Mary Queen of Scots

The wrong sex and the wrong time

Mary Queen of Scots was born at Linlithgow Palace on 8 December 1542, the only surviving legitimate child of James V of Scotland. Just two weeks before, on 24 November, the king’s forces had been routed by the English at the battle of Solway Moss. When he heard the news of the birth of a daughter, he is reputed to have said, ‘It [the Stewart dynasty] came with a lass and it will pass with a lass’. He died at midnight on 14 December. At the age of six days, Mary was Queen of Scots.

The inheritance

Mary was the queen of a small, poor country with a population of about 850,000, dwarfed in wealth and size by its southern neighbour, England, with a population of 3.5 million. She was the inheritor of centuries of hostility between the two countries as, in seeking to maintain its independence from England, the Scots had formed the ‘Auld Alliance’ with France. However, the Scottish nobility was notoriously quarrelsome and factional, and both the English and French rulers sought to play off one set of nobles against another.

From her great-grandfather Henry VII, Mary inherited a claim to the English throne, though she was excluded from the Succession Act of 1543 and from Henry's will.

Through her mother, Mary of Guise, she was related to one of the most powerful noble families in France and she was a pawn in the family’s quest to control the French monarchy.

The ‘rough wooing’

On 9 September 1543 Mary was crowned at Stirling Castle, making her an anointed queen. Henry VIII was desperate to secure control of Mary so that he could marry her to his son Prince Edward, thus bringing about the union of the two kingdoms. In 1544 and again in 1547, after Henry VIII’s death, English troops invaded Scotland in what is known as 'the rough wooing' in order to force the Scots to agree to the marriage.

France

In August 1548 the 5-year-old Mary, her guardians and her attendants – the ‘four Maries’ – sailed for France. Mary was to remain in France for the next thirteen years. She rapidly became fluent in French and her striking looks and charisma made her extremely popular. 

Mary Queen of Scots by
François Clouet
c. 1558-60
Public domain.

On 24 April 1558 she and the Dauphin François were married in Notre Dame. The official marriage contract stated that Scotland would remain a distinct kingdom, but a secret document, signed by Mary, gave Scotland to France should Mary die without heirs.
When Queen Mary Tudor died Mary controversially asserted her claim to the throne against Elizabeth by quartering the arms of England on her shield, a gesture that was interpreted by the English as extremely provocative. William Cecil, Elizabeth’s Secretary became her life-long enemy.

On 10 July 1559 Henri II died in a jousting accident and François became King. Mary was now Queen of Scotland and France and at the same time asserting a claim to the English throne.

The coup in Scotland

Meanwhile in Scotland, the Regent, Mary of Guise, was facing a revolt from the Protestant nobility, who called themselves the Lords of the Congregation. Cecil sent them covert aid. The Regent died on 11 June 1560. On 6 July the Lords of the Congregation signed the Treaty of Edinburgh with England and France: French troops were to leave Scotland and France was to recognize Elizabeth as the rightful queen. Because Mary was not a party to this treaty, she did not accept its terms. The coup meant that Scotland was now officially a Protestant pro-English country, but its queen was Catholic and pro-French.

The return to Scotland

On 5 December 1560 François died. Mary had been Queen of France for seventeen months. As there was no future for her now in France, she made the decision to return to Scotland. 

Mary Queen of Scots in mourning
by François Clouet
Public domain

The political realities meant that in spite of her own sympathies she had to work with the new regime. Because she had no choice, she put her trust in her half-brother, Lord James Stewart, who promised her that she could retain a private Catholic mass. She had left the safety of France for a country of tribal politics based on revenge and blood feuds.

The policy of co-existence

Mary immediately encountered the enmity of the man who was to be one of her most bitter opponents. This was the fiery Calvinist preacher John Knox, who detested her because of her religion and because she was a female ruler. His belief that women rulers, especially if they were Catholics, were a prey to unbridled lust, was the foundation for a profoundly damaging stereotype of Mary. On Mary’s first Sunday she heard mass at her chapel in Holyrood, protected by Lord James from the militant Protestants, encouraged by John Knox. In spite of Knox’s hostility, the Protestant establishment seemed ready to accept her and for a while Mary seemed a successful ruler. She showed her trust in her brother by creating him Earl of Moray and in her frequent travels round Scotland she won over many local elites.

