... Not only did she discover that Darnley was power-hungry, vicious and totally unreliable, but the preferment the marriage gave him and his branch of the Stewarts infuriated many of the Scottish nobles, especially Mary’s right-hand man, Lord James Stewart, who led a rebellion against her. It comes from the time of her personal rule in Scotland, and after her marriage to Henry, Lord Darnley in 1565. [111], At Craigmillar Castle, near Edinburgh, at the end of November 1566, Mary and leading nobles held a meeting to discuss the "problem of Darnley". Mary Queen of Scots and the right Honourable prick Henry Stuart (Lord Darnley) When Mary Queen of Scots was 18 years old, she became a widow for the first time. Mary's illegitimate half-brother, the Earl of Moray, was a leader of the Protestants. [63] The Protestant reformer John Knox preached against Mary, condemning her for hearing Mass, dancing, and dressing too elaborately. [216], At Fotheringhay, on the evening of 7 February 1587, Mary was told she was to be executed the next morning. [70], 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. She also offered to join an offensive league against France. Within a week of the murder, Placards appeared in Edinburgh accusing Bothwell and implicating Mary – far too quickly for the news to have reached Cecil in London and for him to have confirmed approval. [239] 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. The lords took Mary to Edinburgh, where crowds of spectators denounced her as an adulteress and murderer. [226], 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. [36] Her future sister-in-law, Elisabeth of Valois, became a close friend of whom Mary "retained nostalgic memories in later life". A Huguenot uprising in France, the Tumult of Amboise, made it impossible for the French to send further support. [191] Elizabeth's principal secretaries, Sir Francis Walsingham and William Cecil, Lord Burghley, watched Mary carefully with the aid of spies placed in her household. 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. However, Keira is promised to Lord White by her family. [129] Bothwell and his first wife, Jean Gordon, who was the sister of Lord Huntly, had divorced twelve days previously. "[8] His House of Stuart had gained the throne of Scotland in the 14th century via the marriage of Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert the Bruce, to Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland. Her husband, who was the King of France, had only gone and died so Mary found herself back in Scotland as Queen where she belonged, (or not as the case may be – she had been away far too long for the public to give a shit … They next met on Saturday 17 February 1565 at Wemyss Castle in Scotland. 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. In the end, Moray returned to Scotland as regent and Mary remained in custody in England. [98] Mary refused his request and their marriage grew strained, although they conceived by October 1565. The principal sources of this evidence are the Casket letters, which are now seen … [217] She spent the last hours of her life in prayer, distributing her belongings to her household, and writing her will and a letter to the King of France. Many of her other descendants, including Elizabeth of Bohemia, Prince Rupert of the Rhine and the children of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, were interred in her vault. Their only child was to become James 1 of England. Mary Queen of Scots left Calais for Scotland on August 14th, 1561, aged 18 years old. [68] 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. [17], Beaton wanted to move Mary away from the coast to the safety of Stirling Castle. Less than a year after the birth of his and Mary's only child, King James VI of Scotland and I of England, Darnley was murdered at Kirk o' Field in 1567. [244] There is no concrete proof of her complicity in Darnley's murder or of a conspiracy with Bothwell. Elizabeth forbade her attendance anyway. These were very good reasons to consider him as a husband for Mary. [148] A commission of inquiry, or conference, as it was known, was held in York and later Westminster between October 1568 and January 1569. Such accusations rest on assumptions,[245] and Buchanan's biography is today discredited as "almost complete fantasy". [83] Mary fell in love with the "long lad", as Queen Elizabeth called him since he was over six feet tall. Chastelard was tried for treason and beheaded. [94] 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. Men say that, instead of seizing the murderers, you are looking through your fingers while they escape; that you will not seek revenge on those who have done you so much pleasure, as though the deed would never have taken place had not the doers of it been assured of impunity. Mary was grief-stricken. [225] 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[226]—though eye-witness Emanuel Tomascon does not include those details in his "exhaustive report". They sent him to France ostensibly to extend their condolences, while hoping for a potential match between their son and Mary. [104], Mary's son by Darnley, James, was born on 19 June 1566 in Edinburgh Castle. [87] Although