Henry Stuart, styled as Lord Darnley until 1565, was the son of Matthew Stuart, 4th Earl of Lennox, and his wife, Margaret Douglas. 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. The nobles demanded that Mary abandon Bothwell, whom they had earlier ordered her to wed. She refused and reminded them of their earlier order. Mary, Queen of Scots' pampered childhood That same year, another ginger-haired princess was born on December 8 at Linlithgow Palace in Scotland. [159] The chair of the commission of inquiry, the Duke of Norfolk, described them as horrible letters and diverse fond ballads. He was also fond of courtly amusements and thus a nice change from the dour Scottish lords who surrounded her. [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. And though Marys father, James V, reportedly made a deathbed prediction that the Stuart dynasty, which came with a lassMarjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert the Brucewould also pass with a lass, the woman who fulfilled this prophecy was not the infant James left his throne to, but her descendant Queen Anne, whose 1714 death marked the official end of the dynastic line. Mary had briefly met her English-born half-cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, in February 1561 when she was in mourning for Francis. [11] Rumours spread that she was weak and frail,[12] but an English diplomat, Ralph Sadler, saw the infant at Linlithgow Palace in March 1543, unwrapped by her nurse Jean Sinclair, and wrote, "it is as goodly a child as I have seen of her age, and as like to live. [59], King Francis II died on 5 December 1560 of a middle ear infection that led to an abscess in his brain. Although she was famously dubbed the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth only embraced this chaste persona during the later years of her reign. [50] Henry II of France proclaimed his eldest son and daughter-in-law king and queen of England. Mary, Queen of Scots, was barely one week old when she succeeded to the throne in 1542. 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. [107], Mary's son by Darnley, James, was born on 19 June 1566 in Edinburgh Castle. This legendary statement came true much later not through Mary, but through her great-great-granddaughter Anne, Queen of Great Britain. Link will appear as Hanson, Marilee. Registration now open. [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. 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. From the beginning of her reign, Elizabeth was keenly aware of her tenuous hold on the crown. Did you know that Mary Queen of Scots had three husbands? The only surviving legitimate child of James V of Scotland, Mary was six days old when her father died and she inherited the throne. Following an uprising against the couple, Mary was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle. [123] There were no visible marks of strangulation or violence on the body. The murder 25 years later of Henry Lord Darnley, her consort and the father of the infant who would become King James I of England and James VI of Scotland, remains one of history's most notorious unsolved crimes. Did you know that Mary Queen of Scots had three husbands? Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart, Catholic Queen, Protestant Patriarchy: Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Politics of Gender and Religion, Five Places Where You Can Still Find Gold in the United States, Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Otherand the Birds Loved It, The True Story of the Koh-i-Noor Diamondand Why the British Won't Give It Back. [171] At least some of Mary's contemporaries who saw the letters had no doubt that they were genuine. . [154] As evidence against Mary, Moray presented the so-called casket letters[155]eight unsigned letters purportedly from Mary to Bothwell, two marriage contracts, and a love sonnet or sonnets. The authenticity of the letters, now known only by copies, continues to be debated. [58] On 11 June 1560, their sister, Mary's mother, died, and so the question of future Franco-Scots relations was a pressing one. [230], 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. [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. The letters were never made public to support her imprisonment and forced abdication. [62] Mary returned to Scotland nine months later, arriving in Leith on 19 August 1561. [248] There is no concrete proof of her complicity in Darnley's murder or of a conspiracy with Bothwell. | READ MORE. 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. 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. A royal residence, a vital stronghold and an iconic structure, Edinburgh Castle is one of the most famous castles in the world. She announced that she was ready to stay in England, to renounce the Pope's bull of excommunication, and to retire, abandoning her pretensions to the English Crown. Margaret was Henry VIII's older sister so Mary was Henry VIII's great-niece. [184] She needed 30 carts to transport her belongings from house to house. 14. Mary Queen of Scots picks up in 1561 with the eponymous queens return to her native country. Mary returned to Edinburgh the following month to raise more troops. [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. Only four of the councillors were Catholic: the Earls of Atholl, Erroll, Montrose, and Huntly, who was Lord Chancellor. Darnley was murdered a few months after they were married, and Mary later married James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell. Within two months of the wedding, Mary was pregnant with the future King James VI. [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. Darnley was a weak man and soon became a drunkard as Mary ruled entirely alone and gave him no real authority in the country. [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". 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. [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. Even the one significant later addition to the council, Lord Ruthven in December 1563, was another Protestant whom Mary personally disliked. [151] A commission of inquiry, or conference, as it was known, was held in York and later Westminster between October 1568 and January 1569. [10], Mary was christened at the nearby Church of St Michael shortly after she was born. Mary married Francis in 1558, becoming queen consort of France from his accession in 1559 until his death in December 1560. She joined with Moray in the destruction of Scotland's leading Catholic magnate, Lord Huntly, in 1562, after he led a rebellion against her in the Highlands. 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. But he never seemed to care for Mary and sought far more power than she was willing to give him. [6] She was the great-granddaughter of King Henry VII of England through her paternal grandmother, Margaret Tudor. [135], Twenty-six Scottish peers, known as the confederate lords, turned against Mary and Bothwell and raised their own army. 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. [71], Modern historian Jenny Wormald found this remarkable and suggested that Mary's failure to appoint a council sympathetic to Catholic and French interests was an indication of her focus on the English throne, over the internal problems of Scotland. Afterwards, he held her head aloft and declared "God save the Queen." With Angela Bain, Richard Cant, Guy Rhys, Thom Petty. 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. Now, first-time director Josie Rourke hopes to offer a modern twist on the tale with her new Mary Queen of Scots biopic, which finds Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie stepping into the shoes of the legendary queens. 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. [208], Mary was moved to Fotheringhay Castle in a four-day journey ending on 25 September. [146] On 18 May, local officials took her into protective custody at Carlisle Castle. 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.. In her lifetime, Mary married three times her final husband causing her downfall. [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. [226] As she disrobed Mary smiled and said she "never had such grooms before nor ever put off her clothes before such a company". Edinburgh Castle. By the 1580s, she had severe rheumatism in her limbs, rendering her lame. Three months after Darnleys death, Mary wed the man whod been accused ofand acquitted of in a legally suspect trialhis murder. 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. Mary Queen of Scots: Directed by Josie Rourke. He had a violent temper and, despite his differences from Darnley, shared the deceased kings proclivity for power. 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. As a great-granddaughter of Henry VII 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. She also offered to join an offensive league against France. As a Protestant, she faced threats from Englands Catholic faction, which favored a rival claim to the thronethat of Mary, the Catholic Queen of Scotsover hers. [120] Mary visited him daily, so that it appeared a reconciliation was in progress. [239] In 1867, her tomb was opened in an attempt to ascertain the resting place of her son, James I of England. [94] The union infuriated Elizabeth, who felt the marriage should not have gone ahead without her permission, as Darnley was both her cousin and an English subject. Potential diagnoses include physical exhaustion and mental stress,[112] haemorrhage of a gastric ulcer,[113] and porphyria.