John Lindsay, 5th Lord Lindsay was made an Extraordinary Senator of the College of Justice on 27 June 1532. John, an Extraordinary Lord of Session in 1541, was present at the trials of Sir John Borthwick (for heresy) and James Hamilton of Finnart (for treason). John witnessed the death of James V at Falkland Palace. In 1543, John Lindsay and seven other lords took custody of the infant Mary, Queen of Scots, and conveyed her from Linlithgow Palace to Stirling Castle. 264. John was one of the commanders at the Scottish victory against England at the battle of Ancrum in 1545. During the Scottish Reformation,
Mary, Queen of Scots of Lennox, who were Scottish aristocrats as well as English landowners, had sent him to France ostensibly to extend their condolences while hoping for a potential match between their son and Mary. Both Mary and Darnley were grandchildren of Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII of England, and patrilineal descendants of the High Stewards of Scotland. Darnley shared a more recent Stewart lineage with the Hamilton family as a descendant of Mary Stewart, Countess of Arran, a daughter of James II of Scotland. They next met on Saturday 17 February 1565 at Wemyss Castle in Scotland, after which Mary fell