Reagh and
Cormac Og MacCarthy of Muskerry
were clients of Piers Butler.
Surrey’s under-treasurer John Stile could raise
only £1,700 in revenue and had difficulty paying salaries.
Surrey had arrived with £3,300, and Henry sent £4,000 more.
On June 4, 1521 the parliament met at Dublin and banned
the export of wool to help Irish industry, and burning wheat,
hay, and houses was made treason.
Surrey estimated that several thousand soldiers would be
needed to subdue the Irish, and after asking Henry VIII
to recall him he left Ireland on December 21.
Kildare was detained in England
but gained influence at court that autumn.
Piers Butler cooperated with Surrey and then
became Lord Deputy himself on March 26, 1522.
He claimed the lands of the absent
Earl of Ormond who died in 1515.
Ormond’s grandson was Thomas Boleyn,
but Butler’s patent as the new deputy
recognized his title to Ormond.
Kildare returned to Ireland on January 1, 1523
and came into conflict with Butler, though in November
the council appointed by the King
recognized both earls’ defense of the lordship.
Kildare’s brother James FitzGerald
went south to visit Ormond for Christmas
and killed Robert Talbot, sheriff of Dublin County.
Three English commissioners arrived in Dublin
during the summer of 1524 to keep order.
The two earls Kildare and Ormond settled their differences,
and about forty other lords agreed
to uphold law and the peace.
After Kildare turned in his brother James to be paraded
in London as a criminal, Gerald was installed as
the new deputy on August 4 with Ormond as his treasurer.
Kildare got revenues from the Ormond estate as long as
the earl was absent; but he lost these with Butler
claiming it in Ireland, and he refused to make up Kildare’s loss.
In the southwest James FitzGerald, the 10th Earl of Desmond,
had made a treaty with French emissaries on June 20, 1523.
Then he attacked Tipperary borders and Butler’s territories
when he was made the new deputy as Ormond.
Henry VIII summoned both Ormond and Kildare
who appointed his son Thomas FitzGerald
as deputy and went to England at the end of 1526.
He helped Dublin officials defend the Pale
until he resigned by September 14, 1527.
Richard Nugent, Lord Delvin, replaced Thomas;
but he could not even defend the Pale because Kildare’s
men urged raiding by O’Connor Faly and O’Neill.
On May 12, 1528 Thomas helped O’Connor Faly
capture Delvin and detain him for five months.
On February 23, 1528 Butler had surrendered
his claim to Ormond to Thomas Boleyn, father of the
King’s mistress Anne, in exchange for Ossory.
Butler was appointed deputy again on August 4,
but he could not defend the Pale from attacks
by Kildare’s
Gaelic allies O’Connor and Conn Bacach O’Neill.
On February 3, 1529 John Alen arrived in Dublin to be
archbishop and as Cardinal Woolsey’s legate in Ireland,
but after the fall of Woolsey he was replaced as chancellor
by George Cromer, Archbishop of Armagh.
Emperor Charles V sent his chaplain Gonzalo Fernandez
to Dingle in Kerry County where he arrived on February 24,
and Desmond agreed to be his vassal.
In the previous half century about twenty Franciscan
monasteries had been founded in Irish districts.
Henry VIII appointed William Skeffington deputy,
and he returned to Ireland in August 1530
with 200 soldiers and Kildare.
They pacified Ulster in early 1531
as O’Neill and O’Donnell submitted.
However, disorders broke out in the spring,
and Ossory (Butler) and others were summoned to London.
The King’s Council blamed Skeffington.
He allowed the Irish parliament to meet in Dublin
on September 15 and October 13
and at Drogheda October 27-31.
They renewed the subsidy for ten years,
and Kildare was prohibited from wasting lands
in Carlow and Kildare counties.
In November three leading citizens
of Kilkenny were abducted.
By May 1532 maintaining Skeffington and his troops had cost
England £5,000 without pacifying the Irish.
