MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS : TIMELINE
Mother-Mary of Guise-she was a French woman. She married James 5-king of Scotland-she was the King's wife. James 5 died-so Mary of Guise acted as REGENT (she ran the country as the ruler till her daughter Mary Queen of Scots was old enough to run Scotland herself.
1560-Scots were burning Catholic monasteries, because Scotland was a Protestant country. Mary was unhappy-she went to France for an army to help her-Queen Elizabeth 1 was a protestant-she sent a big army to Scotland to help protestants. Eventually Mary of Guise lost-army from France was locked up in Leith-Scotland became a completely protestant country. Scotland's main protestant leader was JOHN KNOX.
WHY WAS MARY SENT TO FRANCE?
1548-Henry 8 of England wanted his son Edward to marry the Queen of Scots (Mary was 6 at this stage). The idea was that if this happened, the English would rule BOTH Scotland and England. The Scots did NOT want this, so they sent Mary to France. In 1558 she married the heir of the French throne, FRANCIS.
1560-Francis died-so Mary came back to Scotland, to be Queen of Scots.
MARRIAGE 2:
To Lord Darnley (Scot's Nobleman). However, before long, the marriage began to fail-Darnley wanted the power of a King. So Darnley was blown up-a conspiracy. That was the end of Marriage Number 2.
MARRIAGE 3:
Third marriage was to Earl of Bothwell. He was supposed to have been responsible for the death of Darnley. He had been tied-but he had 300 heavies out room the court room so he was found NOT GUILTY. Mary then married Mr Earl. The Protestant's became angry and began to build an army to fight Mary. Mary lost-she was imprisoned in Loch Liven Castle. She escaped-tried to get another army. The battle of Carberry. She lost and was captured: Taken to London and imprisoned in The Tower of London by Elizabeth. She was kept there for over 19 years. Elizabeth had no children to follow her as ruler of England. Mary DID Have a claim to the throne, so Elizabeth decided that the safest thing to do was to keep Mary locked up in the tower.
EVENTUALLY MARY'S DEATH:
Elizabeth sometimes wanted to have dead, sometimes not. So by 1589 she was accused of plotting against Elizabeth. Secret "letters" were found. So Mary was tried for treason (plotting against the queen). Mary was found guilty and was eventually beheaded.
BY 1603-Elizabeth of England was dead. The family trees were investigated and it was decided the only person who could become the new king was Mary's son-James 6 of Scotland. He became James 6 of Scotland James 1 of England. This was called THE UNICORN OF THE CROWNS.
Mary wrote 12 Sonnets for her third husband: Lord Bothwell.
Written from April to June 1567.
Here are all 12 of them;
1. Lord, grant your mercy unto me;
Teach me some way that we amy know
My love for him is not an empty show
But pure tenderness and constancy.
For does he not, alas, ev'n now possess.
This body and this heart which would not flee
Discard, dishonour, not uncertainty.
Nor family hurt, nor evil's worst distress.
For his sake, I value all my friend's as dust
And in my enemies I seek to place my trust.
For him, my conscience and good to chance I've chance:
I would renounce the world were it is whim:
I'd gladly die if it should profit him.
What more is there to prove my love steadfast?
2. She does your bidding for honour's sake:
I do your bidding and I have none but strife
Since, unlike her, alas, I'm not your wife.
And though this procedure she cannot take,
She uses her constancy to benefit her name
-For there's small honour as me mistress of your house-
While I, for loving you, receive only abuse.
And I will not give way to her, nor play her game.
She does not grasp the danger you are in;
I cannot rest for fear of what may be.
She made your acquaintance through her family;
I bring you love and this defy my kin.
But nonetheless you doubt if like thee
And place your trust in her loyalty to you.
3. Through you, my heart, and through you marriage vow,
She has restored her honour and estate;
She has achieved through you a rank more great
Than any of her kin could hope to know.
From you , my joy, she has had steadfast love
And for a time she's occupied your heart.
Through you, pleasure in fortune is her part
And through you, others honour and approve.
