Mary Queen of Scots, DYK Fact #337

Did ye know? Mary Queen of Scots (1542–87) was the daughter of King James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise.

I now be reading the book Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser.

Did you know? James V died the same month that his daughter was born (December 1542).

Did ye know? Henry VII of England was the father of James V’s mother, Margaret Tudor.

Did you know? Henry VII and Elizabeth of York had four children – among whom were Henry VIII and Mary Tudor, Queen of France.

Did you know? Mary Queen of France was the grandmother of Lady Jane Grey.

Did you know? Lady Jane Grey’s sisters were Lady Catherine Grey and Lady Mary Grey.

Did you know? Henry VII’s first son Arthur died while the king was still on the throne – which is why England has never had a real King Arthur!

Did you know? Arthur’s widow became the first of Henry VIII’s six wives – for she was none other than Catherine of Aragon.

Did ye know? The Stuart dynasty, which supplanted the Tudors in England following the death of Elizabeth I, was founded by Robert II of Scotland, whose father Walter Stewart had married Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert the Bruce. The French spelling, “Stuart” rather than “Stewart”, was adopted by Mary Queen of Scots.

Did you know? Mary Queen of Scots married Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, in 1565.

Did you know? Elizabeth I’s mother was Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII.

Did you know? Anne was beheaded – as was the king’s fifth wife Catherine Howard.

Did ye know? Before his marriage to Mary of Guise, James V had married Madeleine, daughter of Francis I of France, but she died only months after their wedding.

Did you know? Madeleine of Valois was buried in Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh.

Did ye know? Mary of Guise is said to have said to Henry VIII, when the king wooed her after the death of Jane Seymour, that her neck was too small!

Did you know? James V and Mary of Guise married by proxy at the cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris, and then in person at the cathedral in St Andrews, Fife.

Did ye know? Mary Queen of Scots had two brothers, James and Robert, who both died in their infancy.

Did you know? Queen Mary is a college of the University of London. It is not named after any Tudor or Stuart Mary but after Mary of Teck, queen consort of George V. It was called Queen Mary College until its merger with another college of the University of London, when it then went by the name of Queen Mary & Westfield College. It is now simply called Queen Mary, University of London.

Did ye know? James V died in Falkland, Fife. He was only 30.

Did you know? That was just after the Scots had been defeated by the English at the Battle of Solway Moss (1542).

Did ye know? Mary Queen of Scots was born in Linlithgow, West Lothian.

Did you know? The present-day administrative centre of West Lothian is Livingston.

Did you know? “Mary Queen of Scots” was the specialist subject of one of the contestants on tonight’s “Mastermind”.

Unfortunately, she was shit on general knowledge, passing on no fewer than six questions in that round.

Did ye know? In 1543, the Treaty of Greenwich provided for the marriage of Mary to Henry VIII’s son, the future Edward VI of England.

Did you know? The Treaty of Greenwich was signed in July and rejected by the Scottish Parliament in December that same year.

Did ye know? In September in the meantime, the coronation of the 9-month-old Mary took place at Stirling Castle.

Did you know? In the following year, the Earl of Lennox married Mary’s future mother-in-law Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of Henry VIII’s sister Margaret Tudor.

Did ye know? In 1547, Henry VIII died.

Did you know? 1547 also saw the death of Francis I of France – who was succeeded by his son Henry II.

Did ye know? In 1547, following a disaster for the Scots at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, young Mary was removed from Stirling Castle and temporarily relocated at Inchmahome (spelt “Inchmahone” in Antonia Fraser’s book), an island in the Lake of Menteith.

Did you know? In the course of her life, Mary Queen of Scots had no fewer than three mothers-in-law.

Did ye know? In 1548, Mary Queen of Scots was transferred to Dumbarton Castle. Later that year, the Scots – who had been forced to seek an alliance with the French against the English following the Pinkie Cleugh fiasco – agreed to a marriage union between Mary and Henry II’s son, the future Francis II of France.

Did you know? Most of Scotland’s troubles at this period were probably due to the fact that the Scots were disunited, being more loyal to clan or family than to their nation.

Did ye know? The corruption of the Scottish Catholic Church at this period did not help matters.

Did you know? This was the period of the Reformation in Europe. The entire Catholic Church – not just the one in Scotland – was corrupt.

Did ye know? In August 1548, Mary Queen of Scots was shipped from the turbulence in Scotland to the safety and tranquillity of France. On her journey, she met the four Marys: Mary Fleming, Mary Seton, Mary Beaton, and Mary Livingston.

Did you know? Mary Queen of Scots and Francis were married in 1558.

Did ye know? Mary’s childhood friend was Francis’s sister Elisabeth (with whom she even shared a room).

Did you know? Mary Queen of Scots spoke both French and Scots fluently (although she could only speak her native tongue when she first arrived in France). She also learned Latin and other languages as a child.

