page_title: Ninian Cockburn
section_title: Officer of the Scots Guard
hierarchical_section_title: Ninian Cockburn / Officer of the Scots Guard
context_page_description: Ninian Cockburn was a Scottish soldier and officer of the Garde Écossaise, a company which guarded the French king. He had an ambiguous role in political relations between Scotland, France and England during the war of the Rough Wooing and the Scottish Reformation.
context_section_description: The Scottish diplomat James Melville of Halhill recorded his meeting at St Germain en Laye with Ninian in 1553, now a Captain of Horse in the French king's guard. Mary of Guise was about to become Regent of Scotland in place of Regent Arran, and Ninian brought news from Scotland of the opinion of her political enemy John Hamilton, now Archbishop of St Andrews, who had been ill when Arran discussed relinquishing his powers to her. The Archbishop had recovered due to the care of the Italian physician Gerolamo Cardano. Melville was not pleased by Ninian's intervention and called him a "busy meddler." Melville described how Ninian tried to use him as an interpreter in an interview with Anne de Montmorency, Constable of France, and pretended Melville was his nephew. Melville conveyed his reluctance to proceed to the Constable and he dismissed Ninian from his presence in his cabinet in the Château before the tale was told. In December 1553, Montmorency received a very similar report of Arran and the Archbishop's intentions to retain Edinburgh Castle and Dumbarton Castle, sent by the ambassador, Antoine de Noailles, who had heard it from a banished Scotsmen in London.
  In May 1557 Mary, Queen of Scots wrote to her mother from the Château of Villers-Cotterêts on behalf of "le Cappitaine Cokborne." Ninian urgently needed to return to Scotland to conclude a property transaction with Alexander Aitchison and John Sinclair. The lands concerned at "Gosfenot" had been occupied by French forces during the war with England. However, as Ninian was fully occupied in the king's service, Mary hoped the Queen Regent would settle the matter. ("Gosfenot" was perhaps near Gosford House at Longniddry).
  During the crisis of the Scottish Reformation, Ninian's brother John, laird of Ormiston was involved in a major setback for the Protestant Lords of the Congregation. Ormiston carried £1,000 or 6,000 crowns from England to aid their fight against French troops in Scotland on 31 October 1559. The Earl of Bothwell ambushed him and after a sword fight captured the money. This caused diplomatic embarrassment as the English were caught out aiding Mary of Guise's rebels.
  The English ambassador in Paris Nicholas Throckmorton considered sending Ninian to spy on the French at the siege of Leith in May 1560. Throckmorton described Ninian’s rewards as an officer of the Scots Guard. He was a gentleman archer with a salary of 800 Francs, and was lord of the manor of Themis (or Captain of Feismes Castle) with an income of another 800 Francs. As an officer of the Guard, he commanded a company of 100 horsemen. Usefully, Ninian’s wife, Elizabeth Kemp, was an attendant in the Privy Chamber of Mary, Queen of Scots in France.  Throckmorton wanted Ninian to assume the name "Beaumont," and thereafter he continued to sign his letters to William Cecil as "George Beaumont."
  On 22 and 23 June 1560, Ninian (as Beaumont) met Thomas Gresham at Antwerp. He told Gresham the French ambassador was planning on behalf of Francis II of France to write to James Hamilton, 3rd Earl of Arran, who had been commander of the Scot's Guard. Arran would be offered the Crown of Scotland and the withdrawal of French troops if he abandoned the plan for him to marry Elizabeth I of England
caption: Nicholas Throckmorton gave Ninian the codename "George Beaumont"
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