Mary Queen of Scots
1542 – 1587 · Generation XXIV · Queen of Scots (r. 1542–1567) · House of Stuart
Mary Stuart (1542–1587). Queen of Scots (r. 1542–1567). Married Francis II of France in 1558. Married Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley in 1565. They had one child. Queen at six days old; nineteen years Elizabeth’s prisoner, executed at Fotheringhay — yet every later monarch descends from her. Sent to France as a child to be raised beyond the reach of invading English armies during the Rough Wooing, she returned to Scotland in 1561 a widow and governed at first with pragmatism and tolerance — a Catholic queen accepting the Protestant settlement she found. Her rule unravelled in violence: Darnley orchestrated the murder of her secretary David Rizzio, then was himself found dead after an explosion at his residence, and her marriage to the Earl of Bothwell, widely blamed for the deed, provoked the rising that forced her abdication in favour of her infant son. As a great-granddaughter of Henry VII she had claimed Elizabeth’s throne; it was a conviction for plotting Elizabeth’s assassination that finally brought the axe.
One of 14 people of House of Stuart (from 1371) in this archive. Scotland’s royal house for three centuries before James VI inherited England and wore both crowns.
Line of descent: Owen Tudor → Edmund Tudor → King Henry VII → Margaret Tudor → King James V of Scotland → Mary Queen of Scots.
Parents
- King James V of Scotland (1512 – 1542)
- Mary of Guise (1515 – 1560)
Partners
- Married Francis II of France (1544 – 1560) in 1558
- Married Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (1546 – 1567) in 1565 — one child together
Children
- King James I (1566 – 1625)
Life
- 1542 — Born
- 1542 — One-week-old Mary, succeeds to the throne on the death of her father James V
- 1543 — At the Treaty of Greenwich Mary is betrothed to Prince Edward son of Henry VIII of England, but the Scottish Lords refuse to ratify the treaty preferring an alliance with France,
- 1558 — Married Francis II of France
- 1558 — Mary, Queen of Scots, marries French Dauphin, Francis Valois (he was aged 14) at Notre Dame in Paris. She adopts the French spelling of Stuart for her surname
- 1559 — Mary becomes Queen of France when her husband becomes King
- 1560 — Treaty of Edinburgh between France and England, recognising sovereignty of Mary Queen of Scots and her first husband Francis II
- 1561 — Mary Queen of Scots lands at Leith on her return from France, after the death of her husband, King Francis II
- 1565 — Married Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley
- 1565 — Mary marries her cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. The marriage is a disaster
- 1566 — Darnley jealous of Mary's Italian secretary David Rizzio, bursts into her room at Holyrood and Rizzio is murdered.
- 1566 — Mary Queen of Scots gives birth to the future King James VI of Scotland and I of England
- 1567 — Lord Darnley, husband of Mary Queen of Scots, assassinated
- 1567 — Mary marries Earl of Bothwell. The Scottish Lords imprison Mary in Loch Leven castle.
- 1567 — Mary Queen of Scots abdicates and her 1 year old son the young James VI accedes to Scottish throne. William Cecil, English Secretary of State, arranges for Mary's half brother James Stewart, Earl of Moray, to return from France and be appointed regent.
- 1587 — Died