Reformation and Union
After Flodden, the battle lines for subsequent power-struggles – between pro-French and pro-English parties and (increasingly after Henry VIII initiated the Reformation in England) between associated Catholic and Protestant interests – were thus also drawn, with these hostilities reaching their climax during the reign of Mary Queen of Scots (1542-67).
Mary was a week-old infant when she became queen, on the death of her father, James V (1513-42). During her childhood, her French mother, Mary of Guise, who served as regent, helped rescind a treaty that had contracted her to marry Edward, Henry VIII’s heir, while French forces assisted the Scots in repulsing English raids. Largely brought up in France, Mary married the French Dauphin in 1558, and was briefly Queen of both Scotland and France after he became Francis II in 1559.
Against this background of growing French influence, Protestant reformers - led by the fanatical but charismatic preacher John Knox - the original model of a 'hellfire' evangelist – took up arms against Mary’s rule, forming the Congregation of the Lord in 1557, which signed the first National Covenant. Two years later they issued a declaration deposing the Queen Regent, and requesting protection from England’s Elizabeth I, a move which provoked the elder Mary to denounce them as heretics. Further factional violence ensued, until Mary of Guise’s death in 1560 paved the way for a hastily-convened parliament to abolish papal authority, adopt a reformed Confession of faith, and outlaw the practice of Catholicism on pain of death.
It was into the midst of this volatile ferment, further fuelled by church financial abuses as well as European religious radicalism, that the 18-year-old Catholic queen Mary sailed when she returned to Scotland in 1561 to take up her rule. Her position was further imperilled and pressured by her claim to the English throne, as great-granddaughter of Henry VII. Although she began her reign in conciliatory vein, the combined effects of her adhesion to her faith, unwise marriage choices and – above all – the dual might of Knox’s and Elizabeth’s parties culminated in her surrender to rebel armies in 1567, followed by her long incarceration in England by Elizabeth, and eventual execution in 1587, on trumped-up charges of treasonable conspiracy.
Mary’s son James VI (1567-1625) was another royal babe-in-arms at the time of his mother's abdication. With John Knox preaching his coronation sermon, and the young James being taught to revile his mother as a criminal adulteress, the reformed church settlement was soon ratified. Unsurprisingly, James’s rule was nonetheless a period of persistent unrest, sometimes approaching civil war, involving the imprisoned Mary’s supporters and other Catholic and political factions, as well as sundry plots and counter-plots over the English succession.
As king, James VI also had to deal with further religious agitation, from a new, theocratic presbyterian party which sought complete freedom from state control, while retaining the right to advise and instruct the government. His handling of these issues revealed the diplomatic skill and readiness to compromise that characterised his reign. In this atmosphere, and with the two national churches united in their aim of preserving the Reformation, Anglo-Scottish relations between gradually improved. Following Elizabeth’s death in 1603, the Privy Council in London upheld his inherited claim to be heir, and the Union of the Crowns was thus peacefully achieved with his coronation as James I of England.
