The only surviving legitimate child of James V of Scotland, Mary was six days old when her father died and she inherited the throne. Although each of these marriages was short-lived, every one of these unions made an impact on Scottish history. Mary's illegitimate half-brother, the Earl of Moray, was a leader of the Protestants. After spending the night at Dundrennan Abbey, she crossed the Solway Firth into England by fishing boat on 16 May. Her recovery from 25 October onwards was credited to the skill of her French physicians. [149] In mid-July 1568, English authorities moved Mary to Bolton Castle, because it was farther from the Scottish border but not too close to London. Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots: Cousins, Rivals, Queens - History [39] Mary's maternal grandmother, Antoinette de Bourbon, was another strong influence on her childhood[40] and acted as one of her principal advisors. Part 1 History Scotland 2.12K subscribers Subscribe 10 Share 594 views 1 year ago Discover more about the husbands of Mary Queen of. explains, Marys story is one of murder, sex, pathos, religion and unsuitable lovers. Add in the Scottish queens rivalry with Elizabeth, as well as her untimely end, and she transforms into the archetypal tragic heroine. Darnley's parents, the Earl and Countess of Lennox, were Scottish aristocrats as well as English landowners. Perceiving Mary as a threat, Elizabeth had her confined in various castles and manor houses in the interior of England. [62] Mary returned to Scotland nine months later, arriving in Leith on 19 August 1561. [176] In Fraser's opinion, it was one of the strangest "trials" in legal history, ending with no finding of guilt against either party, one of whom was allowed to return home to Scotland while the other remained in custody. 1558 - 1603. Mary | Biography & Facts | Britannica He was imprisoned in Denmark, became insane and died in 1578. [199] After the Throckmorton Plot of 1583, Walsingham (now the queen's principal secretary) introduced the Bond of Association and the Act for the Queen's Safety, which sanctioned the killing of anyone who plotted against Elizabeth and aimed to prevent a putative successor from profiting from her murder. But it is unlikely that, had he been successful, Darnley would have long survived his wife. [111] The cause of her illness is unknown. On her way back to Edinburgh on 24 April, Mary was abducted, willingly or not, by Lord Bothwell and his men and taken to Dunbar Castle, where he may have raped her. But the two never actually met in person, a fact some historians have drawn on in their critique of the upcoming film, which depicts Mary and Elizabeth conducting a clandestine conversation in a barn. The second blow severed the neck, except for a small bit of sinew, which the executioner cut through using the axe. In the immediate aftermath of Darnleys murder, he met with Mary about six miles outside of Edinburgh. They sent him to France ostensibly to extend their condolences, while hoping for a potential match between their son and Mary. Who were the husbands of Mary Queen of Scots? - History Scotland For the list of documents see, for example. This legendary statement came true much later not through Mary, but through her great-great-granddaughter Anne, Queen of Great Britain. Marys blood claim was worrying enough, but acknowledging it by naming her as the heir presumptive would leave Elizabeth vulnerable to coups organized by Englands Catholic faction. But Mary had more agency than history gives her credit for: beneath the soft exterior lay a steely determination to rule, as was her God-given right. Meilan Solly Yet, in the eyes of many Catholics, Elizabeth was illegitimate and Mary Stuart was the rightful queen of England, as the senior surviving legitimate descendant of Henry VII through her grandmother, Margaret Tudor. [171] At least some of Mary's contemporaries who saw the letters had no doubt that they were genuine. 