July 29, 1565: Mary I, Queen of Scots marries Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, Duke of Albany

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Crown Matrimonial, David Rizzo, Earl of Lennox, François II of France, Henry Stuart, James VI of Scotland, Lord Darnley, Mary I of Scotland, Mary Queen of Scots

Queen Mary I of Scotland was born on December 8, 1542 at Linlithgow Palace, Scotland, to King James V and his French second wife, Marie of Guise. She was said to have been born prematurely and was the only legitimate child of James to survive him.

She was the great-niece of King Henry VIII of England, as her paternal grandmother, Margaret Tudor, was Henry VIII’s older sister. On December 14, six days after her birth, she became Queen of Scotland when her father died, following the Battle of Solway Moss from drinking contaminated water while on campaign.

In 1548, she was betrothed to François, the Dauphin of France, and was sent to be brought up in France, where she would be safe from invading English forces during the Rough Wooing.

Mary married François in 1558, becoming queen consort of France from his accession in 1559 until his death in December 1560. Widowed, Mary returned to Scotland in August 1561. Following the Scottish Reformation, the tense religious and political climate that Mary encountered on her return to Scotland was further agitated by prominent Scots such as John Knox, who openly questioned whether her subjects had a duty to obey her.

Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (1546 – 10 February 1567), was an English nobleman.

He was the second but eldest surviving son of Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox, by his wife Lady Margaret Douglas which supported her claim to the English succession. Darnley’s maternal grandparents were Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, and Queen Margaret, daughter of King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York. Queen Margaret was the widow of King James IV of Scotland.

Through his parents, he had claims to both the Scottish and English thrones, and from his marriage in 1565 he was king consort of Scotland. Less than a year after the birth of his son, Darnley was murdered at Kirk o’ Field in 1567. Many contemporary narratives describing his life and death refer to him as Lord Darnley, his title as heir apparent to the Earldom of Lennox, and it is by this appellation that he is known in history.

February 3, 1565, Darnley left London and by February 12, he was in Edinburgh. On February 17, he presented himself to Mary at Wemyss Castle in Fife. James Melville of Halhill reported that “Her Majesty took well with him, and said that he was the lustiest and best proportioned long man that she had seen.”

After a brief visit to his father at Dunkeld, Darnley returned with Mary and the court to Holyrood on February 24. The next day, he heard John Knox preach, and he danced a galliard with Mary at night. From then on, he was constantly in Mary’s company.

Darnley was his wife’s half-first cousin through two different marriages of their grandmother, Margaret Tudor, putting both Mary and Darnley high in the line of succession for the English throne. Darnley was also a descendant of a daughter of James II of Scotland, and so also in line for the throne of Scotland.

As a preliminary to the marriage, Darnley was made Lord of Ardmanoch and Earl of Ross at Stirling Castle on May 15, 1565. An entourage of 15 men were made knights, including one of Mary’s half brothers, Robert Stewart of Strathdon, Robert Drummond of Carnock, James Stewart of Doune Castle, and William Murray of Tullibardine. In England, a concerned Privy council debated the perils of the intended marriage on June 4, 1565.

One of their resolutions was to relax the displeasure shown to Lady Catherine Grey, another rival to Mary Stuart for the English throne. Mary sent John Hay, Commendator of Balmerino, to speak to Elizabeth; Elizabeth demanded Darnley’s return, and gave John Hay plainly to understand her small satisfaction.

On July 22, Darnley was made Duke of Albany in Holyrood Abbey, and the banns of marriage were called in the parish of Canongate. A proclamation was made at the Cross of Edinburgh on 28 July that government would be in the joint names of the king and queen of Scots, thus giving Darnley equality with, and precedence over, Mary. This was confirmed in the circulation of a silver ryal in the names of Henry and Mary.

On July 29, 1565, the marriage took place by Roman Catholic rites in Mary’s private chapel at Holyrood, but Darnley (whose religious beliefs were unfixed – he was raised as a Catholic, but was later influenced by Protestantism) refused to accompany Mary to the nuptial Mass after the wedding itself.