He was accused of financial mismanagement and was replaced
by Kildare on August 18 with Ossory’s son James Butler
as treasurer and Archbishop George Cromer
of Armagh as chancellor.
One of Kildare’s men killed Ossory’s son Thomas Butler,
and Skeffington sided with Ossory against Kildare at court.
Kildare was wounded in December while besieging Birr Castle,
but he held a parliament at Dublin on May 19, 1533
and passed a three-year subsidy.
Henry VIII in August had criticized Kildare for obstructing
his appointments of judges Thomas Cusack, Patrick Finglas,
and others, and Kildare reacted by moving artillery
from Dublin Castle to his own fortress at Maynooth.
The King summoned him and Ossory to court in September;
but Kildare said his wound prevented him from
going until he arrived in March 1534.
Kildare had managed to get his son “Silken” Thomas,
Lord Offaly, appointed as his deputy,
but Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell did not provide
the new deputy with a military force.
In May the King ordered Skeffington to eliminate the Pope’s
authority in Ireland in accordance with England’s reformed laws,
and Piers Butler was bound to help him.
On June 11 Silken Thomas paraded with 140 armed retainers
through Dublin and then told the Irish Council
that he did not serve Henry VIII and asked them
to join him in rebellion against his tyranny.
For six weeks his forces threatened Dublin and the Pale.
The opposition was led by Archbishop Alen;
but when Thomas captured him,
his men misunderstood his orders and killed Alen on July 28.
Pope Clement VII excommunicated Thomas and cursed him.
On August 29 the Emperor’s ambassador Eustace Chapuys
in London reported that Kildare’s men were forcing
the Irish to swear allegiance to the Pope and the Emperor.
Kildare had been put in the Tower on June 29
and died on September 2,
making Thomas the 10th Earl of Kildare.
He controlled the east coast of Ireland from Drogheda
to Wexford, and he ordered
the death of anyone born in England;
but he could not take Dublin and retreated to Maynooth Castle.
Skeffington arrived in October
as the new deputy with 2,300 soldiers.
He was old and ill and stayed in Dublin, agreeing to a truce
with Thomas from December 19 to January 6, 1535.
Skeffington died on December 31, 1535.
The next day the Irish Council appointed Leonard Grey
Lord of Justice, and he became Lord Deputy on February 23.
The English army besieged Maynooth for ten days
before taking it on March 23 and killing the garrison.
Thomas was away seeking allies.
When he went to attack the Deputy, his followers fled;
so he surrendered to Leonard Grey on August 24.
The army was reduced to a garrison of 700 regulars.
Marshal Leonard Grey took Thomas to London
where he was kept in the Tower
for sixteen months in miserable conditions.
On February 3, 1537 Thomas, Earl of Kildare,
was hanged at Tyburn, and five of his FitzGerald uncles
were hanged as accomplices.
A new Irish parliament met at Dublin in May 1536
and recognized Henry VIII as the supreme head of the
Irish Church, prohibited ecclesiastical appeals to Rome,
and stopped sending profits from benefices
to the Pope by paying them to the King.
Parliament met again in September, but the Commons
rejected three bills that would have transferred customs
revenues to the crown, levied a 5% tax on land,
and dissolved eight monasteries.
Several of the English bishops in Ireland changed
their allegiance from the Pope to the King
while about twenty remained loyal to Rome.
In June unpaid soldiers mutinied.
Also in 1536 Grey invaded the southwest
and took a castle from the Desmonds and their O’Brien allies.
The next year his army subdued the O’Connor Falys
and the O’Carrolls in the west
and the MacMurroughs in the south.
In January 1537 parliament refused to impose taxes
or suppress thirteen religious houses, but the autumn parliament
dissolved thirteen monasteries and ordered the use of English
customs, clothes, and language while
providing parish schools to teach English.
In June 1538 Deputy Grey traveled through Munster and
Connacht administering the supremacy oath
to mayors and corporations.
