Mary Queen of Scots

by Retha Warnicke

  On 1 July 1543 the governments of Scotland and England agreed to the Treaties of Greenwich, the first ending the war and the second stipulating that at the end of Mary’s tenth year, she would marry Edward by proxy and move to England. A clause also confirmed Scotland’s right to retain its laws and liberties. In the negotiations leading to this amity, the English ambassador, Sir Ralph Sadler, obtained Mary of Guise’s reluctant, momentary agreement to her daughter’s marriage to Edward. On 22 March Sadler was permitted to view the infant naked to reassure his monarch about her health and appearance, most importantly about her lack of deformity, and observed that she was “as goodly a child as I have seen of her age, as like to live, with the grace of God.”8

  Opposition to the alliance mounted because of the agreement to send the queen to England while she was still a child. On 24 July having gathered an army larger than Arran’s, Beaton and his allies challenged the earl’s control of her. Among Beaton’s supporters were Argyll, Huntly, and Lennox, who had recently reached Scotland as the ambassador of Francis I. Eleven years earlier possibly for safety reasons, Lennox had moved to France where he became a French subject. Usually, when two Scottish forces encountered each other, the side with fewer numbers withdrew, as occurred at this confrontation. On the 27th Beaton supervised the transfer to Sterling of Mary, who was teething, and her grateful mother, who had earlier expressed the opinion to Sadler that it was inappropriate for Arran, the heir presumptive whom she considered untrustworthy, to have sole custody of her child. At their young queen’s removal to Stirling, Arran and Beaton each appointed two guardians for her: Arran chose Alexander, fifth Lord Livingston of Callendar, and John, fifth Lord Lindsay of the Byres, while Beaton selected Lord Erskine, and William Graham, second earl of Montrose.

  After meeting with the queen dowager at Stirling, Sadler reported on 10 August her opinion that “her daughter did grow apace; and soon, she said, she would be a woman, if she took after her mother.” He also commented, “She is a right fair and goodly child, as any that I have seen, for her age.” A week later, responding to an inquiry about whether she was ill with a childhood disease, Sadler related that she had contracted smallpox but had been fully recovered from it for at least ten days.9 Often reports were vague and contradictory about childhood diseases. As Mary later suffered smallpox in France, the ailment to which Sadler referred was probably chickenpox.

  On Sunday, 9 September, Beaton crowned her at Stirling; in the procession to the chapel, Arran marched with the crown, Argyll with the sword of state, and Lennox with the scepter. This was the first occasion on which these regalia, obtained by James IV and James V, were carried together to symbolize royal power. The usual festivities, tournaments, and masques celebrated the event. Although Sadler criticized the day’s meagerness, remarking that she was crowned with such ceremony as they employ in Scotland, which was not very costly, comparisons of later versions of the ceremony to their English and French counterparts indicate a great similarity.

  It is, furthermore, unclear just what evidence Sadler was using for his assessment since he was unable to attend the ritual. His enforced seclusion at Edinburgh, 38 miles from Stirling, could have prompted his disgruntled remark, as ambassadors usually held places of honor on these occasions. Three days before the coronation, he reported that someone had shot at and almost hit one of his men. He also complained that Edinburgh’s citizens were so hostile: “I dare not go, nor almost send out of my doors, and much less might I ride or travel abroad in the country...without suspicion and danger.”10 In somewhat different circumstances, the imperial ambassador, Francis van der Delft, who marched in Edward VI’s procession from the Tower of London to Westminster Abbey on the eve of his coronation but was not invited to the ritual itself, reported that it was “no very memorable show of triumph or magnificence.”11

  Since Scotland was Mary’s dowry, Henry VIII was not the only father seeking to match his heir with her. Before confirming the English treaties, Arran proposed her for his namesake son, who was about five years her senior; another contender was Argyll, a descendant of James II, who settled for his namesake heir’s union with Jean, one of James V’s illegitimate daughters. It was the 26-year-old Lennox, who was momentarily successful, signing a secret pact in October with the queen mother to wed her infant daughter.12

  After Lennox returned to Scotland as a French subject, Beaton and Mary of Guise agreed to recognize him as the young queen’s heir presumptive. Like Arran, Lennox was a descendant of James II’s daughter Mary but through her daughter Elizabeth, not her son. Lennox and his allies argued, however, that because Arran was born to his father’s wife, Janet Beaton, during the lifetime of his former divorced spouse, Janet Home, he was illegitimate and therefore ineligible for the succession. If this allegation were to win acceptance, Lennox would be declared the true heir presumptive, but most Scots continued to favor Arran’s claim.