Soon after Mary married Darnley, she became aware of his vain, arrogant and unreliable qualities, which threatened the wellbeing of the state. Darnley was unpopular with the other nobles and had a violent streak, aggravated by his drinking. Henry also demanded the Crown Matrimonial. In Scots law, the Crown Matrimonial is a person’s right to co-reign equally with his or her spouse. Mary refused to grant Darnley the Crown Matrimonial.

The Crown Matrimonial of Scotland was sought by King François II of France, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, by the Parliament of Scotland and Mary’s mother, Marie of Guise, who was regent of Scotland. It would make King François II of France legal co-sovereign of Scotland with Queen Mary, and would also grant François II the right to keep the Scottish throne if he outlived her.

By the terms of the offer, he would be able to pass the Scottish crown to his descendants by a wife other than Mary. The Crown of Scotland was to be sent to France, where it was supposed to be kept at the Abbey of Saint Denis. However, the offer was never realised, as the Hamilton family, who were close to the throne, joined the Protestants and opposed it.

The Protestant peers promised to make Henry sovereign by the consent of Parliament. They agreed that Henry, as the new sovereign, would pardon all the exiled Protestants and allow them to return to Scotland. However, the plan was never realised.

By August 1565, less than a month after the marriage, William Cecil heard that Darnley’s insolence had driven Lennox from the Scottish court. Mary soon became pregnant.

Mary’s private secretary, David Rizzio, was stabbed 56 times on March 9, 1566 by Darnley and his confederates, Protestant Scottish nobles, in the presence of the queen, who was six months pregnant. According to English diplomats Thomas Randolph and the Earl of Bedford, the murder of Rizzio (who was rumoured to be the father of Mary’s unborn child) was part of Darnley’s bid to force Mary to cede the Crown Matrimonial. Darnley also made a bargain with his allies to advance his claim to the Crown Matrimonial in the Parliament of Scotland in return for restoring their lands and titles.

February 8, 1587: Execution of Mary I, Queen of Scots

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Abdication, Execution, François II of France, James Bothwell, James VI of Scotland, Lord Darnley. Henry Stuart, Mary I of Scotland, Queen Elizabeth I of England, The Babington Plot

Mary I, Queen of Scots (December 8, 1542 – February 8, 1587), also known as Mary Stuart, was Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567.

The only surviving legitimate child of James V of Scotland, Mary was six days old when her father died and she acceded to the throne. During her childhood, Scotland was governed by regents, first by the heir to the throne, James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, and then by her mother, Mary of Guise.

In 1548, she was betrothed to François, the Dauphin of France, and was sent to be brought up in France, where she would be safe from invading English forces during the Rough Wooing. Mary married François in 1558, becoming queen consort of France from his accession as King François II of France in 1559 until his death in December 1560.

Widowed, Mary returned to Scotland in August 1561. The early years of her personal rule were marked by pragmatism, tolerance, and moderation, with Mary retaining advisers such as James Stewart, Earl of Moray and William Maitland of Lethington.

Following the Scottish Reformation, the tense religious and political climate that Mary encountered on her return to Scotland was further agitated by prominent Scots such as John Knox, who openly questioned whether her subjects had a duty to obey her. Mary was tolerant in religious matters, issuing a proclamation accepting the religious settlement in Scotland as she had found it upon her return, and governing as the Catholic monarch of a Protestant kingdom.

Mary married her half-cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, in 1565, and in June 1566, they had a son, James. In February 1567, Darnley’s residence was destroyed by an explosion, and he was found murdered in the garden.

James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, was generally believed to have orchestrated Darnley’s death, but he was acquitted of the charge in April 1567, and the following month, he married Mary.

Following an uprising against the couple, Mary was imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle. On July 24, 1567, she was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son. After an unsuccessful attempt to regain the throne, she fled southward seeking the protection of her first cousin once removed, Elizabeth I of England.

Mary had once claimed Elizabeth’s throne as her own and was considered the legitimate sovereign of England by many English Catholics, including participants in a rebellion known as the Rising of the North. Perceiving Mary as a threat, Elizabeth had her confined in various castles and manor houses in the interior of England. After eighteen and a half years in captivity, Mary was found guilty of The Babington Plot, a plot to assassinate Elizabeth in 1586.