In early 1539 a commission confirmed
that Archbishop George Browne of Dublin
and others destroyed images that were venerated by pilgrims,
and Henry VIII in April appointed a commission
that in the next twelve months
suppressed 42 monasteries and 51 mendicant houses.
Grey in May punished O’Neill and O’Donnell in the north
for refusing to give up Gerald FitzGerald by raiding Ulster.
Gerald finally fled to France in March 1540.
Grey returned to England in April,
and the arrest of Thomas Cromwell on June 10
led to the execution of both men.
Surrey had become Duke of Norfolk, and he opposed
Cromwell and got Anthony St. Leger
appointed deputy of Ireland.
He arrived on August 12, 1540
and attacked the MacMurroughs in south Leinster.
He also tried to solve problems in Gaelic society with
diplomacy and arbitration as many Irish submitted
and were reconciled to English rule.
At the parliament in June 1541 MacGillpatrick
became the first local chief ennobled
so that he could sit in the Irish House of Lords.
Both houses approved the bill declaring Henry VIII
and his successors king of Ireland.
Revenues sent to England increased from about
£5,000 a year to an average of £11,000.
On August 6 Manus O’Donnell agreed to a treaty with
the English, and that month he helped St. Leger attack Tyrone.
O’Neill submitted on December 28.
The first mission of Jesuits came to Ulster from Scotland
in February 1542, but they left the next month.
In 1544 an Irish force of 1,000 soldiers was raised,
and 600 went to fight at the siege of Boulogne in France.
In September the English mint
issued debased coinage for Ireland.
In 1545 Irish soldiers invaded Scotland
with the Earl of Hertford’s army.
By the end of Henry VIII’s reign in 1547
about 130 Irish monasteries had been suppressed,
and the crown confiscated the plate, jewels,
and ornaments of the religious houses.
Monks in forty houses and nuns in six were given pensions
or the rest of their lives
unless they preferred benefices.
Reforms in Ireland changed papal authority to
the English monarchy, but religious doctrines remained similar.
As long as they recognized his sovereignty,
Henry VIII was not concerned with their beliefs or rituals.
After Henry VIII’s death in January 1547
the Regent Somerset acting for young Edward VI
sent Edward Bellingham as captain-general to Ireland
during the summer with reinforcements.
Deputy St. Leger was ordered
to defer to him on military issues.
The army operated in the south midlands against the O’Mores
and the O’Connors of Offaly, and they built Fort Governor.
William Brabazon persuaded the Council to remove
St. Leger during the winter,
and they made Bellingham deputy in April 1548.
He began work on Fort Protector in Leix,
and he garrisoned
Leighlinbridge farther south to pacify the Kavanaghs.
Bellingham left Ireland in 1549 when Somerset was
being replaced by the Earl of Warwick who would
become the Duke of Northumberland in 1551.
St. Leger became deputy again for a year
with his more peaceful approach.
His opponent, a second John Alen, who was chancellor,
was replaced by Thomas Cusack.
The Latin mass was replaced by a new Protestant
communion service in English; images were removed;
and the revised Book of Common Prayer
was required for worship.
Yet beyond English influence Ireland remained Catholic.
In February 1550 French diplomats made treaties
with O’Neill, O’Donnell, and O’Doherty.
St. Leger became deputy again in September.
The English established a mint in Ireland and granted printing.
James Croft arrived to inspect harbors and defenses
on the Munster coast and then of east Ulster.
In the spring of 1551 St. Leger was recalled,
and Croft became deputy on May 23.
A thousand more soldiers arrived,
and they garrisoned Carrickfergus and Armagh.
In November the English Book of Common Prayer
became the first book printed in Ireland.
In the summer of 1552 Croft campaigned
in Clandeboye and captured Belfast Castle.
Catholic Mary Tudor became Queen of England in July 1553,
and St. Leger was sent back as deputy
in October to restore Catholic services.
In February 1555 Queen Mary nominated Hugh Curwain
to be Archbishop of Dublin, and in June
Pope Paul IV declared Ireland a kingdom.
