July 29, 1567: The infant James VI is crowned King of Scotland at Stirling

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Abdication, coronation, Henry Shaft, John Knox, King James VI of Scotland, Lord Darnley, Queen Mary I of Scotland, Stirling Castle

The future James VI of Scotland was the only son of Mary I, Queen of Scots, and her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Mary’s rule over Scotland was insecure, and she and her husband, being Roman Catholics, faced a rebellion by Protestant noblemen. During Mary’s and Darnley’s difficult marriage, Darnley secretly allied himself with the rebels and conspired in the murder of the Queen’s private secretary, David Rizzio, just three months before James’s birth.

James’s father, Darnley, was murdered on February 10, 1567 at Kirk o’ Field, Edinburgh, perhaps in revenge for the killing of Rizzio.

James inherited his father’s titles of Duke of Albany and Earl of Ross. Mary was already unpopular, and her marriage on May 15, 1567 to James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, who was widely suspected of murdering Darnley, heightened widespread bad feeling towards her.

In June 1567, Protestant rebels arrested Mary and imprisoned her in Loch Leven Castle; she never saw her son again. She was forced to abdicate on July 24, 1567 in favour of the infant James and to appoint her illegitimate half-brother, James Stewart, Earl of Moray, as regent.

The infant King James VI was anointed King of Scotland at the age of thirteen months at the Church of the Holy Rude in Stirling, by Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, on July 29, 1567. The sermon at the coronation was preached by John Knox. In accordance with the religious beliefs of most of the Scottish ruling class, James was brought up as a member of the Protestant Church of Scotland.

History of the Style “Majesty.”

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Britannic Majesty, Europe, His/Her Majesty, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, King Henry VIII of England and Ireland, King James VI of Scotland, King of Scots, Majesty, Style, Your Majesty

Majesty (abbreviated HM for His Majesty or Her Majesty, oral address Your Majesty; from the Latin maiestas, meaning “greatness”) is used as a manner of address by many monarchs, usually kings or queens.

Majesty is not a title but a formal term of address.

Where used, the style outranks the style of (Imperial/Royal) Highness, but is inferior to the style of Imperial Majesty. It has cognates in many other languages, especially of Europe.

Origin

Originally, during the Roman republic, the word maiestas was the legal term for the supreme status and dignity of the state, to be respected above everything else. This was crucially defined by the existence of a specific case, called laesa maiestas (in later French and English law, lèse-majesté), consisting of the violation of this supreme status.

Various acts such as celebrating a party on a day of public mourning, contempt of the various rites of the state and disloyalty in word or act were punished as crimes against the majesty of the republic. However, later, under the Empire, it came to mean an offence against the dignity of the Emperor.

Style of a Head of State

The term was first assumed by Charles V, who believed that—following his election as Holy Roman Emperor in 1519—he deserved a style greater than Highness, which preceding emperors and kings had used. Soon, King François I of France and King Henry VIII of England followed his example.

His Majesty Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria, King of Spain (Castile and Aragon), Lord of the Netherlands, titular Duke of Burgundy.

After the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, Majesty was used to describe a monarch of the very highest rank— it was generally applied to God. Variations, such as Catholic Majesty (Spain) or Britannic Majesty (United Kingdom) are often used in diplomatic settings where there otherwise may be ambiguity.

A person with the title King or Queen is usually addressed as Your Majesty, and referred to as His/Her Majesty, abbreviated HM; the plural Their Majesties is TM. Emperors (and empresses) use [His/Her/Their/Your] Imperial Majesty, HIM or TIM.

Princely and ducal heads usually use His Highness or some variation thereof (e.g., His Serene Highness). In British practice, heads of princely states in the British Empire were referred to as Highness.

In monarchies that do not follow the European tradition, monarchs may be called Majesty whether or not they formally bear the title of King or Queen, as is the case in certain countries and amongst certain peoples in Africa and Asia.

His Majesty Henry VIII, King of England and Ireland

In Europe, the monarchs of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium use the style. By contrast, the heads of state of Liechtenstein and Monaco, being principalities, use the inferior style of Serene Highness.

Luxembourg, a Grand Duchy, accords its monarch the style of Royal Highness, as accorded to all other members of the Grand-Ducal Family, due to their descendance from Prince Félix of Bourbon-Parma.

In the Holy See, the Pope – while ruling as Sovereign of the Vatican City State – uses the spiritual style of Holiness. Moreover, while Andorra is formally a monarchy, its Co-Princes – the bishop of Urgell (appointed by the Pope) and President of France – use the republican and non-royal style of Excellency. Andorra is the only non-hereditary, elective and appointive monarchy in Europe.

