Mary had refused the proposal then, preferring to marry Darnley, but now she knew herself to be powerless. [214], She was convicted on 25 October and sentenced to death with only one commissioner, Lord Zouche, expressing any form of dissent. The wedding took place on 29 July 1565 in the chapel of Holyrood Palace. Marys third and final marriage began and ended with controversy. After spending the night at Dundrennan Abbey, she crossed the Solway Firth into England by fishing boat on 16 May. [20] The Earl of Lennox escorted Mary and her mother to Stirling on 27 July 1543 with 3,500 armed men. [29], King Henry II of France proposed to unite France and Scotland by marrying the young queen to his three-year-old son, the Dauphin Francis. Mary I, also called Mary Tudor, byname Bloody Mary, (born February 18, 1516, Greenwich, near London, Englanddied November 17, 1558, London), the first queen to rule England (1553-58) in her own right. Mary Queen of Scots picks up in 1561 with the eponymous queens return to her native country. Henry commented: "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". At that moment, the auburn tresses in his hand turned out to be a wig and the head fell to the ground, revealing that Mary had very short, grey hair. [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. [18] 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. [62] Mary returned to Scotland nine months later, arriving in Leith on 19 August 1561. [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. 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. Mary, once the fragile last hope of the Stuart dynasty, was just 23 years old and had fulfilled one of a monarchs greatest duties providing a healthy son and heir. She had been queen for all but the first six days of her life, John Guy writes in Queen of Scots, [but] apart from a few short but intoxicating weeks in the following year, the rest of her life would be spent in captivity.. 14. Cookie Policy [206] In a successful attempt to entrap her, Walsingham had deliberately arranged for Mary's letters to be smuggled out of Chartley. Aged 22, Mary described her 19-year-old groom as the lustiest and best proportioned long man that she had seen.. They sent him to France ostensibly to extend their condolences, while hoping for a potential match between their son and Mary. He was also fond of courtly amusements and thus a nice change from the dour Scottish lords who surrounded her. Despite being married three times, there are relatively few portraits of Mary with her husbands. She was said to have been born prematurely and was the only legitimate child of James to survive him. 'Deciphering Mary Stuarts lost letters from 1578-1584', "Stewart, Henry, duke of Albany [Lord Darnley] (1545/61567)", "Deciphering Mary Stuart's Lost Letters to Michel de Castelnau Mauvissire", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mary,_Queen_of_Scots&oldid=1152038397, People executed by Tudor England by decapitation, People executed under the Tudors for treason against England, Heads of government who were later imprisoned, Kingdom of Scotland expatriates in France, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using Sister project links with wikidata namespace mismatch, Pages using Sister project links with hidden wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 27 April 2023, at 19:51. [110], Immediately after her return to Jedburgh, she suffered a serious illness that included frequent vomiting, loss of sight, loss of speech, convulsions and periods of unconsciousness. Published on December 6, 2018 11:00 AM. He had 600 men with him and asked to escort Mary to his castle at Dunbar; he told her she was in danger if she went to Edinburgh. | READ MORE. Above: Replica of the tomb of Mary, Queen of Scots. In her lifetime, Mary married three times her final husband causing her downfall. , 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. Who were the husbands of Mary Queen of Scots? [122] In the early hours of the morning, an explosion devastated Kirk o' Field. [170] In contrast, Weir thinks it demonstrates that the lords required time to fabricate them. Link will appear as Hanson, Marilee. [174] Elizabeth, as she had wished, concluded the inquiry with a verdict that nothing was proven against either the confederate lords or Mary. It condemned Buchanan's work as an invention,[242] and "emphasized Mary's evil fortunes rather than her evil character". [145] She landed at Workington in Cumberland in the north of England and stayed overnight at Workington Hall. [123] There were no visible marks of strangulation or violence on the body. [143] Managing to raise an army of 6,000 men, she met Moray's smaller forces at the Battle of Langside on 13 May. Darnley was a weak man and soon became a drunkard as Mary ruled entirely alone and gave him no real authority in the country. Did you know that Mary Queen of Scots had three husbands? This is a painting of Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587), and her second husband Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (1545/46-1567). The originals, written in French, were possibly destroyed in 1584 by Mary's son. Marys second husband was Henry Stuart Lord Darnley, her cousin. [175] For overriding political reasons, Elizabeth wished neither to convict nor to acquit Mary of murder. [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. [195], In 1571, Cecil and Walsingham (at that time England's ambassador to France) uncovered the Ridolfi Plot, a plan to replace Elizabeth with Mary with the help of Spanish troops and the Duke of Norfolk. [75] In late 1561 and early 1562, arrangements were made for the two queens to meet in England at York or Nottingham in August or September 1562. [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. Three strikes later, the executioner severed Marys head from