to reach the tower (M. D'Oysel to M. de Noailles in Teulet's Relations politiques de la France et de l'Espagne avec l'Écosse, i. 287–8).
In 1553 Halyburton had been elected provost of Dundee, a dignity he retained for thirty-three years. Dundee, owing to its intercourse with Germany, was one of the earliest towns in Scotland to become infected with Reformation principles (Knox, i. 61); and in command of the men of Dundee Halyburton played a prominent part in the ensuing contest with the queen-regent. In 1559 he was chosen by the reformed party one of the lords of the congregation as representing the boroughs (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1559–1560, entry 120). As provost of Dundee he was requested by the queen-regent to apprehend the reformer Paul Methuen, who had been preaching in that town, but instead of doing so he ‘gave secret advertisement to the man to avoid the town for a time’ (Knox, i. 317). He was one of the leaders whom the Earl of Argyll and Lord James Stuart, after their failure to come to terms with the queen-regent, summoned to meet them at St. Andrews on 4 June 1559 ‘for Reformation to be made there’ (ib. p. 347). With the men of Dundee he joined the forces which shortly afterwards barred the queen-regent's march towards St. Andrews; and the other lords having on account of his military experience delegated to him the disposition of the forces, he posted the hurried musters from Fifeshire and Forfarshire in such a skilful position on Cupar Muir as to command the whole surrounding country (ib. p. 351). The queen-regent, thus finding her immediate purpose baffled, agreed to a truce of eight days, and promised to retire ‘incontinent to Falkland,’ to dismiss the French soldiers from her service, and to send a commission to consider final terms of agreement between her and the lords of the congregation. As she showed no signs of fulfilling the conditions of the ‘assurance,’ Halyburton, in command of the men of Dundee, again took up arms to assist the reformers in delivering Perth from the French soldiers. When at Perth he, along with his brother, Alexander Halyburton, and John Knox, made strenuous but vain exertions to restrain the men of Dundee, who had special reasons for taking revenge on the Bishop of Moray, from destroying the palace and abbey of Scone on 25 and 26 June (ib. pp. 360–1). Subsequently he assisted in the defence of Edinburgh, and in October, having, in command of the men of Dundee, ‘passed forth of the town with some great ordnance to shoot at Leith,’ was surprised by the French while at dinner, and compelled to retreat, leaving the ordnance in their hands (ib. p. 457). In a second skirmish on 5 Nov. his brother, Captain Alexander Halyburton (sometimes confounded with him), was slain. The provost of Dundee was one of the commissioners who met the Duke of Norfolk at Berwick to arrange the conditions on which assistance might be obtained from Elizabeth (ib. ii. 56; Calderwood, i. 581), and he signed the ‘last band at Leith’ for ‘setting forward the reformation of religion.’ He was also one of the lords of the congregation who on 27 Jan. 1560–1 signed the first Book of Discipline (Knox, ii. 257).
He was chosen in 1563 to represent Dundee in parliament, and was elected to all subsequent conventions and parliaments down to 1581 (Forster, Members of the Parliament of Scotland, p. 168). By the parliament of 1563 he was chosen one of a commission to administer the Act of Oblivion; and the following year was one of a committee appointed by the general assembly to present certain articles to the lords of the secret council in reference to the ‘abolition of idolatry,’ especially the mass. Being, along with others of the extreme section of reformers, strongly opposed to the marriage of Mary with the catholic Lord Darnley, he joined the Earl of Moray in his attempt to promote a rebellion, and after the ‘roundabout raid’ took refuge in England (Calderwood, ii. 294). On 2 Aug. 1565 he was required to enter into ward (Reg. P. C. Scotl. i. 348), and on the 27th he was denounced as a rebel (ib. p. 357). In all probability he returned to Scotland with Moray about the time of the murder of Rizzio. On 23 March 1566–7 he received a pension of 500l. for his important military services to his country, especially in resisting the invasion of England (ib. p. 501). This pension was subsequently increased, and was ordered to be paid out of the thirds of the abbey of Scone (ib. ii. 112). Halyburton was present on 29 July 1567 at the coronation of the infant prince at Stirling. He was one of ‘the lords of secrete counsale and uthers, barons and men of judgement,’ who on 4 Dec. 1567 had under consideration the casket letters preparatory to the meeting of parliament (Murdin, State Papers, p. 455). He also took part in the battle of Langside on 30 May of the following year. In the jeu d'esprit published after the regent Moray's assassination, in which the regent is represented as holding a conference with the six men of the world ‘he believed most into,’ to obtain their advice for his advancement and standing, Halyburton, being famed as a soldier, is represented as advising him to make himself ‘strong with waged men both horse and foot’ (published in vol. i. of the Bannatyne Club Collections; in Richard Bannatyne's
