Scotland Back in the Day: Dark clouds gather as Mary Queen of Scots returns home...

The sixth Stuart king – for sake of convenience we’ll use the French spelling and not Stewart – called James was born to his mother Mary in Edinburgh Castle on June 19, 1566.

His father, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, would be dead at the age of 21 within eight months of his son’s birth, and James himself would be crowned King of Scots shortly after his first birthday upon the abdication and imprisonment of his mother.

It is Mary’s story that will be told in the first of a four-part depiction of two of the most remarkable people in Scottish history.

Mary, Queen of Scots, is the most famous Scottish woman of all time. Her tragic end and her tempestuous life have been the subject of a myriad of books, plays, films and even an opera – Maria Stuarda by Donizetti.

Many commentators and biographers have ascribed to her various motivations for her acts and sayings, but this account will content itself with the brief facts, and others can deduce why Mary said and did what she did.

That she was unlucky in love is a given because her three marriages certainly all ended disastrously. That she could be wilful, courageous and determined at times and weak and almost paralysed with fear at other periods is also not in doubt. That she was a devout Roman Catholic for most of her life yet tolerated the Protestant religion is another thing that can be said with certainty. That she was most cruelly and unfairly murdered on the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I of England, is the one statement of opinion that will appear on this page – for how can a former queen of Scotland who has given no oath of allegiance to any English monarch be guilty of treason?

The Stuart dynasty came into being when Robert the Bruce’s daughter Marjorie married Walter, the High Steward of Scotland. Marjorie died in childbirth after falling off her horse near Paisley. Her son, the future King Robert II, was born by caesarian section and Marjorie perished at the age of 19.

Early deaths became a feature of the Stuarts. Mary’s father King James V was just 30 when he died, probably of cholera or dysentery or both, six days after his queen, Mary of Guise, gave birth to his only legitimate child – a daughter. The Scots had just lost the Battle of Solway Moss to the English army and James had taken to his bed at Falkland Palace, never to recover.

On being told of Mary’s birth at Linlithgow Palace on December 8, James apparently referred back to Marjorie, saying “it cam wi’ a lass, it’ll gang wi’ a lass.” If he was prophesying the end of the Stuart dynasty through Mary he was very wrong – the Stuarts would hold the throne of Scotland and later the United Kingdom until 1714. He was right about it “ganging wi’ a lass” though, as Queen Anne was the last of the Stuart dynasty to actually reign.

Mary thus became Queen of Scots at less than a week old, and her coronation took place before her first birthday. Young Mary was a sickly child at first, and the nobles who were appointed regents to rule in her place were keen to exercise that rule as they were convinced she would die early.

The most powerful of the regents was James Hamilton, the Earl of Arran, and at first he was all for making a marriage with Prince Edward, the Crown Prince of England, and the Treaty of Greenwich was signed to that effect. At the age of 10, Mary would move to England and any child of her marriage to Edward would be given the thrones of both England and Scotland.

To add to the upset and tension, Scotland was in the grip of religious upheaval as the Reformation got under way and Cardinal David Beaton, for one, was determined to keep control of Mary, allying with her mother and a pro-Catholic, anti-English faction against the growing number of nobles that wanted Henry VIII’s revolution against Rome to spread to Scotland.

Beaton went too far in burning Protestant reformer George Wishart as a heretic, and was in turn assassinated by Protestant lairds at St Andrews in 1546. Wishart’s right-hand man was a certain John Knox, who ended up a French galley slave for a while.

The infant Mary was now the prize in a tug of war between various factions – literally a war, as Henry VIII invaded Scotland in his “Rough Wooing”, a war with England that lasted from 1544 to 1549, after the Scottish Parliament repudiated the pact to marry off Mary to Henry’s son and heir.

With Beaton out of the road, the pro-English Protestant lords seemed ready to win the day and formalise the alliance with England which continued to be sought by the English even after Henry died in 1547. The Battle of Pinkie Cleugh proved their desire, with the Scottish army devastated and many towns and villages sacked. But with Arran now resolutely anti-English, the Scots sought assistance from France.

The King of France, Henry II, was advised by the Guise family who were highly placed in his court and they kept him informed of the bewildering events in Scotland.

Eventually it was agreed by the Regent Arran and the Scottish Parliament that Mary should be sent abroad for her own safety and in looking for a future queen for his son Francois, Henry II offered France as her new home as long as the young queen could be betrothed to the dauphin.