Did ye know? In 1550, Mary of Guise sailed from Scotland to France to see her daughter.

Did you know? Mary of Guise died in 1560.

Did ye know? Mary Queen of Scots wore her favourite colour white on her wedding day – which must have been shocking to the French as white was the traditional mourning colour of French queens.

Did you know? Francis II was king of France for no more than 17 months, succeeding to the throne in July 1559 and dying in December 1560.

Did ye know? Francis II’s father Henry II died as a result of an accident in a friendly jousting duel. His wife Catherine de Médicis had apparently dreamt of his death the night before – why, even Nostradamus had foreseen the king’s death a few year earlier!

Did you know? In 1560, Scotland officially became a Protestant country. This must have been a blow to Mary Queen of Scots, who was a Catholic.

Did ye know? Francis II, who died in 1560 of an ear infection picked up during a hunting trip, was also a Catholic.

Did you know? Francis II was succeeded by his brother Charles IX, while his widow returned to Scotland and married her second husband.

Wasn't James I born in Scotland ?
More conversant in Scots dialect than English.
I think the Jamestown colony in Virginia was named after him.

But who was Mary Hamilton? Joan Baez used to sing this beautiful Child Ballad about her.

James I of Scotland (1394–1437) was born in Dunfermline.

James I of England (and VI of Scotland) (1566–1625) was born in Edinburgh.

Did you know? Before her return to Scotland from France, Mary Queen of Scots temporarily contemplated the prospect of marrying Don Carlos, son of Philip II of Spain by his first wife Maria Manuela of Portugal. That is the very prince portrayed in Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Don Carlo.

Did you know? While she was still in France, Mary Queen of Scots refused to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh, which sought to put an end to the Auld Alliance between Catholic France and the newly Protestant Scotland.

Did ye know? Mary’s refusal to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh so infuriated Elizabeth I that the English queen refused to grant Mary a passport into England. She later relented – but by then Mary Queen of Scots was already sailing from Calais to Leith.

Did you know? In 1562, war broke out in France between the Catholics and the Huguenots. This put Mary Queen of Scots in a rather awkward position in her attempts to curry favour with Elizabeth I of England – who was Protestant and was ready to send English troops to help the Huguenots should Spain intervene in the French civil war on the side of the Catholics.

Did ye know? In 1562, Mary Queen of Scots stayed briefly at Inverness Castle. The keeper of the castle, Alexander Gordon, initially refused to admit the queen. This was construed as treason, for which Gordon was hanged.

Did you know? Mary Queen of Scots was not just a queen – she was also a poet. The composer Robert Schumann has written a set of five songs based on her poems: Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart, Op 135.

Did ye know? Mary Queen of Scots had long fingers, and was tall – like her second husband Lord Darnley.

Did you know? Mary Queen of Scots first met Darnley at Wemyss Castle, Fife.

Did ye know? Darnley was made Earl of Ross and Duke of Albany – even King of Scotland.

Did you know? Mary’s step-brother James Stewart, Earl of Moray, was opposed to the marriage between her and Darnley and rebelled against her in the Chaseabout Raid (1565).

Did ye know? While the Chaseabout Raid was unsuccessful, some of Darnley’s enemies managed to stir up trouble between him and Mary’s Italian secretary David Rizzio (spelt “Riccio” in Antonia Fraser’s book) – with the result that Rizzio was murdered before the queen’s very eyes in March 1566.

Did you know? Mary Queen of Scots was pregnant with the future James VI at that time. It appears that though she did passionately love Darnley for a while, their romance was no more permanent than Almaviva’s love for Rosina in The Marriage of Figaro.

Did ye know? After Rizzio’s assassination, Mary Queen of Scots was virtually a prisoner in her own home at Holyrood Palace. Nonetheless, under cover of darkness, she managed to escape from her conspirators and flee to Dunbar Castle, taking with her the feckless Darnley.

Did you know? The future James VI was born in Edinburgh Castle in June 1566.

Did ye know? Later that year, Mary Queen of Scots nearly died of an illness at the Border town of Jedburgh.

Did you know? In February 1567, Darnley was murdered during an explosion at Kirk o’Field, Edinburgh.

Did ye know? Darnley was not killed by the explosion itself – he was strangled in his nightclothes!

Did you know? The explosion was nonetheless intended to kill Darnley. And James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, was that son of a bitch who masterminded it.

Did ye know? Antonia Fraser in her book is in no doubt that Bothwell was guilty. Darnley’s father, the Earl of Lennox, even took Bothwell to court for murder. But Lennox himself did not attend the trial, and Bothwell was acquitted.

Did you know? That wanker Bothwell even abducted Mary Queen of Scots and raped her at Dunbar Castle before forcing her to marry him.