In 1556 St. Leger’s successor, Thomas Radcliffe Fitzwalter
who became the Earl of Sussex,
was ordered to promote the Catholic religion.
He was supported by Henry Sidney as vice-treasurer,
but he needed more troops
and could not resolve the Irish conflicts.
In June 1557 the Irish parliament repealed the laws against
the papacy and declared the Queen’s power over Ireland.
Rory O’More’s father was executed, and he became a rebel.
Sussex campaigned against the O’Connors in July
and Shane O’Neill in October.
Shane tried to take over Tyrconell,
but his forces were defeated by Calvagh O’Donnell.
New garrisons were established, increasing expenses.
Shane and the earls of Kildare and Desmond
were suspected of conspiring with the French.
After the death of Conn Bacach O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone,
his oldest legitimate son Shane defeated
and killed his illegitimate brother Matthew.
On May 14, 1559 Shane took Calvagh O’Donnell prisoner.
In January 1560 the parliament of Ireland met
to recognize Queen Elizabeth and repeal
religious legislation from Mary’s reign.
They tried to pacify Ormond, Desmond,
and Kildare while reducing expenses.
David Wolfe was from Limerick and became a Jesuit.
In August he returned to Ireland as an apostolic
legate to support Catholic princes.
In 1561 Elizabeth explained to Pope Pius IV that Wolfe’s
stirring up trouble was one reason why the English
did not participate in the current Council of Trent.
A few years later Wolfe was imprisoned in Dublin Castle.
In June the Earl of Sussex became
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
and Shane O’Neill was proclaimed a traitor.
Sussex tried to isolate Shane, put a garrison in Armagh
cathedral, and raided the MacMahons in Monaghan,
taking away many cattle.
Shane was given safe conduct
and went to London in December.
He claimed Tyrone but also most of Ulster.
In 1562 some law students complained to the privy council
that the military was abusing the people of the Pale.
In February 1564 the O’Connors and O’Mores rebelled,
and Sussex left Ireland on May 25.
Queen Elizabeth in October approved a court to punish
religious offenses with an Irish commission to enforce reform,
but Ireland remained Catholic.
In the decade 1556-65 Irish revenues were £43,000
while total expenditures were more than £322,000.
(These Irish pounds were equal to
about two-thirds of a pound sterling.)
Most of the expenses were for the standing army
with military spending two-thirds of the budgets.
In 1565 Henry Sidney became deputy.
On May 2 Shane O’Neill’s army defeated
his former MacDonnell allies at Glenshesk.
In April 1566 Shane appealed to France’s Charles IX for
money and military aid, and in August he burned down
Armagh cathedral to keep the English from occupying it.
Shane also negotiated with the Earl of Argyle and the Scots.
The English brought a thousand men by sea
who met Sidney in September.
They campaigned in Armagh, Tyrone,
and Tyrconell and fortified Derry.
Sidney captured Desmond at Kilmallock in March,
but on April 21 the cathedral of Derry was blown up,
destroying the English camp.
On May 8, 1567 Hugh O’Donnell’s forces defeated
O’Neill’s near Letterkenny, killing 600 men
and driving 1,300 to drown in the River Swilly.
Shane took refuge with MacDonnells;
but they quarreled, and he was killed on June 2.
Gerald the 14th Earl of Desmond had been detained
in England and was allowed to return to Ireland in 1564,
but the next year he was captured by the Butlers.
After doing £20,000 worth of damages to Ormond,
Desmond was sent to London at the end of 1567 until 1573.
Sidney summoned the Irish parliament in January 1569
to implement his policy of conquest.
The name of O’Neill could no longer
be used to indicate sovereignty in Ulster.
That year James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald led those
in Munster against Sidney’s government,
and he became a leader of the counter-reformation in Ireland.
Sidney went south with 600 soldiers in July,
and they were joined in Munster by 400 men from ships.
