John Cockburn, (d. 1583) laird of Ormiston, East Lothian, Scotland, was an early supporter of the Scottish Reformation. He was the eldest son of William Cockburn of Ormiston and Janet Somerville. John was usually called "Ormiston." During his lifetime there was also a laird of Ormiston in Teviotdale near Eckford, an ally of the rival Hepburn family.
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A Scottish Protestant in the Rough Wooing
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. He was pardoned for communing with the English during Lord Hertford's expedition in 1544. 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. After negotiation Bothwell took Wishart away to nearby Elphinstone Castle. 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. Brunstane escaped but his two companions were imprisoned at Edinburgh Castle. John escaped from the castle one morning by going over the wall.