In Saudi Arabia, King Fahd abolished the style of Majesty in 1975 in favour of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, a style adopted by historical Islamic rulers. However, the King by custom continues to be referred to as Your Majesty in conversation.

Great Britain and the Commonwealth

In the United Kingdom, several derivatives of Majesty have been or are used, either to distinguish the British sovereign from continental kings and queens or as further exalted forms of address for the monarch in official documents or the most formal situations.

King Richard II, according to Robert Lacey in his book Great Tales from English history, was the first English King to demand the title of Highness or Majesty. He also noted that, ‘…previous English Kings had been content to be addressed as My Lord ‘.

(prior to 1603) His Grace James VI, King of Scots

Most Gracious Majesty is used only in the most formal of occasions. Around 1519 King Henry VIII decided Majesty should become the style of the sovereign of England.

Majesty, however, was not used exclusively; it arbitrarily alternated with both Highness and Grace, even in official documents. For example, one legal judgement issued by Henry VIII uses all three indiscriminately; Article 15 begins with, “The Kinges Highness hath ordered,” Article 16 with, “The Kinges Majestie” and Article 17 with, “The Kinges Grace.”

Pre-Union Scotland Sovereigns were only addressed as Your Grace. During the reign of James VI and I, Majesty became the official style, to the exclusion of others. In full, the Sovereign is still referred to as His (Her) Most Gracious Majesty, actually a merger of both the Scottish Grace and the English Majesty.

Britannic Majesty is the style used for the monarch and the crown in diplomacy, the law of nations, and international relations. For example, in the Mandate for Palestine of the League of Nations, it was His Britannic Majesty who was designated as the Mandatory for Palestine. Britannic Majesty is famously used in all British passports, where the following sentence is used:

Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State Requests and requires in the Name of Her Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance, and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary.

Most Excellent Majesty is mainly used in Acts of Parliament, where the phrase The King’s (or Queen’s) Most Excellent Majesty is used in the enacting clause. The standard is as follows:

BE IT ENACTED by the Queen’s [King’s] most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows.

July 24, 1567: Abdication of Queen Mary I of Scotland

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4th Earl of Bothwell, Abdication, Francis II of France, Henry Stewart, James Hepburn, James Stewart, King James VI of Scotland, Lord Darnley, Mary Queen of Scots, Mary Stewart, Queen Mary I of Scotland, The 1st Earl of Moray

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

Mary, the only surviving legitimate child of King James V of Scotland, was six days old when her father died and she acceded to the throne. She spent most of her childhood in France while Scotland was ruled by regents, and in 1558, she married the Dauphin of France, François. Mary was queen consort of France from the accession of her husband as King François II of France in 1559 until his death in December 1560. Widowed, Mary returned to Scotland, arriving in Leith on August 19, 1561. Four years later, she married her half-cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, and in June 1566 they had a son, James.

Mary I, Queen of Scotland

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.

Between April 21 and 23, 1567, Mary visited her son at Stirling for the last time. On her way back to Edinburgh on April 24, Mary was abducted, willingly or not, by Lord Bothwell and his men and taken to Dunbar Castle, where Bothwell may have raped her. On May 6, Mary and Bothwell returned to Edinburgh. On May 15, at either Holyrood Palace or Holyrood Abbey, they were married according to Protestant rites. Bothwell and his first wife, Jean Gordon, who was the sister of Lord Huntly, had divorced twelve days previously.

Queen Mary I and her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.

Originally, Mary believed that many nobles supported her marriage, but relations quickly soured between the newly elevated Bothwell (created Duke of Orkney) and his former peers and the marriage proved to be deeply unpopular.

Catholics considered the marriage unlawful, since they did not recognise Bothwell’s divorce or the validity of the Protestant marriage service. Both Protestants and Catholics were shocked that Mary should marry the man accused of murdering her husband. The marriage was tempestuous, and Mary became despondent.

Twenty-six Scottish peers, known as the confederate lords, turned against Mary and Bothwell and raised their own army. Mary and Bothwell confronted the lords at Carberry Hill on June 15, but there was no battle, as Mary’s forces dwindled away through desertion during negotiations. Bothwell was given safe passage from the field. The lords took Mary to Edinburgh, where crowds of spectators denounced her as an adulteress and murderer.

James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell

The following night, she was imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle on an island in the middle of Loch Leven. Between July, 20 and 23 Mary miscarried twins. On July 24, she was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son James, who became King James VI of Scotland. Mary’s half-brother, James Stewart, The 1st Earl of Moray was made regent, while Bothwell was driven into exile. He was imprisoned in Denmark, became insane and died in 1578.

After an unsuccessful attempt to regain the throne, she fled southward seeking the protection of her first cousin once removed, Queen 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 custody, Mary was found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth in 1586, and was beheaded the following year at Fotheringhay Castle.