Timeline of Edinburgh History - Sixteenth Century

Sixteenth Century

1500: Edinburgh pays 60% of Scotland's customs revenue; Waulkers craft granted Seal of Cause; c.1500 Candlemakers receive Seal of Cause

1501-5: James IV builds Holyrood Palace

1503: James IV marries Margaret Tudor

1505: Barber surgeons form incorporation - later becomes Royal College of Surgeons

1507: James IV grants a patent for the first printing press in Scotland to Walter Chepman and Androw Myllar

1508: James IV charter allows first feuing of the burgh muir

1510: Edinburgh purchases Newhaven from the Crown

1512: Launching of the "Great Michael" at Newhaven

1513: Defeat at Flodden leads to a new southern wall being begun

1520: "Cleanse the Causey" (30 April); pitched battle on the High Street between the Douglas and Hamilton clans leads to the Earl of Angus (Douglas) seizing control of the city; Edinburgh is the "seat of courts of justice"

1523: City has fourteen craft guilds

1528: James V enters city with an army, to assert his right to rule; Holyrood Palace is extended

c.1528–c.1542: printing in Edinburgh re-established under royal license granted to Thomas Davidson

1530: There are 288 brewers, mostly "alewives", in the city, one for every forty people; Bonnetmakers craft receives Seal of Cause

1532: The Court of Session is established

1534: Norman Gourlay and David Stratton are burnt as heretics

1535–1556: Edinburgh contributes over 40% of Scotland's burgh taxation

1537: Jane Douglas is burnt at the stake

c.1540: Magdalen Chapel built in the Cowgate

1542: Cardinal Beaton is chosen as chief ruler of the city council

1544: Earl of Hertford burns the city, including Holyrood Palace and Abbey

1547: Scottish army defeated by an English army at the battle of Pinkie six miles east of Edinburgh; the routed Scots are pursued as far as Holyrood outside the town walls

1550: John Napier of Merchiston, discoverer of logarithms, born

1558: Reformers destroy Blackfriars Monastery and Church; the Flodden Wall is completed; Edinburgh's population is about 12,000; there are 367 merchants, and 400 craftsmen

1559: Town Council appoints John Knox minister at St. Giles

1560: English and French troops withdraw under Treaty of Edinburgh; Scottish Reformation Parliament held

1561: Mary, Queen of Scots returns to Scotland

1562: St. Giles' churchyard having reached its capacity, Mary, Queen of Scots grants the town the use of the grounds of the Greyfriars as a new burial ground; Convenery of the Trades of Edinburgh established

1565: Mary, Queen of Scots, marries Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley; the beheading machine known as "The Maiden" is introduced for executions

1566: David Rizzio is stabbed to death and Mary is held captive in Holyrood Palace by Scottish nobles

1567: Darnley is assassinated at the Kirk o' Field; the prime suspect James Hepburn is cleared of the murder

1569: The city is hit by an outbreak of the plague

1571: Netherbow Port rebuilt

1573: The Marian civil war is concluded when "the Queen's Men" are ousted from the castle by the Regent Morton

1574: The castle's Half-Moon Battery is built; there are seven mills in Edinburgh

1579: James VI makes his state entry

1580s: There are some 400 merchants in Edinburgh

1581: James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton is executed for complicity in the murder of Lord Darnley

1582: The University of Edinburgh is founded and given a royal charter – it is the fourth university in Scotland

1583: Edinburgh, previously a single parish, divided into four parishes, each with its own minister; There are an estimated 500 merchants and 500 craftsmen in the city, of which 250 are tailors

1588: 736 merchants and 717 craftsmen enlisted for defence of the town against the Spanish Armada threat

1590: First paper mill in Scotland opens in Dalry

c.1590: Riddle's Court, off the Lawnmarket, built by Bailie John McMorran, reputedly Edinburgh's richest merchant

1591: Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell escapes from imprisonment in the castle

1592: The presbytery takes the first Edinburgh census: there are 8,003 adults, split evenly between north and south of the High Street; 45 per cent of the employed (4,360) are domestic servants in households of the legal and merchant professions and town houses of the landed class

1593: Earl of Bothwell take over at Holyrood Palace

1594: Earl of Bothwell fails to seize city

1595: Bailie John McMorran shot dead during an occupation by scholars of the Grammar School in High School Yards

1596: Clergy demand arms to defend King and Church against "papists"; Society of Brewers formed