  In November Sadler reported the unconfirmed rumor that Beaton had tried unsuccessfully to reconcile Arran and Lennox with two proposals: Arran was to divorce his wife and marry the queen mother and Lennox was to wed her daughter. No evidence suggests that Beaton approved Arran’s union with Mary of Guise although Lennox did agree to wed her child. Not wishing to wait well more than a decade before marrying, however, Lennox began competing with Patrick Hepburn, third earl of Bothwell, for Mary of Guise, who had earlier expressed her feelings about remarriage to Sadler: “Since she had been a king’s wife her heart was too high to look any lower.”13

  Mary of Guise would not normally, of course, reveal her marital inclinations to the English ambassador, but her invocation of early modern hierarchical social standards was tactful and went unquestioned. That she spent the remainder of her life protecting her daughter’s patrimony indicates her major concern was that child’s well-being. She undoubtedly believed it would not facilitate her daughter’s rule as queen to advance a Scottish nobleman as her stepfather. Although Lennox ultimately departed for England, Bothwell procured a divorce from his wife, Agnes Sinclair, known thereafter as the Lady of Morham, to make it possible for him to wed Mary of Guise should she decide to accept him as her husband.

  Meanwhile, having lost control of the young queen and observing a growing hostility to her English marriage, Arran had retreated in September from his reformist stance, sometimes referred to as his Protestant fit, and was reconciled to the Church and Cardinal Beaton. Fear that his anti-clericalism might lead the Church to revoke his father’s divorce from Janet Home and declare Arran illegitimate may have prompted this policy change. Three months later in parliament, he rejected the Treaties of Greenwich. Reacting angrily to this negative decision, Henry sent armed forces into Scotland under the command of Edward Seymour, future duke of Somerset, as part of a strategy known as the Rough Wooing, which spanned two hostile periods, first from late 1543 to mid-1546 and then from late 1547 to the spring of 1550. During the first phase, raiding parties destroyed many buildings and fortifications and burned several towns but failed to capture the young queen. In May 1544, according to a letter co-authored by the future Somerset, Charles Brandon, future duke of Suffolk, and Sadler, when English forces approached within six miles of Stirling, Mary’s guardians removed her temporarily to Dunkeld, 44 miles away on the edge of the Highlands.

  After Arran began favoring the French alliance, Lennox left for England to champion the young queen’s marriage to Edward; thus the Scottish claimants switched their diplomatic stances. In 1544 Lennox transferred his allegiance from France to England and agreed to capture Mary for Henry, who planned to serve as her protector. The king then permitted Lennox to wed Margaret Douglas, the daughter of his sister, Margaret Tudor, and her second husband, the earl of Angus. On 7 December 1545 the countess gave birth to Darnley, who possessed claims to the English and Scottish thrones through his mother and father, respectively. Some writers have questioned whether this was his birth year, but after his death, Mary recalled that he was nineteen on their wedding day in July 1565.<
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  Between 1543 and 1548 Mary resided mostly at Stirling in the care of her nurse, Janet Sinclair, and her guardians, whose number was reduced in 1545 to two lords: Erskine and Livingston. Her spiritual advisers were her almoner, John Erskine, prior of Inchmahome, and Alexander Scott, canon of the chapel royal of Stirling and parson of Balmaclellan.

  After Arran rejected his reformist stance, Henry encouraged his col-laborators in Scotland to support anti-papal behavior, hoping to promote a religious understanding between the two realms that would result in the reinstatement of the Treaties of Greenwich. One Scotsman pressing for reform was John Knox, a tutor of Alexander, son of John Cockburn of Ormiston. Knox condemned Cardinal Beaton’s crusade against heresy and his decision in March 1546 to burn the charismatic reformer, George Wishart, a Cambridge alumnus and probably an English agent.