The succession

Mary and Elizabeth both wished to have a working relationship, but the succession was an unresolved issue between them. Elizabeth declared that she knew of no-one with a better claim than Mary, but she nevertheless refused to name her as her successor. For her part, Mary refused to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh, which would have meant renouncing her claim to be the rightful Queen of England. Even when she made a declaration renouncing the English throne in one of her parliaments, Cecil remained determined that she would never be queen.

The marriage question

The marriage of a reigning queen always posed severe problems. If she married a subject, it would stir up factionalism among the nobility. If she married a foreigner, she would undermine the independence of her kingdom. Mary’s position was made still more complicated by European power politics. Philip II wanted her to marry his son, Don Carlos, but Elizabeth made it clear that she would regard a Habsburg marriage as a hostile act. 

In March 1564 Elizabeth offered Lord Robert Dudley as a prospective husband, creating him Earl of Leicester in order to enhance his eligibility. On the face of it, this was a bizarrely insulting offer, but Mary would have married him if Elizabeth had then named her as her heir. When the marriage negotiations fell through, Elizabeth indicated that she would prefer Mary to remain unmarried. 

Darnley

Mary’s cousin, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, stood next to her in the English succession, his mother being the daughter of Margaret Tudor. Because Darnley had been born in England, he was an English subject and Elizabeth was strongly opposed to the marriage. Nevertheless, hoping to stoke up trouble for Mary, she  allowed Darnley to go to Scotland. Too late, she and her council realized their mistake. 

Darnley was not a Protestant but neither was he an orthodox Catholic. This made him seem less threatening in Scotland than Mary’s other prospective suitors, Don Carlos or the Archduke Charles of Austria.  He was four years younger than Mary but because he was six feet tall he was one of the few men who could match her in height.  His effeminate looks were widely commented on and, according to Mary's biographer, John Guy, his character ‘was tainted by reckless sexual excess, pride, and stupidity’. He was ‘a narcissist and a natural conspirator’. He was probably suffering from syphilis. For a while, however, Mary was infatuated, though even before the wedding she was beginning to gain insights into his character.

On 29 July Mary and Darnley were married in the chapel at Holyroodhouse, though Darnley absented himself from the wedding mass. Mary promptly proclaimed him king, though without the consent of the Scots Parliament, and Elizabeth refused to recognise the marriage or his title. 

Mary and Darnley as husband and wife
Unknown artist
Public domain.

The marriage precipitated a crisis in Scotland, leading to a revolt  led by the hitherto loyal Moray. The revolt was put down but, because it had been encouraged by England, the relationship between the two queens was for a while in ruins. 

The murder of Rizzio

Following Moray’s revolt, Mary turned to new advisors within her household, many of them Catholic and foreign. The most controversial was the Savoyard musician, David Rizzio, who in late 1564 had become secretary for her French correspondence.

By late October 1565 Mary’s marriage was on the rocks, though as she was now pregnant, it had achieved its main object. On realizing Darnley’s incapacity, she refused to grant him the crown matrimonial or to allow him political power. 

Furious at the thwarting of his ambitions, Darnley began to make common cause with the dissident nobles. Without being aware of it, Mary had become dangerously isolated and Rizzio was to be the scapegoat. The plot gathered wide support and Cecil was kept informed.

On 9 March 1566 Mary’s supper-chamber at Holyroodhouse was entered unexpectedly by Darnley and then a band of armed men. Darnley seized Mary and the plotters dragged Rizzio to the next room and stabbed him to death. 

Mary responded with courage and resourcefulness. She managed to detach Darnley from the plotters and on 11 March staged a daring midnight escape to Dunbar,  twenty-five miles away.  She and her ally, James Hepburn, earl of Bothwell, a former supporter of Mary of Guise, then rallied an army that swept her back to power. On 18 March she re-entered Edinburgh. A non-ideological Protestant, Bothwell was a strong supporter of the dynasty. Like Mary he had been educated in France, having been a student at the University of Paris. But he was a violent man, and prepared to take great political risks. 

James Hepburn
Earl of Bothwell

On 19 June 1566 Mary gave birth to a son, James. This greatly strengthened her position in Scotland and her claim to the English throne.

