According to John Knox, Patrick Lindsay took up arms in May 1559 to prevent Perth falling into the hands of the Regent Mary of Guise after the riots of the Scottish Reformation.
[1] After he helped negotiate a treaty with the Regent's forces commanded by Henri Cleutin at Cupar Muir, Patrick had a share in the expulsion of the French garrison from Perth.
He was one of those deputed by the General Assembly on 28 May 1561 to suppress "Idolatrie and all monuments thereof," and when Mary, Queen of Scots arrived from France in August 1561, and made known her intention of having mass said in her private chapel at Holyroodhouse, he and his followers gathered in front of it, exclaiming that "the idolater priest should die the death.
Thomas Randolph wrote to Cecil from St. Andrews on 25 April 1562, "It would well have contented your honour, to have seen the queen and the Master of Lindsay shoot at the butts against the Earl of Moray (as Lord James had become) and one of the ladies."
At the battle of Carberry Hill on 15 June 1567 he asked the Confederate lords to permit him to accept Bothwell's challenge to single combat "in regard of his nearness of blood to the defunct king."
The Earl of Morton presented him with the famous two-handed sword of his ancestor Archibald Bell-the-Cat,[14] but the queen's interference prevented the encounter.
"[17] James Melville of Halhill wrote that Mary was told that Lindsay was in a "boasting humour" before his arrival, and that she signed the document without demur.
[19] On the 29 July, immediately before James VI of Scotland was crowned at Stirling's Holy Rude Kirk, Lindsay and Lord Ruthven declared their oath that Mary had "resigned willingly without compulsion.
"[21] After Mary's escape from Lochleven, Lindsay fought against her at Langside, and by reinforcing the right wing of the Regent's army as it was about to give way turned the tide of the battle.
[25] On the last day of the same month, he also intercepted at Wemyss a quantity of gold sent by order of Queen Mary with John Chisholm for the defenders of the castle, from her dowry out of France.
"[30] Lindsay followed this advice until the conclusion of the siege; but after its surrender he made unsuccessful efforts to induce Morton to spare the life of his old companion-in-arms, Kirkcaldy of Grange.
It was to Lindsay and Ruthven that the castle of Edinburgh was surrendered on 1 April 1578, and he was chosen one of the council in whom the administration of affairs was vested till the meeting of parliament.
On his return he took part in the Gowrie conspiracy in 1584, and was committed to Tantallon Castle, but on the fall of James Stewart, Earl of Arran in November obtained his release.
By his wife Euphemia Douglas, eldest daughter of Robert Douglas of Lochleven and Margaret Erskine, and sister uterine of the Regent Moray, he had a son, James Lindsay, 7th Lord Lindsay, and two daughters: Margaret, married to James Leslie, Master of Rothes, and Maulslie, married to William Ballingall of Ballingull.