her body, at which point he held up his bloody prize and shouted, God save the queen. For now, at least, Elizabeth had emerged victorious. In 1559, Henry II of France, died at the age of 40. In February 1567, Darnley's residence was destroyed by an explosion, and he was found murdered in the garden. Mary was horrified and banished him from Scotland. For Scotland, she proposed a general amnesty, agreed that James should marry with Elizabeth's knowledge, and accepted that there should be no change in religion. [129] A week later, Bothwell managed to convince more than two dozen lords and bishops to sign the Ainslie Tavern Bond, in which they agreed to support his aim to marry the queen. [190] Her health declined, perhaps through porphyria or lack of exercise. Its unsurprising that the tale of these two queens resonates with audiences some 400 years after the main players lived. On 14 December, six days after her birth, she became Queen of Scotland when her father died, perhaps from the effects of a nervous collapse following the Battle of Solway Moss[7] or from drinking contaminated water while on campaign. Only four of the councillors were Catholic: the Earls of Atholl, Erroll, Montrose, and Huntly, who was Lord Chancellor. Who were the husbands of Mary Queen of Scots? [128] Lennox, Darnley's father, demanded that Bothwell be tried before the Estates of Parliament, to which Mary agreed, but Lennox's request for a delay to gather evidence was denied. [41], Portraits of Mary show that she had a small, oval-shaped head, a long, graceful neck, bright auburn hair, hazel-brown eyes, under heavy lowered eyelids and finely arched brows, smooth pale skin, a high forehead, and regular, firm features. Following her brief period as queen of France, the widowed Mary [Francois died in December 1560] returned to Scotland in 1561, aged 18, and ready to take up the burden of personal sovereignty. The pair exchanged regular correspondence, trading warm sentiments and discussing the possibility of meeting face-to-face. [200], In 1584, Mary proposed an "association" with her son, James. Mary married Francis in Notre Dame de Paris. [212] She told her triers, "Look to your consciences and remember that the theatre of the whole world is wider than the kingdom of England. She fled to England and begged in letters for her cousin Elizabeth's support and help regaining her throne. Norfolk was executed and the English Parliament introduced a bill barring Mary from the throne, to which Elizabeth refused to give royal assent. [25] The rejection of the marriage treaty and the renewal of the alliance between France and Scotland prompted Henry's "Rough Wooing", a military campaign designed to impose the marriage of Mary to his son. 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. Bothwells noble friends had previously pressed her to marry him and he, too, had told her she needed a strong husband who could help unify the nobles behind her. [57] Instead, the Guise brothers sent ambassadors to negotiate a settlement. Mary, Queen of Scots, towered over her contemporaries in more ways than one. 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. From the beginning, her life was mired in struggle as she grappled with the demands of the Scottish throne and the deaths of several husbands. [134] The marriage was tempestuous, and Mary became despondent. Mary, Queen of Scots is born, daughter of James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise . Unlike her Scottish counterpart, whose position as the only legitimate child of James V cemented her royal status, Elizabeth followed a protracted path to the throne. [160], The authenticity of the casket letters has been the source of much controversy among historians. 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. There was never any intention to proceed judicially; the conference was intended as a political exercise. [217] On 1 February 1587, Elizabeth signed the death warrant, and entrusted it to William Davison, a privy councillor. (Francis younger brother, Charles IX, became king of France at just 10 years old with his mother, Catherine de Medici, acting as regent. Rizzio was dragged from the room and killed. 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. In February of 1567 they had Darnleys house, Kirk o Field, blown up; Darnleys strangled body was found in the garden. He was ultimately found with Henry VII. [42] At some point in her infancy or childhood, she caught smallpox, but it did not mark her features. [23], Shortly before Mary's coronation, Henry arrested Scottish merchants headed for France and impounded their goods. They took temporary refuge in Dunbar Castle before returning to Edinburgh on 18 March. [80] The proposal came to nothing, not least because the intended bridegroom was unwilling. There are incomplete printed transcriptions in English, Scots, French, and Latin from the 1570s. Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's associate digital editor, history. [38] Her future sister-in-law, Elisabeth of Valois, became a close friend of whom Mary "retained nostalgic memories in later life". English troops then intervened in the Scottish civil war, consolidating the power of the anti-Marian forces. Moray refused, as Chastelard was already under restraint. Among them was the Duke of Norfolk,[172] who secretly conspired to marry Mary in the course of the commission, although he denied it when Elizabeth alluded to his marriage plans, saying "he meant never to marry with a person, where he could not be sure of his pillow". [82] In early 1563, he was discovered during a security search hidden underneath her bed, apparently planning to surprise her when she was alone and declare his love for her. Mary Queen of Scots: Directed by Josie Rourke. [152] In Scotland, her supporters fought a civil war against Regent Moray and his successors. On the promise of French military help and a French dukedom for himself, Arran agreed to the marriage. 