The problem of Darnley

Over all this the problem of Darnley loomed. Not merely had he shown himself to be weak and untrustworthy, but he was interfering in politics, setting himself up as a Catholic king and threatening to undermine Mary’s policy of coexistence with her Protestant subjects. On 20 November a key meeting took place between Mary and her advisors at Craigmillar Castle near Edinburgh. According to a later account Mary seems to have agreed to a divorce in principle, as long as it was legal and did not prejudice her son’s inheritance. 

On 17 December James was baptised at Stirling Castle, where it was noted that Bothwell was especially prominent. The murderers of Rizzio were pardoned, but they had not given up their violent ways. They were now bent on exacting revenge on Darnley for his betrayal. 

The murder of Darnley

In January 1567 Darnley was in Glasgow, recovering from syphilis. At the end of the month Mary brought him back to Edinburgh, where, apparently at his insistence, he stayed at the Old Provost’s Lodging at Kirk o’ Field. On the evening of 9 February she left him to attend a wedding. At 2 am on 10 February the house was blown up. The bodies of Darnley and a servant were found over the wall in a nearby garden. Both had been strangled. Suspicion immediately fell on Bothwell and soon rumours were sweeping Europe that Mary herself was implicated.

Mary’s fall

Mary’s reaction to the murder destroyed her reputation. Either she was part of a cover-up or she felt unable to proceed against the murderers when she believed her own advisors were part of the conspiracy. Her most disastrous mistake was to seek protection from Bothwell. It was extraordinarily naïve of her to give him Darnley’s horses and finest clothes. 

On 12 April Bothwell was tried for the murder, but the trial was rigged and he was acquitted. By now he was planning to marry Mary. 

On 24 April when she was riding from Linlithgow to Edinburgh, Bothwell intercepted her, took her to his castle at Dunbar, where he raped her. The rape was an act of sacrilege on an anointed queen. But how far had Mary colluded in the whole business? In a letter to the Bishop of Dunblane, she claimed that though she found his doings 'rude', his words were 'gentle'. Whatever  the truth, after a couple of days, she agreed to marry him, though this meant that Bothwell had to divorce his wife. The inevitable price she paid was guilt by association in Darnley’s murder.

On 6 May Mary and Bothwell processed in triumph to Edinburgh before sullen crowds. The marriage was celebrated on 15 May by Protestant rites, three months and five days after Darnley’s murder. A few days later Mary was heard saying she wished to kill herself.
Scotland was now in crisis. From 1 May a large confederacy,  assembled at Stirling. On 15 June Mary’s army confronted that of the Confederate Lords at Carberry Hill outside Edinburgh, where Mary surrendered and Bothwell was allowed to escape. They never saw each other again. As she was led into Edinburgh, the soldiers shouted, ‘Burn the whore’. On 17 June she was taken by boat to the island castle of Lochleven. A month after her arrival she miscarried of twins. Apart from a few short weeks in the following year the rest of her life would be spent in captivity.

On 24 July she signed a declaration of abdication in favour of her son. On 29 July the Lords crowned James in the parish church at Stirling.  On 22 August Moray was proclaimed regent.

On 2 May 1568 she escaped from Lochleven. Within a week she had rallied 6,000 men to her cause. On 13 May her army met Moray’s at Langside near Glasgow and was crushingly defeated. She fled to the coast and on 16 May she crossed the Solway Firth in a fishing boat, landing at Workington. She had expected to gather fresh troops and return to Scotland, but in reality she had made a catastrophic mistake. Elizabeth had little choice but to imprison her. She disapproved of Mary’s forced abdication, but Moray was a valuable ally and she could not afford to lose him. In addition, if Mary were free, she would become a focus for Catholic discontent in England.

Conclusion

1. Mary's brief reign in Scotland ended in disastrous failure. She began well, but she was overwhelmed by the problems of governing a country dominated by violent, faction-fighting nobles.
2. She faced the double disadvantage of being a woman ruler and a Catholic in a country that was now officially Protestant.
3. Her marriage to Darnley highlighted the problems of a queen who chose an unsuitable husband. Nevertheless, it achieved its main purpose when her son was born.
4. Historians are divided as to how far her fall was the result of her own mistakes.