She's had to give up nothing, save the embrace
Of a tiresome dolt she once loved dear;
I don't condemn her love that burns so clear
for one who, in wisdom, gallantry and grace,
In generous heart and in constancy
Is second to none. I live in that faith.
4. My love for him is growing and shall grow
Throughout my life as long as there's a part
Where it can grow to greatness in that heart;
Then at the last my love may show
So very clearly he shall have no doubt.
For him I'll undergo the worst ordeal.
For him, I'll seek out honour with all zeal,
And through my deeds for certain he'll find out
That wealth, content and ease are lost to me
Unless I do his will and serve him loyalty.
For him, I seek good chance from fortune's store.
For him, I wish to keep my life and thrive;
For him, to follow virtue's path I'll strive;
And he will find me constant evermore.
5. And I have shed for him so many a tear.
First when he took my body and made it his own
Although my heart was not yet won.
Again he filled me with great fear,
when so much of his blood spilled out
That, out of grief I though to ease the pain
By ending my own life and ne'er fear again
The loss, alas, of my own true redoubt.
For him, I've spurned my honour, and disdained
The only way true happiness is gained.
For him, I've gambled my conscience, rank and right.
For him, all friends and family I've fled,
And all respectability I've shed:
In short, with you alone will I unite.
6. I call you my sole sustenance of life
Only because I seek to make it true;
Thus I dare force myself in all I do
In order to win you despite all the strife.
For your dear friend has one desire alone:
To serve you and love you loyally
And think nothing of adversity
And to your will subject my own.
You'll see how large obedience plays
In my devotion, and I will study always
The science of pleasing you most loyalty;
Ioving only you, a servant to your will,
I wish, with no pretence, to fulfill
My life and death, and with this I will comply.
7. Into his hands and wholly in his power
I place my son, my honour and my all,
My country, my subjects, my surrendered soul
And trust him with my life, and want no more
For my purpose than to follow his command,
And never fail him despite the suffering
That may attend, for I desire nothing
But, by my faith, to have him understand
Whatever weather, fair or foul, we face,
My love will never change its dwelling place.
In short, I'll prove my faith so he takes heed
And learns of my constancy, not by some pretence,
Nor artful sighs nor feigned obedience
As others have shown him, but by my every deed.
8. While you made love, she lay with cold disdain.
If you were suffering the heat of passion
That comes from loving with too much emotion,
Her hand would make her heart's revulsion plain,
Taking no joy in your love's fervent art.
In her dress, she showed without a doubt,
She never feared bad taste might blot her out
From the affection of your loyal heart.
I saw in her none of the fear of death for you
That such a lord and husband should be due.
In short, though you're her source of all that's fair,
She never prized but valued very small
That finest hour because she failed to share,
Yet now she says she loved it the best of all.
9. And now at last she starts to comprehend
How poor her judgment was and to discover
She should not undervalue such a lover;
And she would fain deceive my friend
With writings tricked out in a learned tone
That could not be the product of her brain
But borrowed from the works of some great man.
She's sent a fine dispatch though she has none.
Nonetheless, her words painted to deceive,
Her tears, her fiction-laden piteous sighs,
Her lamentations, bawling cries,
Have worked their way so well that you believe
She wrote these letters and you save them carefully;
And thus your love and trust her more than me.
10.You trust in her; alas I see too well you do!
And you cast doubt upon my constancy.
(You, who are the only joy and hope for me.)
And I cannot persuade you I am true.
You think I'm fickle, it's plain to see,
And thus you will not grant your confidence.
You mistrust my heart without evidence,
And your suspicion does great wrong to me.
You do not heed the love I bear at all.
You suspect some other love has me in thrall.
You value all my words no more than wind.
You picture my sad heart malleable as clay.
You think I am a women with no mind.
All that makes love burn fiercer day by day.
11.My heart, my blood, my soul and my great care,
Alas you promised we should have the pleasure
Of whiling away the hours of leisure
All night long with you, but I languish here,
My heart pierced through by fear's most wounding dart,
Because I know not where my heart's desire may be.
