Acts of the Scottish Parliament of August 1560

The Parliament met at Edinburgh in the summer of 1560, while Mary, Queen of Scots, was in France. On 17 August it ratified the Scots Confession. On 24 August it passed three acts: one declaring that the bishop of Rome has no jurisdiction or authority in the realm; one annulling earlier acts of Parliament not agreeing with God’s word and contrary to the Confession; and one forbidding anyone to say or hear mass, on pain of confiscation of goods and bodily punishment for a first offence, banishment for a second and death for a third.

The editors of the modern edition note that these three acts are not found in the contemporary printed record of the Parliament. They take the text from the Parliament of December 1567, held in the name of James VI with the advice of the regent Moray, which recited and ratified them; John Knox also copies two of them into his the History of the Reformation of Religion within the Realm of Scotland. Knox reports that opponents called the assembly of 1560 a pretended Parliament, because the king and queen were in France, and that the sovereigns sent back no ratification.