The Babington Plot was a plan in 1586 to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I, a Protestant, and put Mary I, Queen of Scots, her Roman Catholic cousin, on the English throne.

It led to Mary’s execution, a result of a letter sent by Mary (who had been imprisoned for 19 years since 1568 in England at the behest of Elizabeth) in which she consented to the assassination of Elizabeth.

The long-term goal of the plot was the invasion of England by the Spanish forces of King Felipe II and the Catholic League in France, leading to the restoration of the old religion. The plot was discovered by Elizabeth’s spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham and used to entrap Mary for the purpose of removing her as a claimant to the English throne.

The chief conspirators were Anthony Babington and John Ballard. Babington, a young recusant, was recruited by Ballard, a Jesuit priest who hoped to rescue the Scottish Queen. Working for Walsingham were double agents Robert Poley and Gilbert Gifford, as well as Thomas Phelippes, a spy agent and cryptanalyst, and the puritan spy Maliverey Catilyn.

The turbulent Catholic deacon Gifford had been in Walsingham’s service since the end of 1585 or the beginning of 1586. Gifford obtained a letter of introduction to Queen Mary from a confidant and spy for her, Thomas Morgan. Walsingham then placed double agent Gifford and spy decipherer Phelippes inside Chartley Castle, where Queen Mary was imprisoned. Gifford organised the Walsingham plan to place Babington’s and Queen Mary’s encrypted communications into a beer barrel cork which were then intercepted by Phelippes, decoded and sent to Walsingham.

On July 7, 1586, the only Babington letter that was sent to Mary was decoded by Phelippes. Mary responded in code on July 17, ordering the would-be rescuers to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. The response letter also included deciphered phrases indicating her desire to be rescued: “The affairs being thus prepared” and “I may suddenly be transported out of this place”.

At the Fotheringay trial in October 1586, Elizabeth’s Lord High Treasurer Lord Burghley and Walsingham used the letter against Mary who refused to admit that she was guilty. But she was betrayed by her secretaries Nau and Curle who confessed under pressure that the letter was mainly truthful.

Mary was beheaded the following year at Fotheringhay Castle on February 8, 1587.

The executioner Bull and his assistant knelt before her and asked forgiveness, as it was typical for the executioner to request the pardon of the one being put to death. Mary replied, “I forgive you with all my heart, for now, I hope, you shall make an end of all my troubles.” She was blindfolded by Kennedy with a white veil embroidered in gold, knelt down on the cushion in front of the block on which she positioned her head, and stretched out her arms. Her last words were, In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum (“Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit”).

Mary was not beheaded with a single strike. The first blow missed her neck and struck the back of her head. The second blow severed the neck, except for a small bit of sinew, which the executioner cut through using the axe. Afterwards, he held her head aloft and declared “God save the Queen.”

When the news of the execution reached Elizabeth, she became indignant and asserted that Davison had disobeyed her instructions not to part with the warrant and that the Privy Council had acted without her authority. Elizabeth’s vacillation and deliberately vague instructions gave her plausible deniability to attempt to avoid the direct stain of Mary’s blood. Davison was arrested, thrown into the Tower of London, and found guilty of misprision. He was released nineteen months later, after Cecil and Walsingham interceded on his behalf.

Mary’s request to be buried in France was refused by Elizabeth. Her body was embalmed and left in a secure lead coffin until her burial in a Protestant service at Peterborough Cathedral in late July 1587. Her entrails, removed as part of the embalming process, were buried secretly within Fotheringhay Castle. Her body was exhumed in 1612 when her son, King James VI and I, ordered that she be reinterred in Westminster Abbey in a chapel opposite the tomb of Elizabeth.

Mary’s life, marriages, lineage, alleged involvement in plots against Elizabeth, and subsequent execution established her as a divisive and highly romanticised historical character, depicted in culture for centuries.

December 7, 1545: Birth of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Part II.