9 Sep 1543. As biographer Antonia Fraser explains, Marys story is one of murder, sex, pathos, religion and unsuitable lovers. Add in the Scottish queens rivalry with Elizabeth, as well as her untimely end, and she transforms into the archetypal tragic heroine. [92] Mary's insistence on the marriage seems to have stemmed from passion rather than calculation; the English ambassador Nicholas Throckmorton stated "the saying is that surely she [Queen Mary] is bewitched",[93] adding that the marriage could only be averted "by violence". Such accusations rest on assumptions,[249] and Buchanan's biography is today discredited as "almost complete fantasy". In July of 1565, she wed a cousin named Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, a weak, vain, and unstable young man; like Mary, he was also a grandchild of Henry VIIIs sisterMargaret. Pope Gregory XIII endorsed one plan in the latter half of the 1570s to marry her to the governor of the Low Countries and illegitimate half-brother of Philip II of Spain, John of Austria, who was supposed to organise the invasion of England from the Spanish Netherlands. [3] In 1561, Mary, Queen of Scots, upset the applecart of the Protestant Reformation. [53] Two of the Queen's uncles, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine, were now dominant in French politics,[54] enjoying an ascendancy called by some historians la tyrannie Guisienne. He was the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and was the father of James VI of Scotland, who succeeded Elizabeth I of England as James I. Jenn Scott of the Stewart Society tells the story . Elizabeth forbade her attendance anyway. In France the royal arms of England were quartered with those of Francis and Mary. Within two months of the wedding, Mary was pregnant with the future King James VI. [77] Her own attempt to negotiate a marriage to Don Carlos, the mentally unstable heir apparent of King Philip II of Spain, was rebuffed by Philip. [170] In contrast, Weir thinks it demonstrates that the lords required time to fabricate them. [198], Mary sent letters in cipher to the French ambassador, Michel de Castelnau, scores of which were discovered and decrypted in 20222023. Instead, its more likely the queens attitudes toward each other were dictated largely by changing circumstance. In October, she was put on trial for treason under the Act for the Queen's Safety before a court of 36 noblemen,[209] including Cecil, Shrewsbury, and Walsingham. Francis II Entering the later stages of her pregnancy, she was desperate to escape and somehow won over Darnley and they escaped together. Not only were the two absolute rulers in a patriarchal society, but they were also women whose lives, while seemingly inextricable, amounted to more than their either their relationships with men or their rivalry with each other. BBC - Scotland's History - Mary Queen of Scots Only four of the councillors were Catholic: the Earls of Atholl, Erroll, Montrose, and Huntly, who was Lord Chancellor. [58] On 11 June 1560, their sister, Mary's mother, died, and so the question of future Franco-Scots relations was a pressing one. [108] In October 1566, while staying at Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders, Mary made a journey on horseback of at least four hours each way to visit the Earl of Bothwell at Hermitage Castle, where he lay ill from wounds sustained in a skirmish with border reivers. [236] 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. Despite being married three times, there are relatively few portraits of Mary with her husbands. She was known as Bloody Mary for her persecution of Protestants in a vain attempt to restore Roman Catholicism in England. [115] Divorce was discussed, but a bond was probably sworn between the lords present to remove Darnley by other means:[116] "It was thought expedient and most profitable for the common wealth that such a young fool and proud tyrant should not reign or bear rule over them; that he should be put off by one way or another; and whosoever should take the deed in hand or do it, they should defend. "[224] Her servants, Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curle, and the executioners helped Mary remove her outer garments, revealing a velvet petticoat and a pair of sleeves in crimson brown, the liturgical colour of martyrdom in the Catholic Church,[225] with a black satin bodice and black trimmings. But the nobles were still not to be trusted. On the promise of French military help and a French dukedom for himself, Arran agreed to the marriage. He was superficially charming and, unlike most men, taller than the queen. This fear-driven logic even extended to the queens potential offspring: As she once told Marys advisor William Maitland, Princes cannot like their own children. | READ MORE. Mary, unwilling to cause further bloodshed and understandably terrified, followed his suggestions. Darnley became jealous of Mary's secretary and favourite, David Riccio. [72] In this, she was acknowledging her lack of effective military power in the face of the Protestant lords, while also following a policy that strengthened her links with England. [59], King Francis II died on 5 December 1560 of a middle ear infection that led