of ‘all places and monuments of idolatry’ in the west, in which designation were included the abbeys of Paisley, Fulfurd, Kilwinning, and Crossraguel, which were ruthlessly demolished.
After the arrival of Queen Mary in Scotland in 1561, Glencairn was among those elected members of her privy council, but he never went so far as Argyll and Lord James Stuart in his toleration of her papal practices. Influenced by the representations of Knox to some of the nobility in the west of Scotland, as to the dangers which he feared were shortly to follow, Glencairn, with the barons and gentlemen of the district, assembled in September 1562 at Ayr, where they signed a bond for the defence of the protestant religion (Knox, Works, ii. 348). Though Glencairn, with the other reformers, was strongly opposed to the marriage of the queen with Darnley in 1565 (Melville, Memoirs, p. 135), he did not, like Moray and Argyll, immediately take up arms, but was present at the ceremony, and at the banquet which followed attended on the king. Nevertheless, on 15 Aug. he joined the insurgent lords at Ayr (Knox, Works, ii. 496), and accompanied Moray when, on the last day of August, he entered Edinburgh at the head of six hundred horse (Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 82). The movement proved abortive, and they left the city about midnight on 1 Sept. (ib. 82). On 6 Sept. Glencairn was summoned to appear before the queen at St. Andrews within six days (Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, i. 365), and as he failed to appear he was on 1 Dec. declared guilty of the crime of lese majesty (ib. i. 409). Glencairn went to Berwick, but early in the following year returned to his own country (Knox, Works, ii. 520), and was in Edinburgh at the time of the murder of Rizzio. After the murder he was among the first of the lords to join the queen at Dunbar (Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 94). Glencairn's name was not attached to the document signed by the lords in Ainslie's tavern 20 April 1567 in favour of a marriage between Bothwell and Mary after the murder of Darnley (see document in Calderwood's History, ii. 352–4), for he was not in Edinburgh at the time. The original document was destroyed, and the list given in the copies is not authentic. On the contrary, he was from this time one of the persistent and unrelenting opponents of the queen. He declined after the marriage to sign a bond to defend the queen and Bothwell and all their deeds (ib. 358), and at Stirling signed the bond to defend the young prince from the murderers of his father (Knox, Works, ii. 556). He held high command in the army of the insurgents under the Earl of Morton, and when, before the battle of Carberry Hill, the French ambassador came from the queen promising pardon to those in arms if they would disperse, Glencairn answered that ‘they came not in arms to crave pardon for any offence, but rather to give pardon to such as had offended’ (Calderwood, History, ii. 363). A few days after Mary was committed to Lochleven, Glencairn with his domestics made an attack on the royal chapel at Holyrood (where Mary had been accustomed to have the Romish service performed), demolishing the altar and destroying the ornaments and images. This excess of zeal, though it gave much satisfaction to the ecclesiastics, was condemned even by those of the nobility who were not adherents of the queen (Spotiswood, History of the Church of Scotland, ii. 63). At the coronation of the king in the following July at Stirling, Glencairn carried the sword (Historie of James the Sext, p. 17). On the escape of Mary from Lochleven in May 1568 Glencairn marshalled his followers with great rapidity, and at the battle of Langside he commanded one of the divisions (Calderwood, History, ii. 415). After Mary's flight to England he was on 19 May appointed with Lord Semple lieutenant of the west (Register of the Privy Council, i. 625). Glencairn was taken prisoner at Stirling in September 1571, when the regent Lennox was shot, but was among those rescued by the sally of Captain Crawford (Bannatyne, Memorials, p. 184). He was one of the most frequent visitors of Knox on his deathbed (ib. 286). On 24 Nov., the day of Knox's death, he was nominated along with Morton for the regency, but Morton had a considerable majority of votes (Calderwood, History, iii. 243). Glencairn died on 23 Nov. 1574 (Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 342). By his first wife, Lady Johanna Hamilton, youngest daughter of James, first earl of Arran, he had two sons (William, who succeeded him in the peerage, and James, who became prior of Lesmahagow) and a daughter. He divorced his first wife, and was married a second time to Janet, daughter of Sir John Cunningham of Caprington, by whom he had a son, Alexander, commendator of Kilwinning, and a daughter, Janet, married first to Archibald, fifth earl of Argyll, and secondly to Humphry Colquhoun of Luss.