I'm stricken with fear that you've forgotten me.
Sometimes I'm frightened that your loving heart
May have hardened against me through being misled
By what some spiteful gossip may have said.
And sometimes I fear a mishap on the way
Has turned my lover from his true in tent
By some adversity or accident.
May God turn all such evil signs away!
12.Not seeing you, although you promised me,
I've taken pen and paper so to write
About a dispute that I would indite.
I do not know what your judgment may be,
But I know well which one of us loves best.
You'll clearly tell which one shall gain the most.
MARY STUART'S HUSBANDS
FRANCIS THE II
Mary's first husband, Francis II was born on the 19th of January 1544 and died sadly on the 5th of December 1560. In his lifetime, he became king of France and was the oldest son of Henry II and Catherine de Medicis. Francis was married to Mary Stuart, the queen of Scots in the month of April in the year of 1558. After succeeding in taking the French throne in the year 1559, Francis finally came under the influence of the powerful relatives of Mary of Guise. They sought to destroy the French protestants or the French Huguenots. The continuing persecution provoked the Huguenot conspiracy of Amboise (1560). They had planned a plot to abduct Francis and then arrest his Guise mentors. The plan was discovered and everything was over, but sadly Francis was killed in the incident as a curtailed Guise influence.
HENRY STEWART via LORD DARNLEY
Mary's second husband, Henry Stewart, who is better known as Lord Darnley, was born on the 7th December 1545. He was the son of Matthew, the 4th Earl of Lennox, he began the court of a young Mary Stuart in the year of 1565. They were married on the 29th of July 1565, according to Roman Catholic Rites. Sadly this was a displeasure to the Earl of Moray, who was Mary's half brother. The powerful Hamilton Family and John Knox were also very unhappy. What appeared for dynasty reasons to be a good match soon soured. Darnley's jealously of David Rizzio, secretary of Mary, led to the death of Rizzio in march 1566. Sadly, Darnley took part in the plan, and the actual murder of Rizzio. This actually alienated him from Mary, who had grown tired of him trying to get full power of the thrown. Darnley was murdered on the 9th-10th of February 1567 at Kirk o' Field. Tragically he was blown up at night when he was sleeping.
JAMES HEPBURN
Mary's third and last husband, James Hepburn who was the 4th Earl of Bothwell, was born in 1536. James supported the Protestant faction in Scottish politics during the era of the Reformation. Nonetheless, in the year of 1565 he helped the Roman-Catholic Mary Stuart to put down the Earl of Moray's rebellion. After the murder (which was probably arranged by Bothwell) or Mary's second husband, Lord Darnley. After this, he made preparations to wed Mary for himself of which he eventually did on the 15th of May. They married by protestant rites. Soon after the wedding, a coalition of protestant and Catholic nobles confronted by the Queen of Bothwell at Carberry Hill outside of Edinburgh. Sadly Bothwell fled and died on the 14th of April 1578 in Denmark.
8 AMAZING FACTS!
1. Leith was twin to Bordeaux-that was for trading reasons.
2. Prior to the Reformation, Leith was flattened but sadly not much remains today. In the 16th century and prior, Leith was considered to be one of the most beautiful towns in Scotland!
3. It took Mary, Queen of Scots 5-6 hours just to travel from Kirkgate, through Duke Street and up Easter Road to get to her palace in Holyrood! It is said that it was due to the Highway men!
4. Some memorabilia confused between Mary, Queen of Guise/Lorraine and Mary Stuart:-Mary, Queen of Scots.
5. Lambs house could of been confused with Mary, Queen of Guise/Lorraine's palace down in the docks.
6. When Mary, Queen of Scots first visited Leith, and for about a century afterward, Constitution street did not exist.
7. There was rivalry between North (ship builders) and South (merchants) Leith.
8. Amazing as it sounds, Mary only spent 1 hour altogether in Leith!
(N.B. Some of these facts may not seem relevant, but they are all relevant since this has got to do with Mary visiting Leith, even though she didn't waste any time in getting to Holyrood palace.)