Desmonds surrendered, but Fitzmaurice held out.
Humphrey Gilbert was ordered to pacify Munster
and did so severely, though Fitzmaurice escaped.
John Perrot became President of Munster in 1571
and cooperated with Sidney, subduing Desmond.
Fitzmaurice burned Kilmallock
but submitted to Perrot in 1572,
and in 1575 he took refuge in France.
In April 1573 Perrot claimed he had already hanged
about 800 people by the laws of the realm and martial law.
The English hoped to extend their rule over Ireland
by promoting English colonists there.
On November 16, 1571 Thomas Smith and his son were
granted land around the coast of Belfast Lough which
had been the lordship of the O’Neills of Clandeboye.
They went there with a hundred people in August 1572;
but Brian MacPhelim O’Neill, who had fought against
Shane O’Neill, led the armed uprising against them,
and Smith’s enterprise fell apart in 1574.
In March 1572 President Edward Fitton of Connacht
sent the Earl of Clanricard to Dublin,
and he campaigned against Clanricard’s sons in May.
Walter Devereux, the new Earl of Essex, was granted
most of Antrim in July 1573 and brought 1,200 soldiers
with half provided by Queen Elizabeth.
In September he was made general captain of all Ulster,
and in October he was aided by Hugh O’Neill,
Baron of Dungannon, against Brian O’Neill of Clandeboye.
Henry Sidney had taken Hugh as a boy to England
where he was educated 1559-72.
Yet Essex and other adventurers ignored the rights of the
O’Neills, MacDonnells, MacQuillans
and other Irish landholders.
The English routinely considered
the Gaelic Irish inferior and expendable.
Both the Irish and Scots opposed Essex’s colonists.
Essex became governor of Ulster
and burned Turlough’s wheat.
In October 1574 the Essex attacked a group led by
Brian O’Neill who had come to parley, killing two hundred.
Brian, his wife, and brother
were taken to Dublin and executed.
In July 1575 the English massacred more than 500 Scots
on Rathlin Island, and that year one-third
of the Queen’s forces were disbanded.
Desmond said he was loyal to the Queen
but administered his territory with Irish law.
Ormond helped Deputy William Fitzwilliam take
Desmond’s castle of Derrinlaur in August 1574.
Henry Sidney returned to Ulster in 1575
and replaced Fitzwilliam as deputy.
Billeting and moving soldiers had made the community poor,
and Elizabeth complained of the expense.
The English tried to tax the Irish who resisted paying.
Sidney took Clanricard’s sons to Dublin as prisoners,
but they escaped, wore Irish clothes, and fought the English.
The Earl admitted his sons were traitors and asked pardon,
but he was later imprisoned.
Perrot was trying to govern Munster
by discouraging Gaelic institutions.
On March 9, 1576 Essex was appointed Earl Marshal
of Ireland, but he died of dysentery
three weeks after arriving in September.
Rory O’More had gone to see Sidney in December 1575
and was pardoned on June 4, 1576;
but the next year he attacked the Pale with the O’Connors.
After Rory burned Carlow and tried to capture
Barnaby Fitzpatrick, Baron Upper Ossory,
the Fitzpatricks killed him in June 1578.
On June 20, 1576 William Drury became president of Munster,
and on July 23 he appointed Nicholas Malby
military governor of Connacht.
Malby faced the Irish fighting for their independence
and the Scots they hired as mercenaries.
Malby burned their houses and crops,
and Humphrey Gilbert terrorized Munster
by killing men, women and children.
Drury reported that he hanged 400 people in twenty months
after civil courts or martial law condemned them.
In 1577 men from the Pale complained about the local tax,
but their agents sent to England were imprisoned.
Late that year English soldiers slaughtered O’Connors
and O’Mores at Mullaghmast in Kildare County.
Sidney left Ireland in 1578 and was blamed for the expenses,
but after his departure the violence increased.
Pope Gregory XIII supported an Irish expedition,
but Thomas Stukeley took them to Africa instead.
