July 24, 1567 –
Mary of Guise, the French wife of Scotland’s King James V, gave birth to a daughter named Mary in 1542. A week later King James died and the very young Mary became the Queen of Scotland.
Prince Edward of England proposed marriage to the Scottish Queen immediately, and his proposal is therefore known as the Rough Wooing. While the underage prince waited for the Queen to acquire enough verbal skills to respond, the Scottish Parliament annulled the engagement.
Edward’s father, King Henry VIII of England, considered this an insult and declared war. After a particularly nasty Scottish defeat in 1547, young Mary was sent to France. It was hoped she would learn to read and write there – and perhaps eventually reach puberty.
She was raised in the court of King Henry II, which should have taught her some manners, but instead inspired her to marry the Dauphin. The Dauphin eventually became king, and then died, leaving Mary as the dowager Queen of France at age 18. Meanwhile, her mother had died in Scotland, sparking a Protestant rebellion. The Scots imported the Reformation and banned the Pope. Mary, being Catholic, returned to Scotland to work out a compromise: the country could be Protestant as long as she was allowed to remain Catholic.
Four years later, she married her cousin, Lord Darnley – a Tudor Stewart. Unfortunately, he turned out to be insufferable, and even the birth of a son couldn’t induce him to behave. The following year, he was struck by an explosion and subsequently died of strangulation.
Mary was then kidnapped by one of the suspects in Darnley’s murder: the Earl of Bothwell. She made him a Duke and married him.
This angered the Protestants, who rose up against her and, on this very day in 1567, forced her to abdicate in favor of her son, who was immediately crowned James VI.
She later escaped, raised an army, and was promptly defeated. She became a guest (or, in English, prisoner) of Queen Elizabeth I, until she was caught writing letters asking her friends to support (or, in Scottish, kill) the English Queen.
She was therefore beheaded, and remains dead to this day.
(This will be on the test.)
The Haus of Dcaligari 