Evidence from Moray, an area outside the heartland of radical ‘fervencie’, argues that the reach of the reform movement in Scotland was indeed broad, and assists with an answer to the question as to ‘how this Protestant minority was able to impose such profound religous change so rapidly through the country.’ This article explores what is known of precursors to the reformation in the province, seeking to show that, while ambiguity must be acknowledged, the changes after 1560 were not entirely unheralded. It has long been recognised that ‘the determining factor in any area in promoting the reformed faith was the attitude of the local lairds’, so the connections – by kindred, bonding and marriage – between Moray's intricate networks of landowning families and the national brokers of power are explored. This article is concerned primarily with the lairds, the burgesses and the clergy of Moray rather than with the people of the rural parishes. Moray's history during the reformation period also illustrates the negotiation, both of contingencies and between factions, that the process of change involved.
The province of Moray, in the north of Scotland and on the fringe of the Gaelic highlands, is not noted for any early support for Protestantism though, after 1560 Moray's churches were staffed, in so far as they were staffed, with a conforming ministry. The General Assembly's commissioner in the province, 1563–74, was Mr Robert Pont, one of the ‘most eminent’ ministers of the early reformed church. His role in ‘planting kirks’, however, has not previously been assessed by studies of the Reformation in his province. This article reviews what can be gathered of the development of a reformed ministry in the burghs and parishes of Moray during Pont's time in the region.
John Erskine of Dun has recently been pigeon-holed as a ‘Lutheran’; his patterns of thought sharply distinguished from those of his colleague, John Knox. The aim of this paper is to re-examine the theological contexts of this neglected yet crucial Scots reformer and laird. His was a career of particular interest, combining the spheres of lairdly politics and leadership in the reformed Kirk. Besides, an active lifespan of sixty and more years was not given to many in the sixteenth century. John Erskine, laird of the barony of Dun in Angus (between Brechin and Montrose), in addition to enjoying an unusually long life, (born c. 1509: died 1589/90) is also distinguished by his capacity for political survival. One who was never to be so closely connected with the various political factions as to fall with them in their turn, he was rarely so far from the centre of power as to be endangered by any lack of influential friends. To this intricate personal balancing-act was added the further complication of a genuine search for God that brought him to a protestant faith at a date when such beliefs were both heretical and criminal, and later to a belief in the independent jurisdiction of the church at a time when successive governments of Scotland were attempting to assert their authority in ecclesiastical matters.
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