John Porterfield was a Scottish

Kingdom of Scotland

The Kingdom of Scotland was a Sovereign state in North-West Europe that existed from 843 until 1707. It occupied the northern third of the island of Great Britain and shared a land border to the south with the Kingdom of England...

 prelate in the sixteenth-century. A mysterious figure, he emerges in 1571 as the successor to James Beaton II as Archbishop of Glasgow

Archbishop of Glasgow

The Bishop of Glasgow, from 1492 Archbishop of Glasgow, was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Glasgow and then, as Archbishop of Glasgow, the Archdiocese of Glasgow...

. He was described by Robert Keith

Robert Keith (historian)

Robert Keith was a Scottish Episcopal bishop and historian.-Life:Born at Uras in Kincardineshire, Scotland, on 7 February 1681, he was the second son of Alexander Keith and Marjory Keith . He was educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen between 1695 and 1699; graduating with an A.M...

 as "a kind of titular bishop", propped up by the establishment for nominal purposes during a period of disorder. Porterfield probably held on to the archbishopric into 1572, but he disappeared from the records thereafter. In late 1573 James Boyd became new Archbishop of Glasgow. Porterfield is possibly the same as the John Porterfield, minister of Ayr

Ayr

Ayr is a town and port situated on the Firth of Clyde in south-west Scotland. With a population of around 46,000, Ayr is the largest settlement in Ayrshire, of which it is the county town, and has held royal burgh status since 1205...

, who died in 1604.