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Crown Matrimonial, David Rizzo, Earl of Lennox, François II of France, Henry Stuart, James VI of Scotland, Lord Darnley, Mary I of Scotland, Mary Queen of Scots

Soon after Mary married Darnley, she became aware of his vain, arrogant and unreliable qualities, which threatened the wellbeing of the state. Darnley was unpopular with the other nobles and had a violent streak, aggravated by his drinking. Henry also demanded the Crown Matrimonial. In Scots law, the Crown Matrimonial is a person’s right to co-reign equally with his or her spouse. Mary refused to grant Darnley the Crown Matrimonial.

Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley

The Crown Matrimonial of Scotland was sought by King François II of France, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, by the Parliament of Scotland and Mary’s mother, Mary of Guise, who was regent of Scotland. It would make François legal co-sovereign of Scotland with Queen Mary, and would also grant Francis the right to keep the Scottish throne if he outlived her. By the terms of the offer, he would be able to pass the Scottish crown to his descendants by a wife other than Mary. The Crown of Scotland was to be sent to France, where it was supposed to be kept at the Abbey of Saint Denis. However, the offer was never realised, as the Hamilton family, who were close to the throne, joined the Protestants and opposed it.

The Protestant peers promised to make Henry sovereign by the consent of Parliament. They agreed that Henry, as the new sovereign, would pardon all the exiled Protestants and allow them to return to Scotland. However, the plan was never realised.

By August 1565, less than a month after the marriage, William Cecil heard that Darnley’s insolence had driven Lennox from the Scottish court. Mary soon became pregnant.

Mary’s private secretary, David Rizzio, was stabbed 56 times on March 9, 1566 by Darnley and his confederates, Protestant Scottish nobles, in the presence of the queen, who was six months pregnant. According to English diplomats Thomas Randolph and the Earl of Bedford, the murder of Rizzio (who was rumoured to be the father of Mary’s unborn child) was part of Darnley’s bid to force Mary to cede the Crown Matrimonial. Darnley also made a bargain with his allies to advance his claim to the Crown Matrimonial in the Parliament of Scotland in return for restoring their lands and titles.

When the Spanish Ambassador in Paris heard this news, the headlines were that Darnley “had murdered his wife, admitted the exiled heretics, and seized the kingdom.” However, on 20 March, Darnley posted a declaration denying all knowledge of or complicity in the Rizzio murder.

Mary no longer trusted her husband, and he was disgraced by the kingdom. On March 27, the Earl of Morton and Lord Ruthven, who were both present at Rizzio’s murder and had fled to England, wrote to Cecil claiming that Darnley had initiated the murder plot and recruited them, because of his “heich quarrel” and “deadly hatred” of Rizzio.

Mary and Darnley’s son James (the future King James VI of Scotland and I of England) was born on 19 June 1566 at Edinburgh Castle. He was baptised Charles James on 17 December 1566 in a Catholic ceremony held at Stirling Castle. His godparents were Charles IX of France, Elizabeth I of England and Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy.

Mary refused to let the Archbishop of St Andrews, whom she referred to as “a pocky priest”, spit in the child’s mouth, as was then the custom. In the entertainment, devised by Frenchman Bastian Pagez, men danced dressed as satyrs and sporting tails; the English guests took offence, thinking the satyrs “done against them”.

Following the birth of James, the succession was more secure, but Darnley and Mary’s marriage continued to struggle. Darnley, however, alienated many who would otherwise have been his supporters through his erratic behavior. His insistence that he be awarded the Crown Matrimonial was still a source of marital frustration.

April 24, 1558 – Mary I, Queen of Scots, marries Prince François, the Dauphin of France, at Notre Dame de Paris.

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Catherine de Médici, Charles IX of France, Fotheringhay Castle, François II of France, Henry II of France, James V King of Scots, James VI of Scotland, James VI-I of Scotland and England, Mary Queen of Scots, Notre Dame Cathedral of Paris, royal wedding

The Bride

Mary I, Queen of Scotland (December 8, 1542 – February 8, 1587), reigned over Scotland from 14 December 1542 to 24 July 1567.