to an abscess in his brain. [132] Bothwell and his first wife, Jean Gordon, who was the sister of Lord Huntly, had divorced twelve days previously. [119], In late January 1567, Mary prompted her husband to return to Edinburgh. The Tudor queen pressured Mary to ratify the 1560 Treaty of Edinburgh, which wouldve prevented her from making any claim to the English throne, but she refused, instead appealing to Elizabeth as queens in one isle, of one language, the nearest kinswomen that each other had., To Elizabeth, such familial ties were of little value. [143] Managing to raise an army of 6,000 men, she met Moray's smaller forces at the Battle of Langside on 13 May. She was considered a pretty child and later, as a woman, strikingly attractive. [30] In February 1548, Mary was moved, again for her safety, to Dumbarton Castle. [32], With her marriage agreement in place, five-year-old Mary was sent to France to spend the next thirteen years at the French court. [38] Her future sister-in-law, Elisabeth of Valois, became a close friend of whom Mary "retained nostalgic memories in later life". She was thought to be dying. [169] Mary had been forced to abdicate and held captive for the better part of a year in Scotland. [168], The casket letters did not appear publicly until the Conference of 1568, although the Scottish privy council had seen them by December 1567. A post-mortem revealed internal injuries, thought to have been caused by the explosion. Mary, Queen of Scots, may have been the monarch who got her head chopped off, but she eventually proved triumphant in a roundabout way: After Elizabeth died childless in 1603, it was Marys son, James VI of Scotland and I of England, who ascended to the throne as the first to rule a united British kingdom. Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (1546 - 10 February 1567), was an English nobleman who was the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the father of James VI of Scotland and I of England. [14] Arran, with the support of his friends and relations, became the regent until 1554 when Mary's mother managed to remove and succeed him. But by February 1567, tensions had thawed enough for Mary to name Elizabeth protector of her infant son, the future James VI of Scotland and I of England. The History Press | The diabolical death of Henry, Lord Darnley Who were the husbands of Mary Queen of Scots? On 1 July 1543, when Mary was six months old, the Treaty of Greenwich was signed, which promised that, at the age of ten, Mary would marry Edward and move to England, where Henry could oversee her upbringing. [46] Twenty days later, she married the Dauphin at Notre Dame de Paris, and he became king consort of Scotland. A Huguenot uprising in France, the Tumult of Amboise, made it impossible for the French to send further support. [98] Unable to muster sufficient support, Moray left Scotland in October for asylum in England. Defeated once and for all, the deposed queen fled to England, expecting her sister queen to offer a warm welcome and perhaps even help her regain the Scottish throne. [45] On 4 April 1558, Mary signed a secret agreement bequeathing Scotland and her claim to England to the French crown if she died without issue. [114], At Craigmillar Castle, near Edinburgh, at the end of November 1566, Mary and leading nobles held a meeting to discuss the "problem of Darnley". As is often the case, the truth is far more nuanced. [43], Mary was eloquent, and especially tall by 16th-century standards (she attained an adult height of 5 feet 11 inches or 1.80 m);[44] while Henry II's son and heir, Francis, stuttered and was unusually short. The French fleet sent by Henry II, commanded by Nicolas de Villegagnon, sailed with Mary from Dumbarton on 7 August 1548 and arrived a week or more later at Roscoff or Saint-Pol-de-Lon in Brittany.[33]. [126] Elizabeth wrote to Mary of the rumours: .mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, I should ill fulfil the office of a faithful cousin or an affectionate friend if I did not tell you what all the world is thinking. However, the murder of Rizzio led to the breakdown of her marriage. Instead, worried that Mary wanted to . To avoid the bloodshed of battle, she turned herself over and the rebels took her to Edinburgh while Bothwell struggled to rally troops of his own. How Mary dealt with this incident sealed her fate. [127], By the end of February, Bothwell was generally believed to be guilty of Darnley's assassination. Mary I | Biography & Facts | Britannica To date, acting luminaries from Katharine Hepburn to Bette Davis, Cate Blanchett