Scottish Reformation and Siege of Leith, 1559–1560

In 1559, Protestant nobles known as the Lords of the Congregation rebelled against the regency of Mary of Guise and the presence of French troops in Scotland. John Knox returned from exile and became the most prominent preacher of the reforming movement, while both France and England viewed Scotland as a strategic part of their wider rivalry.

Elizabeth I’s government first assisted the rebels covertly and then sent an army north in 1560. English and Scottish forces besieged the French garrison at Leith. The Treaty of Edinburgh followed in July, providing for the withdrawal of French and English troops and helping the Scottish Parliament establish a Protestant settlement.

A Queen’s Conspirator divides the Fitzwarren brothers between the clandestine movement of Knox and open military service in the north. The plot reflects the mixture of deniable assistance, formal intervention and religious propaganda through which Elizabeth’s government approached the Scottish crisis.