ABSTRACT

THE POLITICAL VICTORY OF 1560 decided that Scotland was to be Protestant. Because it had been won by the nobles, and by a narrow margin, it made imperative personal and institutional moderation. The nobles did not want to tear up the existing fabric of the Church-far too many of their dependents were supported by it for this to be tolerable-but they wished to see Protestantism preached and practised. Even before the fighting finished, a committee of the clergy was drawing up the blueprint of the new Church. In a short time it produced an outline of the Book of Discipline. When Parliament met in August 1560 with a dominant Protestant membership which included for once a sizeable group of lesser landowners, it accepted a Protestant Confession of Faith, Calvinist in doctrine and English in language, and forbade the mass and all papal authority. But the Book of Discipline when completed was to be too drastic for the nobility.