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,
Crichton Castle and captured by the Earl of Arran on 3 November 1560. The castle was the scene of the marriage and wedding festivities, on 4 January 1562, of Patrick's daughter Jean (d. before July 1599) and her first husband, John Stewart, Lord Darnley, Prior of Coldingham, and illegitimate son of King James V. John Stewart's half-sister Mary, Queen of Scots, spent a few nights at the castle while attending this wedding. The Earl of Bothwell was implicated in February 1567 in the murder of Queen Mary's husband Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, and became Mary's third husband in May of that year.