Henry had also sent French troops to aid the Scots and they would stay to help guard against an English invasion.

A small court went with Mary to France. Famously her retinue contained four young friends, the Four Marys – Beaton, Seaton, Fleming and Livingston – who went with her on the ships which left from Dumbarton Castle and evaded the English navy to arrive safely in Brittany a week later.

On arrival at the French court, Mary charmed everyone she met. She was growing tall and beautiful while Francois remained smaller than her and often in poor health.

Mary learned all the courtly skills such as playing the lute, and was also educated well beyond the degree that was normal for princesses of the day – she was taught Latin and Greek and was also a bit of a linguist, learning Spanish and Italian as well as French and her own Scots tongue.

Her own occasional ill health returned and she contracted smallpox. Normally those who recovered from the disease were left with distinctive pockmarking, but that did not apply to Mary whose bright auburn hair, dark eyes and smooth white skin made her a very attractive girl. She also attracted the jealousy of Catherine de Medici, Henry’s Queen Consort, who nevertheless admitted Mary’s charms.

Despite their pronounced physical differences, Dauphin Francois and Mary always got on well and a genuine love developed between them, which her future father-in-law commented on proudly.

Mary was left to grow up gracefully but events in England were conspiring against her. The Catholic Queen Mary died in November 1558, and was succeeded by Elizabeth I, Henry’s daughter by Anne Boleyn. Catholics everywhere considered Elizabeth to be illegitimate and thus unable to take the English throne, and through her link to Henry VIII via her grandmother, the wife of King James IV, Mary was acclaimed as the rightful queen of England.

Henry II had no hesitation in proclaiming that Mary and his son were the true heirs to England’s crown and ultimately that claim would cause Mary – who did indeed believe that she should be queen of England – much grief and would lead to her death.

On July 10, 1559, King Henry II of France died as a result of injuries he received in a jousting tournament. His son became Francois II of France while his wife, Mary, already the Queen of Scots, became his queen consort.

The following year her mother, Mary of Guise, died in Scotland, and the Treaty of Edinburgh was signed on behalf of Mary to have the English and French troops withdraw from Scotland while the Scots would recognise Elizabeth’s right to the English throne. Sent to her to be ratified, Mary refused to do so as it would mean the end of her claim to be rightful queen of England.

In December 1560, King Francois suffered an inner ear infection which soon spread to cause an abscess in his brain. At the age of 18, Mary found herself a childless widow, while her mother-in-law Catherine de Medici was made regent in place of her son the new King Charles IX.

The only place for Mary to go was home to Scotland, a country which she had not seen for almost 13 years and which was in a highly volatile situation, the Reformation having taken place with sudden almost brutal speed the previous year.

Scotland was now a Protestant country and a less than warm welcome awaited the young Catholic queen on the part of John Knox and his co-religionists.

We know what happened next thank to Knox himself, writing in his History of the Reformation in the Realm of Scotland.

“The nineteenth day of August, the year of God 1561, betwixt seven and eight hours before noon, arrived at Leith Marie, Queen of Scotland, then widow, with two galleys furth of France. In her company, besides her gentlewomen, called the Maries were her three uncles, Claude de Lorraine, the Duke d’Aumale, Francis de Lorraine, the Grand Prior, and Rene de Lorraine, Marquis d’Elboeuf. There accompanied her also the Seigneur de Damville, son to the Constable of France, with other gentlemen of inferior condition, besides servants and officers.

“The very face of heaven, the time of her arrival, did manifestly speak what comfort was brought into this country with her, to wit, pain, darkness, and all impiety. In the memory of man, that day of the year, was never seen a more dolorous face of the heaven. Besides the surfeit wet, and corruption of the air, the mist was so thick and so dark, that scarce might any man espy another the length of two pair of butts. The sun was not seen to shine two days before, nor two days after. That forewarning gave God unto us; but, alas, the most part were blind!

“At the sound of the cannons which the galleys shot, the multitude being advertised, happy were he and she that first might have the presence of the Queen!”

The ordinary people of Leith and Edinburgh were delighted to see their beautiful young queen, and her reign started with music and dancing which Knox did not object to.

Mary was home to be Queen of Scots, but her troubles were not long in starting, as we shall see next week.