James Fitzmaurice took 700 of them to Kerry County
in July 1579 and built the Golden Fort at Smerwick.
He cooperated with Desmond, but Drury on land
and Gilbert from the sea with an army of more than
2,000 men attacked them, Kildare, and Munster lords.
Fitzmaurice was killed on August 18,
and it became a war of extermination.
Drury died in September and was replaced by Malby
who was President of Connacht 1577-84.
On August 16, 1579 Perrot ordered English naval ships
to stop aid from reaching rebels in Ireland.
On October 3 Malby defeated 2,000 men fighting for
John and James Desmond under the papal banner
at Monasternenagh in Limerick County.
On May 13, 1580 Pope Gregory XIII granted the
city of Limerick to John of Desmond, but his brother James
was captured on August 4 and was executed on October 3.
In 1580 the English burned the ripening wheat,
and the starving MacCarthys, O’Sullivans,
O’Callaghans, and Mac Donoghs submitted.
Kildare joined the Desmonds in the Leinster revolt
in the wilderness, and in August they defeated the
new Deputy Arthur, Baron Grey of Wilton, a Puritan
who brought his secretary Edmund Spenser, the famous poet.
Ulster was disturbed; the Mayo Burkes fought successfully
in Connacht as did the O’Connors in the midlands.
Sebastiano di San Giuseppe arrived with 600 papal soldiers
on September 10, but Grey’s English soldiers forced them
to retreat to the Golden Fort at Smerwick.
Grey had an army of nearly 6,500 men by October.
On November 5 Admiral William Winter
arrived with reinforcements.
Two days later Grey’s forces besieged Smerwick,
and Giuseppe surrendered on November 10.
Grey kept twelve officers for ransom
and had his soldiers slaughter the rest—about 600 men.
In May 1581 Queen Elizabeth removed Ormond as lord
lieutenant of Munster, and she pardoned everyone except
the
Earl of Desmond, John of Desmond, and Viscount Baltinglass.
Famine ravaged Ireland and even affected the Pale,
and in March 1582 Warham St. Leger reported that
at least 30,000 people had died of starvation
in the previous six months.
Grey was recalled in August.
In two years he claimed that he had killed
nearly 1,500 persons “of note” not counting the “meaner sort.”
Ormond in December was reappointed
general of Munster with an army of 1,000 men.
In October 1583 Archbishop Dermot O’Hurley was tortured
for information about the Baltinglass and Nugent conspiracies
before he was hanged for treason in June 1584.
Connaught lords negotiated a settlement in 1585.
In the spring the parliament met at Dublin, and the session
a year later was the last one before Elizabeth’s death in 1603.
They enacted a bill of attainder on 136 rebels, 98 of whom
were old English like Desmond whose estates
made up 70% of the forfeited land.
Elizabeth approved a plantation in Munster on June 27, 1586.
Commissioners there rented usable land from
4,000 to 12,000 acres for ten shillings a quarter
with the full seignory of 12,000 acres with rent
between £66 and £200 having a quota of 90 families.
Perrot worried about Ulster and put garrisons at Coleraine,
Lifford, and Ballyshannon to stop
Scots coming from the northeast.
Angus MacDonnell’s brother Donald led 2,000 Scots
to join the May Burkes, but they were massacred
at Ardnaree on September 22, 1586.
Perrot realized they could not make the majority conform,
and he rejected penal legislation against recusancy.
On May 10, 1587 Hugh O’Neill was made the Earl of Tyrone,
and that year James Fullerton and James Hamilton
started a Latin school in Dublin.
In October 1588 the Spanish armada fled north of Scotland
and ran into storms along the west coast of Ireland.
Of the 6,000 men on the 25 ships wrecked
more than half died at sea while about 2,250 came ashore.
Some of the Spanish castaways in Ulster and Connaught
were helped while the others were killed.
Connaught President William Bingham
hanged more than 300 in Galway.