  In retaliation for his execution, some Fife men, disguised as stone-masons, invaded the castle at St Andrews in May 1546 and assassinated Beaton. Others, including Knox, who were associated with Wishart, joined the murderers, known as the Castilians. With some limited English aid, they controlled the castle until July 1547 when a French fleet forced their surrender. Their conquerors sent some Castilians of high social rank to French prisons but employed others as galley slaves, including Knox and James Balfour.

  Some months following the castle’s surrender, the second phase of the Rough Wooing commenced. After Edward’s accession in January 1547, his uncle, Somerset, the Lord Protector, decided to use force to complete his nephew’s marriage to Mary. In September after he defeated the Scots at the battle of Pinkie Cleugh near Musselburgh, Mary of Guise transferred her daughter to the priory of Inchmahome, which lies on an island in the Lake of Menteith. Their short residence led to the growth of many legends, among them that the little queen planted a garden there, but she was much too young for this achievement and was back at Stirling by early October. After William, Lord Grey of Wilton, and Lennox led armies into Scotland in February 1548, Grey to the east and Lennox to the west, the queen mother had her child removed on the 29th to Dumbarton, the most important strategic castle in western Scotland. The English captured several fortifications, built two new forts, and created an area regarded as their pale that centered on Haddington, which lay 18 miles from Edinburgh.

  Having requested assistance from Henry II, the successor of Francis I in 1547, Arran and Mary of Guise agreed on 7 July that the queen should wed Francis the dauphin, who was born 19 January 1544. Arran had earlier pledged that in return for a French duchy and a marriage for his namesake son with Frances, the elder daughter of Louis of Bourbon, duke of Montpensier, he would seek parliamentary consent for Mary’s union with the dauphin, her removal to France, and French control of certain Scottish fortifications. Clearly interested in this alliance because Mary was also a claimant to the English throne, Henry II promised Arran full authority in Scotland during her minority and support for his accession in the event of her death without children.

  These were substantial concessions, as Henry subsequently granted Arran the dukedom of Châtelherault with an annual income of 12,000 livres. Although his son, referred to hereafter as the earl of Arran, moved to France, he failed to win Montpensier’s daughter. In March during these negotiations, Mary contracted a case of measles, which because of its rumored severity may have been rubella. Her illness raised concerns about the Scottish succession, since measles had a high mortality rate among children in the early modern period, but by the 23rd the crisis was over.

  Meeting in tents erected near the Abbey of Haddington in July, parliament approved Mary’s French marriage and residence and the employment of Henry II’s forces to expel the English invaders, thereby transforming Scotland into a French protectorate. Although French fleets had provided occasional assistance to the queen mother, the Treaty of Haddington, which agreed to a permanent French military presence in the realm, moved Henry II far beyond a short-term level of commitment. On 19 June even before parliament confirmed the treaty, a French armada reached the Firth of Forth and several days later a joint Franco-Scottish army began besieging Haddington.

  Nicholas Durand, sieur de Villegaignon, and Artus de Maillé, sieur de Brézé, took four galleys from the fleet northward around the realm to Dumbarton to transport the queen to France. On 29 July Mary and her train, including four maids named Mary, representing the Fleming, Livingston, Beaton, and Seton families, boarded the galleys. Some accounts have greatly exaggerated the importance of the queen’s having four attendants named Mary, but they surely gained selection because of their royal connections and their nearness in age to her and not because of their names. Seton and Beaton were daughters of two of Mary of Guise’s French attendants; Fleming’s mother, Janet, the widow of Malcolm, third Lord Fleming, and an illegitimate daughter of James IV, was Mary’s governess; Livingston’s father was one of her guardians.

  Although Mary was a generic name for Scottish maids of honor, these four girls were all christened Mary and were surely goddaughters of the queen mother. Godparents, especially royal ones, regularly named their godchildren after themselves. In England during Jane Seymour’s brief queenship, four noblewomen gave birth to girls christened Jane, almost certainly because the queen was one of their two godmothers. Had Jane’s young Edward been female, four Janes might well have attended him.

