Events relating to the reformation

Mary Queen of Scots returns from France to Edinburgh, and to an inevitable clash with John Knox

The Book of Common Prayer and the New Testament are published in Welsh, to be followed by the complete Bible in 1588

Pope Pius V excommunicates the English queen, Elizabeth I, causing a severe crisis of loyalty for her Catholic subjects

A shipload of Puritans, among them some of the future Pilgrim Fathers, sail from Boston in Lincolnshire to seek religious freedom in Holland

A National Covenant, first signed in an Edinburgh churchyard, commits the Covenanters to oppose Charles I's reforms of the Church of Scotland

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