December 5, 1560: Death of King François II of France and Scotland

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Catherine de Médici, Francis II of France, Henry II of France, Jousting, Marie de Guise, Mary I of Scotland, Mary Queen of Scots, Regency

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.

He ascended the throne of France at age 15 after the accidental death of his father, Henry II, in 1559. His short reign was dominated by the first stirrings of the French Wars of Religion.

Although the royal age of majority was 14, his mother, Catherine de’ Medici, entrusted the reins of government to his wife Mary’s uncles from the House of Guise, staunch supporters of the Catholic cause. They were unable to help Catholics in Scotland against the progressing Scottish Reformation, however, and the Auld Alliance was dissolved.

François was succeeded by two of his brothers in turn, both of whom were also unable to reduce tensions between Protestants and Catholics.

Childhood and education (1544–1559)

François was born 11 years after his parents’ wedding Henri II and Catherinede Médici. 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, but this repudiation was mitigated by Diane’s insistence that Henri spend his nights with Catherine.

François was at first raised at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. He was baptised on February 10, 1544 at the Chapelle des Trinitaires in Fontainebleau. His godparents were François I (who knighted him during the ceremony), Pope Paul III, and his great-aunt Marguerite de Navarre. He became governor of Languedoc in 1546 and Dauphin of France in 1547, when his grandfather François I died.

King Henri II, his father, arranged a remarkable betrothal for his son to Mary I, Queen of Scots, in the Châtillon agreement of January 27, 1548, when François was only four years old. Mary had been crowned Queen of Scotland in Stirling Castle on September 9, 1543 at the age of nine months following the death of her father James V. Mary was a granddaughter of Claude, Duke of Guise, a very influential figure at the court of France.

Once the marriage agreement was formally ratified, the six-year-old Mary was sent to France to be raised at court until the marriage. She was tall for her age and eloquent, and Francis was unusually short and stuttered. Henri II said, “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”.

On April 24, 1558, François and Mary married 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, and may never even have been consummated, possibly due to François illnesses or undescended testicles.

Becoming king

A little over a year after his marriage, on July 10, 1559, François became king at age 15 upon the death of Henri II, who died from injuries that he suffered in a jousting accident. On September 21, 1559, François II was crowned king in Reims by his uncle Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine. The crown was so heavy that nobles had to hold it in place for him. The court then moved to the Loire Valley, where the Château de Blois and the surrounding forests were the new king’s home. Francis II took the sun for his emblem and for his mottoes Spectanda fides (This is how faith should be respected) and Lumen rectis (Light for the righteous)

Death

The king’s health deteriorated in November 1560. On November 16, he fainted. After only 17 months on the throne, François II died on December 5, 1560 in Orléans, Loiret, from an ear condition. Multiple diseases have been suggested, such as mastoiditis, meningitis, or otitis exacerbated into an abscess.

Ambroise Paré, the royal surgeon, considered performing a trepanation. Some suspected Protestants of having poisoned the king, a view held by Catholics as the tensions between them and Protestants were on the rise, but this has not been proven.

François II died childless, so his younger brother Charles, then ten years old, succeeded him as King Charles IX of France. On December 21, the council named Catherine de Médici Regent of France. The Guises left the court, while MaryI, Queen of Scots, François II’s widow, returned to Scotland. Louis, Prince of Condé, who was jailed and awaiting execution, was freed after some negotiations with Catherine de Médici.

On December 23, 1560, François II’s body was interred in the Basilica of St Denis by the Prince of La Roche-sur-Yon.

On this date in History: April 24, 1558, the marriage of Mary I, Queen of Scots and The Dauphin of France.

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Francis II of France, Henry II of France, House of Stewart, House of Stuart, James V King of Scots, King Henri II of France, King Henry VIII of England, Kings and Queens of England, kings and queens of Scotland, Kings of france, Margaret Tudor, Marie de Guise, Mary I of Scots, Mary of Guise, Mary Queen of Scots, The Dauphin

Mary was born on December 8, 1542 at Linlithgow Palace, Scotland, to King James V of Scots and his French second wife, Marie de Guise. Mary was said to have been born prematurely and was the only legitimate child of James V to survive him She was the great-niece of King Henry VIII of England, as her paternal grandmother, Margaret Tudor, was Henry VIII’s sister. On December 14, 1542 six days after her birth, she became Queen of Scotland when her father died from drinking contaminated water while on campaign following the Battle of Solway Moss.

Mary I, Queen of Scots

Since Mary was an infant when she inherited the throne, Scotland was ruled by regents until she became an adult. From the outset, there were two claims to the regency: one from Catholic Cardinal Beaton, and the other from the Protestant Earl of Arran, who was next in line to the Scottish throne. Beaton’s claim to the regency was based on a version of the King Jame V’s will that his opponents dismissed as a forgery. Arran, with the support of his friends and relations, became the regent until 1554 when Mary’s mother managed to remove and succeed him.

Henry VIII, King of England and King of Ireland.

King Henry VIII of England took the opportunity of the regency to propose marriage between Mary and his own son and heir, Edward (future Edward VI of England) seeking to unite Scotland and England. On July 1, 1543, when Mary was six months old, the Treaty of Greenwichwas signed, which promised that, at the age of ten, Mary would marry Edward and move to England, where Henry could oversee her upbringing. The treaty provided that the two countries would remain legally separate and that if the couple should fail to have children, the temporary union would dissolve. Cardinal Beaton rose to power again and began to push a pro-Catholic pro-French agenda, angering Henry, who wanted to break the Scottish alliance with France.

The French king, Henri II, desired to unite France and Scotland and proposed marrying the young queen to his three-year-old son, the Dauphin Francis. On the promise of French military help, and a French dukedom for himself, the regent Earl of Arran agreed to the marriage. In February 1548, Mary was moved, for her safety, to Dumbarton Castle. The English left a trail of devastation behind once more and 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 a French marriage treaty.

Mary I, Queen of Scots

With the promise of her marriage agreement in place, five-year-old Mary was sent to France to spend the next thirteen years at the French court. 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.

At the French court, she was a favourite with everyone, except Henri II’s wife Catherine de’ Medici. Mary learned to play lute and virginals, was competent in prose, poetry, horsemanship, falconry and needlework, and was taught French, Italian, Latin, Spanish, and Greek, in addition to speaking her native Scots. Her future sister-in-law, Elisabeth of Valois, became a close friend of whom Mary “retained nostalgic memories in later life”.Her maternal grandmother, Antoinette de Bourbon, was another strong influence on her childhood, and acted as one of her principal advisors.

King Francis II and Queen Mary I of France and Scotland

Mary was eloquent and especially tall by sixteenth-century standards (she attained an adult height of 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m), while Henri II’s son and heir, Francis, stuttered and was abnormally short. Henri commented that “from the very first day they met, my son and she got on as well together. On April 4, 1558, Mary signed a secret agreement bequeathing Scotland and her claim to England to the French crown if she died without issue. Twenty days later, April 24,1558 she married the Dauphin at Notre Dame de Paris, and he became king consort of Scotland. When Henri II died on July 10, 1559 from injuries sustained in a joust, the fifteen-year-old Dauphin became King Francis II of France and sixteen-year-old Mary I, Queen of Scots became Queen of France.