  Besides the Maries, the queen’s escort of some 200 individuals included three of her illegitimate half brothers, Lords James, Robert, and John, the commendators of St Andrew’s, Holyrood, and Coldingham, respectively. On board also were Erskine and Livingston, her two guardians, nurse Sinclair, governess Fleming, her spiritual advisers, and other attendants. For several days the fleet remained in the harbor, waiting for the adverse winds to change.

  3: FRENCH UPBRINGING, 1548–61

  When they boarded the galleys, de Brézé promised to keep Mary of Guise informed about how her daughter fared during the voyage. On 3 August 1548 he assured her that the winds tossing them about in the harbor had not made her child sick, and three days later reported that the fleet had sailed but storms had forced its return to port. Despite this and other misadventures, such as a broken rudder, they left Dumbarton on 7 August and disembarked at St Pol de Léon near the port of Roscoff in Brittany on 15 August.1 He reported on the 18th that Mary had been less ill than everyone else and that Henry had sent his valet de chambre, Antoine Cabassoles du Réal, to welcome her to France.2

  Following a two-day rest at Morlaix’s Dominican convent, Mary’s party reached Nantes, where she made her entry on the 22nd. Surely following the prompting of her guardians or governess, she explained to her greeters at Nantes that she believed they were honoring her as Henry II’s daughter. When informed about the five-year-old queen’s statement, the gratified king repeated it several times, affirming he held her as his true daughter.

  From Nantes Mary and her escort traveled by barge up the Loire River, rested at Ancenis, were welcomed at Angers on 21 September, and continued on to Tours, where the joyous duchess of Guise greeted her granddaughter. On 1 October she predicted to her son, Charles, archbishop of Rheims, future cardinal of Lorraine, that Mary would become a beauty, for she was pretty, intelligent, and graceful. A brunette, she had white skin, a fine and clear complexion, small deep-set eyes, and a long face.3 After lingering at Maille, they passed by Amboise and Blois and disembarked at Orléans to complete the journey overland.

  On 14 October they reached the nursery, which was located at the château of St Carriéres in St Denis during the refurbishing of the palace at St Germain-en-Laye, its usual headquarters some 12 miles from Paris. Away on a progress, Henry sent instructions to its director, Jean de Humières, sieur de Mouchy, and his wife, Frances de Contay, to prepare for Mary’s arrival. As his heir’s betrothed, Henry raised her in rank above his daughters and granted her the privileges held by his consort, Catherine de’ Medici, to grant pardons and release prisoners.4

  After meeting Mary, probably on 9 November at St Germa
in, Henry judged her the prettiest and most graceful princess he had ever seen, an opinion reflecting the views of the whole court, according to de Brézé. Catherine echoed her husband’s praise and later remarked that the little queen needed only to smile to turn all French heads.5 Lord Erskine also confided to Mary of Guise that the royal family greatly honored her child.

  De Humières taught the four-year-old Francis how to welcome Mary, and he apparently rose to the occasion admirably. His greeting impressed Henry’s long-time mistress, Diane de Poitiers, duchess of Valentinois and widow of Louis de Brézé, count of Maulévrier. She counseled the tutor that if he wanted to please Henry he should continue coaching Francis to perform those small courtesies. De Humières followed her advice so well that Anne de Montmorency, constable of France, could report to Mary of Guise in March 1549 that Francis paid her six-year-old daughter little attentions, proving they were born for each other.

  Mary was immediately introduced to the court’s protocol. The children assembled daily in the nursery’s great hall to pay homage to the dauphin and his betrothed as their social superiors. Imitating their elders’ dinnertime etiquette, Mary and Francis dined at the same table while their young attendants sat elsewhere according to their rank. In 1553 her French governess, Frances d’Estamville, madame de Parois, assured her mother that Mary behaved very well toward Francis.

  Whenever possible, parents arranged for betrothed children to be brought up together so that they could become acquainted and emotionally attached to each other. Representing the perfect examples of this practice, Francis and Mary impressed observers, as they approached adolescence, with their caring relationship. In January 1555 when she was 12 and Francis was 11, Giovanni Capello, the Venetian ambassador, characterized their intimacy as love after witnessing them caressing each other and whispering together in a corner of the room.6