Edinburgh
Capital of Scotland. The Parliament that met here in 1560 ratified the Scots Confession and abolished the pope’s jurisdiction and the mass, and here John Knox preached and confronted Mary, Queen of Scots.
Edinburgh stands on the south shore of the Firth of Forth, with its port at Leith. The Parliament held here from July 1560 ratified the Scots Confession on 17 August and a week later ended the pope’s jurisdiction in Scotland (Records of the Parliaments of Scotland A1560/8/3–4). Nobles signed the Book of Discipline in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh the following January (Knox, History of the Reformation vol. 2, p. 129). When Mary, Queen of Scots landed at Leith in 1561 she went up the same evening to the palace of Holyroodhouse beside the abbey, where mass was said for her in the chapel (Knox, History of the Reformation vol. 2, pp. 269–270). See the Scottish Reformation.
What happened here
- August 1560, firm dateThe Scottish Reformation
In August 1560 the Scottish Parliament, meeting while its Catholic queen is in France, ratifies a Protestant confession of faith written by John Knox and his colleagues, ends the pope’s jurisdiction and forbids the mass.
- 14–23 June 1910, firm dateThe World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh
About 1,200 delegates of missionary societies, most of them from Britain, North America and continental Europe, meet at Edinburgh in June 1910 to consider the evangelisation of the non-Christian world, and appoint a Continuation Committee to carry the work on.