AH Challenge: A Catholic Scotland

How can we get a Kingdom of Scotland that remains Catholic throughout the sixteenth century, and manages to suppress any significant reformist movement? Also, what implications and effects would this have?

The only requirements are: the POD must take place after the Battle of Flodden Field, which should be easy enough; and, the English Reformation must still take place under Henry VIII as in OTL.
 
This isn't actually that difficult and can be done with a very late PoD! Even after the Reformation of 1560 Scotland was a majority Catholic country and remained so for quite some time. It should have been feasible for Mary, Queen of Scots to restore Scotland to the Catholic faith once she returned from France in 1561 (she was a Catholic, after all) but, perhaps due to her desire not to scare the English into refusing to acknowledge her as heiress to the English throne, and possibly the influence of her half-brother the Earl of Moray, she made no real moves to reverse the Reformation.

The best PoD here is for Mary to accept the Earl of Huntly's offer to land at Aberdeen from France, have him raise an army for her and restore the Catholic Church, which should be quite possible as a lot of nobles from that part of the country were Catholic, and many others who were sitting on the fence would rally to the monarch's standard in this instance.

Keeping the country Catholic is a challenge, but if Mary doesn't balls-up as spectacularly as OTL, and forces the Scottish Church to reform, then it should be doable.
 
This isn't actually that difficult and can be done with a very late PoD! Even after the Reformation of 1560 Scotland was a majority Catholic country and remained so for quite some time. It should have been feasible for Mary, Queen of Scots to restore Scotland to the Catholic faith once she returned from France in 1561 (she was a Catholic, after all) but, perhaps due to her desire not to scare the English into refusing to acknowledge her as heiress to the English throne, and possibly the influence of her half-brother the Earl of Moray, she made no real moves to reverse the Reformation.

The best PoD here is for Mary to accept the Earl of Huntly's offer to land at Aberdeen from France, have him raise an army for her and restore the Catholic Church, which should be quite possible as a lot of nobles from that part of the country were Catholic, and many others who were sitting on the fence would rally to the monarch's standard in this instance.

Keeping the country Catholic is a challenge, but if Mary doesn't balls-up as spectacularly as OTL, and forces the Scottish Church to reform, then it should be doable.

How did the Scottish come to be reformed in the first place? What was Mary's role in the reformation?:confused:
 
Anti-French sentiment (when Mary was married to the French Dauphin Scotland was basically a French protectorate - the Regent was French and French troops were stationed in Edinburgh), a small group of influential Protestant nobles known as the Lords of the Congregation and a healthy degree of greed upon the part of many Scots nobles. Once French troops were withdrawn after the death of the Regent, Mary's mother Mary of Guise, a Parliament was called which outlawed Mass, removed the Pope's religious supremacy and enacted the Confession of Faith. These acts were never ratified by Mary and in fact only received royal assent once her son, James, came to the throne. So they were never technically in force during Mary's reign, but the Scots, unlike the English, were never too fussed about legal niceties.
 
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