Lennox’s side losing the two battles changed history

Arran – in common with the shifting loyalties of those times, by November, 1544, he was recorded as fighting alongside Arran at the siege of Coldingham.

The reason why the two battles of Glasgow in 1544 are so important for the history of Scotland and the UK is that they put paid to the immediate ambitions of the 4th Earl of Lennox to rule Scotland.

Had he and his allies won either or both battles, it is likely that he would have stayed in Scotland and probably have taken control of the government of the country just at a time when Henry VIII was about to launch the war we know as the Rough Wooing.

With Lennox so closely allied to the English king, the Rough Wooing would not have happened and it is probable that the marriage – agreed in the Treaty of Greenwich 1543 – between the young Mary Queen of Scots and future King Edward VI would have gone ahead as Henry planned, uniting the crowns of England and Scotland under English diktat more than half a century before the Union of the Crowns eventually took place.

Given Lennox’s adherence to Roman Catholicism, had he become the Regent or even King, the Reformation that was beginning to emerge in Scotland might also have been long delayed if not reversed altogether – he later promised to do just that when he returned from exile in England.

There is another reason why Lennox’s side losing the two battles changed history – as we have seen he returned briefly to his stronghold of Dumbarton Castle before heading south to Henry’s court. There the English