and Vanessa Redgrave have graced the silver screen with their interpretations of Mary and Elizabeth (though despite these womens collective talent, none of the adaptations have much historical merit, instead relying on romanticized relationships, salacious wrongdoings and suspect timelines to keep audiences in thrall). [133], 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. [142], On 2 May 1568, Mary escaped from Loch Leven Castle with the aid of George Douglas, brother of Sir William Douglas, the castle's owner. Portrait of Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley c. 1565 | The British "The Husbands of Mary Queen of Scots" https://englishhistory.net/tudor/relative/husbands-of-mary-qos/, October 28, 2022, You are here: Home Tudor Relatives The Husbands of Mary Queen of Scots, Copyright 1999-2023 All Rights Reserved.English HistoryOther Sites: Make A Website Hub, The Right to Display Public Domain Images, Author & Reference Information For Students, https://englishhistory.net/tudor/relative/husbands-of-mary-qos/, House Of Tudor Genealogy Chart & Family Tree, Mary, Queen of Scots: Biography, Facts, Portraits & Information, Catherine Howard: Facts, Biography, Portraits & Information, Queen Elizabeth I: Biography, Facts, Portraits & Information, Jane Seymour Facts, Biography, Information & Portraits, Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk and Princess Mary Tudor, Anne Boleyn Facts & Biography Of Information, Katherine Parr Facts, Information, Biography & Portraits, King Henry VIII Facts, Information, Biography & Portraits, Lady Jane Grey Facts, Biography, Information & Portraits, Lady Catherine Grey Facts & Information Biography, Mary Queen of Scots Chronology & Timeline 1542 to 1587, Margaret Tudor Queen of Scotland Facts, Biography & Information, Elizabeth Stafford, Elizabeth Blount & Henry Fitzroy Facts. , a Protestant reformer who objected to both queens rule, may have declared it more than a monster in nature that a Woman shall reign and have empire above Man, but the continued resonance of Mary and Elizabeths stories suggests otherwise. In June, the much awaited French help arrived at Leith to besiege and ultimately take Haddington. 10 Facts About Mary, Queen of Scots | History Hit Widowed, Mary returned to Scotland in August 1561. [27], In May 1546, Beaton was murdered by Protestant lairds,[28] and on 10 September 1547, nine months after the death of Henry VIII, the Scots suffered a heavy defeat at the Battle of Pinkie. [134] The marriage was tempestuous, and Mary became despondent. Expert webinar 9 May, 6.30pm. Her last words were, In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum ("Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit"). [237] Her entrails, removed as part of the embalming process, were buried secretly within Fotheringhay Castle. Catholics considered the marriage unlawful, since they did not recognise Bothwell's divorce or the validity of the Protestant service. 7. [240], Assessments of Mary in the 16th century divided between Protestant reformers such as George Buchanan and John Knox, who vilified her mercilessly, and Catholic apologists such as Adam Blackwood, who praised, defended and eulogised her. [244] In the latter half of the 20th century, the work of Antonia Fraser was acclaimed as "more objective free from the excesses of adulation or attack" that had characterised older biographies,[245] and her contemporaries Gordon Donaldson and Ian B. Cowan also produced more balanced works. [197] Plots centred on Mary continued. [138] Between 20 and 23 July, Mary miscarried twins. [192] Norfolk continued to scheme for a marriage with Mary, and Elizabeth imprisoned him in the Tower of London between October 1569 and August 1570. [146] On 18 May, local officials took her into protective custody at Carlisle Castle. [73], Mary sent William Maitland of Lethington as an ambassador to the English court to put the case for Mary as the heir presumptive to the English throne. [34] Janet, Lady Fleming, who was Mary Fleming's mother and James V's half-sister, was appointed governess. Under the terms of the Treaty of Edinburgh, signed by Mary's representatives on 6 July 1560, France and England undertook to withdraw troops from Scotland. Not only had Darnleys arrogant behaviour during the early months of the marriage angered many of the Scottish nobles, but it had also incurred the displeasure of Queen Elizabeth I of England, who was angry to see Darnley, as her English subject, marry the Queen of Scots, who was herself in line to the throne of England. [144] Defeated, she fled south. [208], Mary