IT is one of the maddening aspects of Scottish history that even people who were writing about Scotland at the time were often inaccurate or just plain biased in their accounts. Well, when you see what the BBC does to daily “facts” and footage, you can understand why not every page of ancient Scottish history is the whole truth. What follows is the best surmise I can make of the Battles of Glasgow in 1544, based on records which I have to admit are dubious.

Last week we saw how Matthew Stewart, the 4th Earl of Lennox, lost the first Battle of Glasgow in March 1544, and went back to his stronghold of Dumbarton Castle – he may never have left Dumbarton, according to some reports. The forces of James Hamilton, the 2nd Earl of Arran and the then regent of Scotland during the infancy of Mary, Queen of Scots, duly laid siege to Glasgow Castle, also known as the Bishop’s Castle, which was garrisoned by men loyal to Lennox.

They surrendered, and Arran promptly had 18 of them hanged in public to show what loyalty to Lennox cost – treasury accounts of the time show expenditure on a gallows at the Tolbooth.

One later chronicler recorded: “On 1st April, 1544, the governour (Arran), the cardinall (Beaton), the erllis of Argyle and Bothwell, with mony utheris lordis, convenit be oppin (open) proclamatioun at Glasgow and saigit the castle thairof and stepill (steeple), quhilk was keipiit be the erle of Lennox and his complices, quhairat was great slauchter, quhilk was given over be the said erle. Thair wer hangit xviii. (18) men, by the governour, as traitouris.”

Henry VIII’s forces landed on the east coast and burned much of Edinburgh in early May, 1544, and it was perhaps this beginning of the Rough Wooing which inspired Lennox and Glencairn to have another tilt at Arran and his army which was now split between east and west coast.

The second Battle of Glasgow took place on either May 24 or 25, 1544, and is sometimes known as the Battle of the Butts as it appears to have taken place near the shooting practice butts to the east of what is now Gallowgate in the city.

It has to be emphasised that there is still dispute over whether this was indeed the “Battle of the Butts” or what precisely occurred, but chronicles agree that Glencairn led the Lennox forces. We know for certain that Glencairn had recruited men of the Loch Lomondside clan McFarlane and these warriors showed their loyalty to the Stewart Earl of Lennox by regrouping to fight again.

Frustratingly we can only guess at what transpired, but it appears that Arran used his artillery wisely and scattered Glencairn’s forces who were mostly from Glasgow and what is now West Dunbartonshire. Though they stood their ground a for a time, the beaten army certainly retreated in that westward direction pursued by Arran.

As the chronicler recounts after the “cruellie” fighting: “At last the earle of Glencairne with his company fled, and the said erlis sone, callit Androw, (Andrew Cunningham) was slane, with many utheris of that pairtie.

“On the governouris pairtie was slane the laird of Colmiskeith (John Hamilton), his maister houshald, with twelf uther small men, and thairefter the said governour (Arran) past to the toun of Glasgow and spoulzeit the samyne and left littill thairin.”

Within days, Lennox embarked from Dumbarton to sail to England and exile, though he would fight for the English during the Rough Wooing. Glencairn stayed and made peace with Arran – in common with the shifting loyalties of those times, by November, 1544, he was recorded as fighting alongside Arran at the siege of Coldingham.

The reason why the two battles of Glasgow in 1544 are so important for the history of Scotland and the UK is that they put paid to the immediate ambitions of the 4th Earl of Lennox to rule Scotland.

Had he and his allies won either or both battles, it is likely that he would have stayed in Scotland and probably have taken control of the government of the country just at a time when Henry VIII was about to launch the war we know as the Rough Wooing.

With Lennox so closely allied to the English king, the Rough Wooing would not have happened and it is probable that the marriage – agreed in the Treaty of Greenwich 1543 – between the young Mary Queen of Scots and future King Edward VI would have gone ahead as Henry planned, uniting the crowns of England and Scotland under English diktat more than half a century before the Union of the Crowns eventually took place.

Given Lennox’s adherence to Roman Catholicism, had he become the Regent or even King, the Reformation that was beginning to emerge in Scotland might also have been long delayed if not reversed altogether – he later promised to do just that when he returned from exile in England.

There is another reason why Lennox’s side losing the two battles changed history – as we have seen he returned briefly to his stronghold of Dumbarton Castle before heading south to Henry’s court. There the English king had already approved Lennox’s marriage to his niece Lady Margaret Douglas, the daughter of Henry’s sister Margaret Tudor, the former Queen Consort of King James IV and the then wife of Archibald Douglas, the 6th Earl of Angus.

Lennox and Lady Margaret were married on July 10, 1544, and either late the following year or in early 1546, Margaret gave birth to Henry, Lord Darnley, who married Mary, Queen of Scots and fathered James VI and I who united the crowns in 1603. Would any of this have happened had Lennox won at Glasgow and taken over Scotland?

So the Battles of Glasgow should not be considered mere afterthoughts in the history of that troublesome period.

Glasgow has always played a significant part in Scottish history and from next week I will be embarking on the most ambitious history project ever attempted by a Glasgow-based newspaper.

Over the next year or so, I will be writing each week what will amount to nothing less than a comprehensive history of this great city from the earliest times to the present day. As I have promised, I will try to make it as readable and accurate as possible, and it will be no hagiography but a warts-and-all account of the extraordinary history of this dear green place.

I will start at the very beginning, with the man with two names who founded Glasgow – Saint Mungo, a.k.a. Saint Kentigern.