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. Two days later, he forced his way into her chamber as she was about to disrobe. Widowed following the unexpected death of her first husband, France's Francis II, she left. James went along with the idea for a while, but eventually rejected it and signed an alliance treaty with Elizabeth, abandoning his mother. [188] She was occasionally allowed outside under strict supervision,[189] spent seven summers at the spa town of Buxton, and spent much of her time doing embroidery. As is often the case, the truth is far more nuanced. Such accusations rest on assumptions,[249] and Buchanan's biography is today discredited as "almost complete fantasy". A Protestant husband for Mary seemed the best chance for stability. [47][48], In November 1558, Henry VIII's elder daughter, Mary I of England, was succeeded by her only surviving sibling, Elizabeth I. On 9 February 1567, Darnley was found dead outside a dwelling in Kirk oField, Edinburgh, following an explosion. She was accused of plotting to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and . Margaret Tudor, (born November 29, 1489, Londondied October 18, 1541, Methven, Perth, Scotland), wife of King James IV of Scotland, mother of James V, and elder daughter of King Henry VII of England. 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. Both Protestants and Catholics were shocked that Mary should marry the man accused of murdering her husband. [243] Differing interpretations persisted into the 18th century: William Robertson and David Hume argued that the casket letters were genuine and that Mary was guilty of adultery and murder, while William Tytler argued the reverse. 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. Mary and Bothwell confronted the lords at Carberry Hill on 15 June, but there was no battle, as Mary's forces dwindled away through desertion during negotiations. Over 50 dagger wounds were counted on his body. 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. [177], On 26 January 1569, Mary was moved to Tutbury Castle[180] and placed in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury and his formidable wife Bess of Hardwick. Josie Rourkes film sees Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie transform from allies into rivals, but in actuality, the queens relationship was far more complex. But Darnleys decision to help Mary escape infuriated them. [210][211] Spirited in her defence, Mary denied the charges. [241] After the accession of James I in England, historian William Camden wrote an officially sanctioned biography that drew from original documents. According to Janet Dickinson of Oxford University, any in-person encounter between the Scottish and English queens wouldve raised the question of precedence, forcing Elizabeth to declare whether Mary was her heir or not. The versions of Mary and Elizabeth created by Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie may reinforce some of the popular misconceptions surrounding the twin queensincluding the oversimplified notion that they either hated or loved each other, and followed a direct path from friendship to arch rivalrybut they promise to present a thoroughly contemporary twist on an all-too-familiar tale of women bombarded by men who believe they know better. [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. Historian Jenny Wormald believes this reluctance on the part of the Scots to produce the letters and their destruction in 1584, whatever their content, constitute proof that they contained real evidence against Mary. [78] Elizabeth attempted to neutralise Mary by suggesting that she marry English Protestant Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. Some historians argue that they were forgeries concocted in order to discredit Queen Mary and ensure that Queen . [233] Elizabeth's vacillation and deliberately vague instructions gave her plausible deniability to attempt to avoid the direct stain of Mary's blood. Mary's guardians, fearful for her safety, sent her to Inchmahome Priory for no more than three weeks, and turned to the French for help. [87] They married at Holyrood Palace on 29 July 1565, even though both were Catholic and a papal dispensation for the marriage of first cousins had not been obtained. His death occurred soon after an unsuccessful rebellion in the North of England, led by Catholic earls, which persuaded Elizabeth that Mary was a threat. . [97] In what became known as the Chaseabout Raid, Mary with her forces and Moray with the rebellious lords roamed around Scotland without ever engaging in direct combat. With the Scottish nobles divided over the union, a stand-off between the two sides took place at Carberry Hill on 15 June 1567, from which Bothwell fled, never to see his wife again. Francis was the eldest son of Henry II and Catherine de Medici, making him heir to the French throne at the time of their marriage. According to most contemporaries, they were close and affectionate with one another even as children. James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, was a vainglorious, rash and hazardous young man, according to ambassador Nicholas Throckmorton. Within two months of the wedding, Mary was pregnant with the future King James VI. [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. [30] In February 1548, Mary was moved, again for her safety, to Dumbarton Castle. | On 7 July 1548, a Scottish Parliament held at a nunnery near the town agreed to the French marriage treaty. In July, Elizabeth sent Sir Henry Sidney to cancel Mary's visit because of the civil war in France. [229] Cecil's nephew, who was present at the execution, reported to his uncle that after her death, "Her lips stirred up and down a quarter of an hour after her head was cut off" and that a small dog owned by the queen emerged from hiding among her skirts[230]though eye-witness Emanuel Tomascon does not include those details in his "exhaustive report". James Feder. After Francis' death, she married Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. [61] Her mother-in-law, Catherine de' Medici, became regent for the late king's ten-year-old brother Charles IX, who inherited the French throne. 