was moved to Fotheringhay Castle in a four-day journey ending on 25 September. [217] On 1 February 1587, Elizabeth signed the death warrant, and entrusted it to William Davison, a privy councillor. On 9 March 1566 Mary was having supper with David Rizzio when her husband burst in. This decision proved to be disastrous, since Mary was soon a prisoner of the queen and would spend the next nineteen years as Elizabeths prisoner, before she was executed for plotting against the queen on 8 February 1587 at Fotheringay Castle. For nineteen years she was kept under lock and key until she was finally executed in 1587 for conspiring against Elizabeth. [96] Mary set out from Edinburgh on 26 August 1565 to confront them. In February of 1567 they had Darnleys house, Kirk o Field, blown up; Darnleys strangled body was found in the garden. Privacy Statement A queer historian assesses the historical accuracy of the gay stuff in the Mary Queen of Scots movie. The original letter is in French, this translation is from. Marys second husband was Henry Stuart Lord Darnley, her cousin. The fact that she married her third husband, the Earl of Bothwell, shortly after the murder, did little to help her cause. In 1561, Mary returned to Scotland, attempting to reassert her power there. Vivacious, beautiful, and clever (according to contemporary accounts), Mary had a promising childhood. [194] Elizabeth's principal secretary William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and Sir Francis Walsingham watched Mary carefully with the aid of spies placed in her household. Mary's husband, Francis II, ruled in France for only a little over a year, dying in December 1560. In December 1566 James was baptized in the Chapel Royal of Stirling Castle. [250] Mary's courage at her execution helped establish her popular image as the heroic victim in a dramatic tragedy.[251]. Moray had sent a messenger in September to Dunbar to get a copy of the proceedings from the town's registers. All too frequently, representations of Mary and Elizabeth reduce the queens to oversimplified stereotypes. Mary, Queen of Scots - Wikipedia Mary, Queen of Scots: Biography, Facts & Information - English History [215] Nevertheless, Elizabeth hesitated to order her execution, even in the face of pressure from the English Parliament to carry out the sentence. 14. When she was six months pregnant in March of 1566, Darnley joined a group of Scottish nobles who broke into her supper-room at Holyrood Palace and dragged her Piedmontese secretary, David Riccio, into another room and stabbed him to death. After eighteen and a half years in captivity, Mary was found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth in 1586 and was beheaded the following year at Fotheringhay Castle. The crown had come to his family through a woman, and would be lost from his family through a woman. He sent copies to Elizabeth, saying that if they were genuine, they might prove Mary's guilt. George Lasry, Norbert Biermann, Satoshi Tomokiyo, Two of the commissioners were Catholics (, Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland, abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son James, Cultural depictions of Mary, Queen of Scots, "National Records of Scotland; Hall of Fame A-Z - Mary Queen of Scots", "Elizabeth and Mary, Royal Cousins, Rival Queens: Curators' Picks". Francis and Mary knew each since before they married Mary grew up in the French royal court after her father, King James V of Scotland died when she was only 5 days old. Bastardized following the 1536 execution of her mother, Anne Boleyn, she spent her childhood at the mercy of the changing whims of her father, Henry VIII. Today, assessments of Mary Stuart range from historian Jenny Wormalds biting characterization of the queen as a study in failure to John Guys more sympathetic reading, which deems Mary the unluckiest ruler in British history, a glittering and charismatic queen who faced stacked odds from the beginning. A Protestant husband for Mary seemed the best chance for stability. Chastelard was tried for treason and beheaded. The nobles who had plotted with Darnley now felt betrayed by him; after all, they had captured the queen and her potential heir, murdered her dear friend, and were in a position to demand anything. Mary Queen of Scots, 1543 - 1567, d. 1587. Above: Replica of the tomb of Mary, Queen of Scots. "[117] Darnley feared for his safety, and after the baptism of his son at Stirling and shortly before Christmas, he went to Glasgow to stay on his father's estates.
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