Edinburgh’s reformation was one of the last of the great city reformations of the sixteenth century. It took on a highly distinctive shape due to the burgh’s social and economic problems and its position as a cockpit for English policy in Scotland and the shifting factionalism of Scottish politics.

In studies of the Scottish Reformation, too little attention has been paid to the nature of Scottish society itself. In a society so conscious of rank, tradition and precedent, the Reformation was only likely to make progress where it did not disturb the existing order, and in Edinburgh the new religion was obliged to work within the natural constraints of burgh life.

This book shows that the early promise of the Protestant reformers of a new society provoked a backlash and had to be abandoned for a new conciliatory approach. The result was that power remained in much the same hands in the 1580s as it had in the 1540s, with one real difference – there was more of it.

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Foreword
• Preface
• Abbreviations and Conventions
• Contents
• Part One Edinburgh Society
• 1 The Burgh Community: Pressures and Responses
• 2 Government and Society
• 3 The Burgh Church
• 4 Merchants and Craftsmen
• Part Two Burgh Politics and National Crisis
• 5 Politics and Protestantism in the 1550s
• 6 The Politics of Conciliation: Mary, Queen of Scots and the Burgh
• 7 The Wars between Leith and Edinburgh
• 8 The Reigns of Morton, Lennox and Arran, 1572–85
• Part Three Parties and Party Men
• 9 The Old Establishment and the New
• 10 Protestantism and the Protestant Party
• 11 Catholicism and the Catholic Party
• 12 King’s Men and Queen’s Men
• 13 Conclusion
• Appendices
• i. Edinburgh Town Councils and Deacons of Crafts, 1551–1584, with Index to Members of the Council
• ii. The Subscription List of. ‘Faithful Brethren’ of November 1562
• iii. Edinburgh Kirk Sessions, 1573–6 and 1584–5
• iv. Edinburgh and Leith Heretics, c.1534–c.1557
• v. The Protestant Party, 1560–1571
• vi. Catholic Recusants and Sympathisers from Edinburgh and the Canongate, 1560–1575
• vii. King’s Men
• viii. Queen’s Men
• ix. Edinburgh Inhabitants whose Houses were Demolished, February-June 1572
• x. Edinburgh Radicals, 1582–1584
• xi. Tax Roll of September 1565
• xii. Tax Roll of June 1583
• List of Events in Scotland and beyond, and in Edinburgh, 1542–1585
• Bibliography
• Index