John Cockburn of Ormiston

[2] John Cockburn was a prominent Protestant and also on good terms with England, having a licence to trade there during the war of the Rough Wooing.

John Knox was tutor to one of his sons, and the Protestant preacher and martyr George Wishart was arrested by James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, the Sheriff of Haddingtonshire, at his House of Ormiston on 16 January 1546.

Soon after on the same night, soldiers of the Governor of Scotland, Regent Arran, arrived to arrest John, his nephew Sandilands of Calder, and Alexander Crichton of Brunstane.

In January 1548, William Patten published the names of John Cockburn and 36 other Scottish lairds and gentleman who had sworn an oath on 23 September 1547 to be loyal to Edward VI of England as "Assured Scots".

Ormiston and Brunstane waited for an opportunity to capture Edinburgh Castle and deliver Regent Arran and the Bishop of Dunkeld to the English.

[5] They wrote jointly to John Luttrell, the English commander of Broughty Castle on 17 January 1548 asking him to allow fishermen from Crail to supply them.

[13] During the crisis of the Scottish Reformation, John, laird of Ormiston took his followers to face the French troops at Cupar Muir in June 1559.

Ormiston rode to Berwick upon Tweed and carried £1,000 or 6,000 crowns from England to aid their fight against French troops in Scotland .

[15] The English diplomat Thomas Randolph asked Mary to make a full re-instatement of John as laird of Ormiston in 1562.

Randolph spent a day at Ormiston on 30 December 1562, while Mary was at Dunbar Castle with her half-brother John Stewart, Commendator of Coldingham, and wrote a letter to his master, William Cecil, while he was there.

[17] Two contemporary sources state that John Cockburn came to support Queen Mary and Bothwell at the battle of Carberry Hill in 1567.