Mary I, Queen of Scotland

Mary was born on December 8, 1542 at Linlithgow Palace, Scotland, to King James V of Scotland and his French second wife, Mary of Guise. She was said to have been born prematurely and was the only legitimate child of James to survive him. She was the great-niece of King Henry VIII of England, as her paternal grandmother, Princess Margaret of England, was Henry VIII’s sister. Besides being the queen of Scotland, Mary was a granddaughter of Claude, Duke of Guise, a very influential figure at the court of France.

On December 14, 1542, six days after her birth, she became Queen of Scotland when her father died, following the Battle of Solway Moss after drinking contaminated water while on campaign.

The Groom

François II (January 19, 1544 – December 5, 1560) was King of France from 1559 to 1560. He was also King consort of Scotland as a result of his marriage to Mary I, Queen of Scots, from 1558 until his death in 1560.

François II, King of France, King Consort of Scotland.

Born eleven years after his parents’ wedding, the long delay in producing an heir may have been due to his father’s repudiation of his mother in favour of his mistress Diane de Poitiers, however this repudiation was negated by Diane’s insistence that Henry spend his nights with Catherine. François was at first raised at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. He was baptized on February 10, 1544 at the Chapelle des Trinitaires in Fontainebleau. François became governor of Languedoc in 1546, and Dauphin of France in 1547, when his grandfather King François I died.

The Arrangement

King Henri II of France, his father, arranged a remarkable betrothal for his son to Mary, Queen of Scots, in the Châtillon agreement of January 27 1548, when François was only four years old. King Henri II desired to unite France and Scotland through the marriage.

King Henri II of France on the promise of French military help and a French dukedom for himself, the Earl of Arran agreed to the marriage. In February 1548, Mary was moved, for her safety, to Dumbarton Castle. The English, opposed to the union, seized the strategic town of Haddington. In June, the much awaited French help arrived at Leith to besiege and ultimately take Haddington. On July 7, 1548, a Scottish Parliament held at a nunnery near the town agreed to the French marriage treaty.

Once the marriage agreement was formally ratified, The French fleet sent by Henri II, commanded by Nicolas de Villegagnon, sailed with Mary from Dumbarton on August 7, 1548 and arrived a week or more later at Roscoff or Saint-Pol-de-Léon in Brittany.

Mary was accompanied by her own court including two illegitimate half-brothers, and the “four Marys” (four girls her own age, all named Mary), who were the daughters of some of the noblest families in Scotland: Beaton, Seton, Fleming, and Livingston. Janet, Lady Fleming, who was Mary Fleming’s mother and James V’s half-sister, was appointed governess.When Lady Fleming left France in 1551, she was succeeded by a French governess, Françoise de Paroy.

Although Mary was tall for her age and eloquent, François, her betrothed, was unusually short and stuttered. Henri II commented that “from the very first day they met, my son and she got on as well together as if they had known each other for a long time”.

The Wedding

On April 24, 1558, the fourteen-year-old Dauphin married Mary the 15 year old Queen of Scots in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. It was a union that could have given the future kings of France the throne of Scotland and also a claim to the throne of England through Mary’s great grandfather, King Henry VII of England. As a result of the marriage, François became King Consort in Scotland until his death. The marriage produced no children, possibly due to Francis’ illnesses or his undescended testicles.

King François II and Queen Mary of France and Scotland

A little over a year after his marriage, on July 10, 1559, François became King of France at the age of fifteen upon the death of his father Henri II, who had been killed in a jousting accident. On September 21, 1559, François II was crowned king in Reims by his uncle Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine.

King François II died on December 5, 1560, of a middle ear infection that led to an abscess in his brain. Mary was grief-stricken. His mother, Catherine de’ Medici, became regent for the late king’s ten-year-old brother the new King Charles IX, who inherited the French throne. Mary returned to Scotland nine months later, arriving in Leith on August 19, 1561. Having lived in France since the age of five, Mary had little direct experience of the dangerous and complex political situation in Scotland.

After a tumultuous reign which ended with her abdicating the throne to her one year old son, James VI of Scotland, from her second marriage to Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, Mary was in prisoned in England by her cousin and rival Queen Elizabeth I of England. After eighteen and a half years in custody, Mary was found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth in 1586, and was beheaded the following year at Fotheringhay Castle.