This thesis explores the confessionalization of Scotland's initial reformation through two parts: the Lords of Congregations' illegal religious settlement and Mary Stuart's responding accommodation strategy. Finally, the confessionalization paradigm is applied to the specific circumstances, expanding applicability of the theory while exposing blind spots.
Chapter Three: "Permission...Not Law"
Abstract: Scotland's initial reformation was distinctive among early modern confessional settlements: a Protestant establishment built by a noble coalition yet governed by a Catholic queen. This paper views this period through the confessionalization paradigm, arguing that the settlement's character was the joint work of two parties with opposed confessional aims. Though the Lords of the Congregation advanced Protestant confessionalization substantially, their settlement remained constitutively incomplete, lacking royal support and ratification. Mary Stuart, holding the authority they lacked, shaped the reformation’s character not by intervening but by withholding that assent while declining Catholic assistance from Rome, France, and Spain that she, and her contemporaries, viewed as feasible. Neither party alone produced Scotland’s confessional trajectory: a third type, neither mono- nor bi-confessional, with a devout Catholic monarch ruling a Protestant establishment under which Catholic worship persisted. That a Catholic queen shaped a reformation through restraint and accommodation exposes a blind spot in a paradigm built around male princes, whose power is assumed to be active and overt. Scotland's case, I argue, widens that paradigm to admit a figure it was never built to see: the dissenting Catholic queen who confessionalizes by what she declines to do.
Chapter Two - "The Queen's Accommodation"
Abstract: Between 1561 and 1567, Mary Stuart governed Protestant Scotland while maintaining her Catholic faith, an unprecedented situation in Reformation Europe. Historians have characterized her “inaction” during this period as evidence of weakness or indecision, but this interpretation misjudges her aim and character. Rather than pass\ively accepting Protestant dominance, Mary’s decisions reflect deliberate strategies of accommodation aimed at peace and stability in a confessionally transformed kingdom. She ultimately achieved this goal: Scotland did not experience internal religious warfare during her personal rule, contrasting with contemporary conflicts in England and France. By recentering her agency and challenging gendered interpretations, this study argues that Mary’s reign offers an alternative model of early modern religious governance – prioritizing stability over uniformity – and demonstrates that inaction can constitute action.