Mary, Queen of Scots the Scottish alliance with France. Beaton wanted to move Mary away from the coast to the safety of Stirling Castle. Regent Arran resisted the move, but backed down when Beaton's armed supporters gathered at Linlithgow. The Earl of Lennox escorted Mary and her mother to Stirling on 27 July 1543 with 3,500 armed men. Mary was crowned in the castle chapel on 9 September 1543, with "such solemnity as they do use in this country, which is not very costly" according to the report of Ralph Sadler and Henry Ray. Shortly before Mary's coronation, Scottish merchants headed for France were
St Andrews Castle Referring to the bottle dungeon the Scottish reformer, John Knox, wrote, "Many of God's Children were imprisoned here." In 1521 James Beaton, then Archbishop of Glasgow, won the seat of St Andrews and took up residence in the castle. Beaton altered the defences to enable the castle to withstand a heavy artillery attack, which was a threat as tensions grew between English Protestants and Scottish Catholics. In 1538 James Beaton was succeeded by his ambitious and wealthy nephew, Cardinal David Beaton. His strong opposition to the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots, with Prince Edward (later King Edward VI), the