her advisors had brought the couple together, Elizabeth felt threatened by the marriage because as descendants of her aunt, both Mary and Darnley were claimants to the English throne. The first blow missed her neck and struck the back of her head. For myself, I beg you to believe that I would not harbour such a thought. [234] 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. [143] On 18 May, local officials took her into protective custody at Carlisle Castle. [124], By the end of February, Bothwell was generally believed to be guilty of Darnley's assassination. [78], In contrast, a French poet at Mary's court, Pierre de Boscosel de Chastelard, was apparently besotted with Mary. [237] After the accession of James I in England, historian William Camden wrote an officially sanctioned biography that drew from original documents. [37] Mary's maternal grandmother, Antoinette de Bourbon, was another strong influence on her childhood[38] and acted as one of her principal advisors. [240] 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,[241] and her contemporaries Gordon Donaldson and Ian B. Cowan also produced more balanced works. Darnley's parents, the Earl and Countess of Lennox, were Scottish aristocrats as well as English landowners. Mary's life, marriages, lineage, alleged involvement in plots against Elizabeth, and subsequent execution established her as a divisive and highly romanticised historical character, depicted in culture for centuries. [196], In 1584, Mary proposed an "association" with her son, James. [190] Early the following year, Moray was assassinated. 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. [97], Before long, Darnley grew arrogant. On the promise of French military help and a French dukedom for himself, Arran agreed to the marriage. Mary, Queen of Scots, was barely one week old when she succeeded to the throne in 1542. [192], In 1571, Cecil and Walsingham uncovered the Ridolfi Plot, a plan to replace Elizabeth with Mary with the help of Spanish troops and the Duke of Norfolk. 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. [71] However, she assured Maitland that she knew no one with a better claim than Mary. [136] On 24 July, she was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son James. [123] 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. English troops intervened in the Scottish civil war, consolidating the power of the anti-Marian forces. Her husband was a sickly youth and by the end of 1560 he was dead. The bridegroom was proclaimed Henry, King of Scots. [7], A popular tale, first recorded by John Knox, states that James, upon hearing on his deathbed that his wife had given birth to a daughter, ruefully exclaimed, "It cam wi' a lass and it will gang wi' a lass! [127], Between 21 and 23 April 1567, Mary visited her son at Stirling for the last time. [118] On the night of 9–10 February 1567, Mary visited her husband in the early evening and then attended the wedding celebrations of a member of her household, Bastian Pagez. [208] She told her triers, "Look to your consciences and remember that the theatre of the whole world is wider than the kingdom of England". [85][86], English statesmen William Cecil and the Earl of Leicester had worked to obtain Darnley's licence to travel to Scotland from his home in England. [132], Twenty-six Scottish peers, known as the confederate lords, turned against Mary and Bothwell and raised their own army. [130], 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. 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. Mary returned to her native Scotland in 1561 after the death of her first hubby King Francis II of France. It was reached by two or three steps, and furnished with the block, a cushion for her to kneel on, and three stools for her and the earls of Shrewsbury and Kent, who were there to witness the execution. [153] Mary denied writing them and insisted they were forgeries,[154] arguing that her handwriting was not difficult to imitate. [156] The chair of the commission of inquiry, the Duke of Norfolk, described them as horrible letters and diverse fond ballads. However, the murder of Rizzio led inevitably to the breakdown of her marriage. [128] On 6 May, Mary and Bothwell returned to Edinburgh. [140] Managing to raise an army of 6,000 men, she met Moray's smaller forces at the Battle of Langside on 13 May. After making himself thoroughly unpopular with just about everyone who mattered in Scotland, Darnley was murdered, probably with the knowledge of his wife, and probably by the man who would then … Henry was considered to be handsome by the standards of that time. Mary is attracted to his half-brother, Sebastian, son of the … [166] Mary had been forced to abdicate and held captive for the better part of a year in Scotland. The Earl of Bothwell and Mary Queen of Scots, Historical Documents Relating to Mary Queen of Scots, The Ainslie Bond – Re Earl of Bothwell & Mary Queen of Scots. THE MURDER OF RIZZIO (RICCIO) Mary became increasingly unhappy with her marriage. However before the sum could be paid in secret by a single hor… [54] Instead, the Guise brothers sent ambassadors to negotiate a settlement. 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