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. [146] On 18 May, local officials took her into protective custody at Carlisle Castle. She was thought to be dying. He was jealous of her friendship with her Catholic private secretary, David Rizzio, who was rumoured to be the father of her child. Mary was taken to Lochleven Castle and held prisoner in that island fortress; fearing for her own life, she became desperately ill. She was forced to sign a document abdicating the crown in favor of her year-old son. Upon his death in 1547, she was named third in the line of succession, eligible to rule only in the unlikely event that her siblings, Edward VI and Mary I, died without heirs. Mary, Queen of Scots was queen of France and Scotland. [83] Maitland claimed that Chastelard's ardour was feigned and that he was part of a Huguenot plot to discredit Mary by tarnishing her reputation.[84]. Beaton's claim was based on a version of the king's will that his opponents dismissed as a forgery. The brief brush with freedom Guy refers to took place in May 1568, when Mary escaped and rallied supporters for a final battle. The denouement of Mary and Elizabeths decades-long power struggle is easily recalled by even the most casual of observers: On February 8, 1587, the deposed Scottish queen knelt at an execution block, uttered a string of final prayers, and stretched out her arms to assent to the fall of the headsmans axe. One of the most shocking scenes in the upcoming Mary Queen of Scots movie comes when Mary Stuart, played by Saoirse Ronan, walks in on her husband Henry . Francis and his new wife became king and queen of France less than a year after their wedding ceremony at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. [238] 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. As she settled into her new rolealthough crowned queen of Scotland in infancy, she spent much of her early reign in France, leaving first her mother, Mary of Guise, and then her half-brother James, Earl of Moray, to act as regent on her behalfshe sought to strengthen relations with her southern neighbor, Elizabeth. 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. Meilan Solly He died a prisoner at DragsholmCastle in Denmark in 1578. Just 6 days . 24 Apr 1558. [3] [86] Mary fell in love with the "long lad", as Queen Elizabeth called him since he was over six feet tall. When her uncle, the Cardinal of Lorraine, began negotiations with Archduke Charles of Austria without her consent, she angrily objected and the negotiations foundered. The untimely death of Francis in 5 December 1560 changed Marys future and meant she would return to Scotland to claim her throne, leaving Franciss ten-year-old brother Charles to inherit his brothers title of king. Days after this final meeting, Mary fled Scotland to seek refuge in England, hoping for the protection of Elizabeth I of England. [50] Henry II of France proclaimed his eldest son and daughter-in-law king and queen of England. Your Privacy Rights Mary had briefly met her English-born half-cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, in February 1561 when she was in mourning for Francis. Her Marys returned with her as ladies-in-waiting. This legendary statement came true much later not through Mary, but through her great-great-granddaughter Anne, Queen of Great Britain. They were always attended to by a retinue of servants and, even then, Mary had developed a fondness for animals, especially dogs, which was to continue throughout her life. [105] On the night of 1112 March, Darnley and Mary escaped from the palace. The fact that she married her third husband, the Earl of Bothwell, shortly after the murder, did little to help her cause. 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. She was considered a pretty child and later, as a woman, strikingly attractive. 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. [148] Elizabeth was cautious, ordering an inquiry into the conduct of the confederate lords and the question of whether Mary was guilty of Darnley's murder. 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. [52], When Henry II died on 10 July 1559, from injuries sustained in a joust, fifteen-year-old Francis and sixteen-year-old Mary became king and queen of France. [21] Mary was crowned in the castle chapel on 9 September 1543,[22][17] with "such solemnity as they do use in this country, which is not very costly", according to the report of Ralph Sadler and Henry Ray. [215] Nevertheless, Elizabeth hesitated to order her execution, even in the face of pressure from the English Parliament to carry out the sentence. [153], As an anointed queen, Mary refused to acknowledge the power of any court to try her. Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart[3] or Mary I of Scotland,[4] was Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567. He ignored the edict. In doing so, the English queen avoided falling under a mans dominionand maintained the possibility of a marriage treaty as a bargaining chip. When Moray rushed into the room after hearing her cries for help, she shouted, "Thrust your dagger into the villain!" Catholics considered the marriage unlawful, since they did not recognise Bothwell's divorce or the validity of the Protestant service. He was released nineteen months later, after Cecil and Walsingham interceded on his behalf.
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