Did ye know? What is surprising is that Mary Queen of Scots hardly resisted the machinations of the wily Bothwell (but even seemed to welcome them).

Did you know? Mary Queen of Scots was forced to compromise her Catholic dignity by submitting to a Protestant marriage ceremony with Bothwell. Five weeks later, he left her – and she was taken to be kept prisoner at Loch Leven.

Did ye know? While at Loch Leven (spelt “Lochleven” in Antonia Fraser’s book) Mary was forced to quit as Queen of Scots – and her 13-month-old son was crowned king of Scotland in July 1567.

Did you know? Mary’s illegitimate half-brother the Earl of Moray was made regent – the first of several regents that the infant James VI was to have.

Did ye know? Bothwell meanwhile tried to sneak away to Norway, but he was caught. He was then kept as a prisoner in Denmark – where he died insane.

Did you know? In 1568, with the help of several people (notably George and Willie Douglas), Mary Queen of Scots escaped from Loch Leven Castle.

Did ye know? Following her escape from Loch Leven, Mary Queen of Scots could have gone to France, where she still had rich and powerful relatives who could have given her protection. Choosing to flee to England turned out not to be the right move.

Did you know? Mary Queen of Scots became a prisoner almost as soon as she set foot in England, being held first in Carlisle and then in Bolton.

Did ye know? The Earl of Moray was assassinated in January 1570. His successor as regent to the young Scottish king was James's grandfather, the Earl of Lennox.

Did you know? In that same year (1570) Elizabeth I was excommunicated by Pope Pius V.

Did ye know? In 1572, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, was tried and executed for treason. He had been a candidate to become the fourth husband of Mary Queen of Scots – but Elizabeth I had disapproved of the scheme and even thrown the Duke in the Tower of London fer daring to contemplate such a liaison.

Did you know? The first bonus question on last evening’s “University Challenge” was on which English monarch was excommunicated by Pius V! My friend thought it was Henry VIII but I (remembering this thread) got the correct answer! My friend is normally very good at Tudor history – but I beat her on that occasion!

Thank you, Athene_noctua and 5cots1ass, for this wonderful thread.

Did ye know? Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox, died in 1571. The next regent of Scotland was John Erskine, 17th Earl of Mar.

Did you know that Jamestown, Virginia was founded in honor of King James, whose native tongue was Scots. Ironic.

Sir Walter Raleigh founded a colony named Roanoke, he was sent by Elizabeth I. He was from Devonshire, I think.

Virginia itself was name in honor of Elizabeth I.

The Puritans from East Anglia settled in and around Boston, Plymouth.

See, in America we're all mixed up.

Did ye know? In 1573, the captive Mary Queen of Scots was allowed for the first time to visit the spa town of Buxton, Derbyshire.

Did you know? In 1975, a County Championship match between Derbyshire and Lancashire at Buxton was interrupted by a freak incident – snow stopped play! (It wiped out the second day’s play.)

Did ye know? Mary Seton never married – though she had her admirers. Not the least of the obstacles standing in the way of marriage was a vow of chastity she was believed to have taken. One of her suitors, Andrew Beaton, even went to France to get the vow nullified, only to be drowned on his way home.

Did you know? The custodian of the captive Mary Queen of Scots at that time was George Talbot, 6^th Earl of Shrewsbury.

Did ye know? In 1572, Pius V was succeeded by Gregory XIII. And Antonia Fraser has made a mistake in her book (or there must be a printing error). She got the date down as 1575 instead.

Did you know? While in captivity, Mary Queen of Scots had an idea for her ruling Scotland jointly with her son James VI. This idea was formally rejected by James in 1585.

Did ye know? In the 1580s, England was swept by a wave of anti-Catholic sentiment, and anti-Catholic laws such as the Act of Persuasions (1581) were passed. The Jesuits were particularly targeted.

Did you know? In 1586, Mary Queen of Scots was finally undone by the Babington conspiracy: the English Catholic Anthony Babington wrote to Mary of a plan to rescue her and assassinate Elizabeth I, and Mary (fatally) wrote back endorsing her approval of the plan – neither of them having the slightest inkling that all of Mary’s correspondences to and from the outside world were being intercepted and scrutinized by Elizabeth’s spies!

Did ye know? At round about the same time, Elizabath I and James VI had signed a treaty of alliance, in which the interests of Mary Queen of Scots – now languishing under her new jailer, the Puritan Sir Amias Paulet, who showed Mary none of the kindnesses the Earl of Shrewsbury had been disposed to bestow on her – were totally ignored.

Did you know? Babington probably believed that the assassination of Ellizabeth was justified by the fact that Pius V’s papal bull of excommunication had absolved him and his fellow Catholic subjects from allegiance to their Protestant monarch.

Did ye know? Mary Queen of Scots spent the last months of her life in Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire.

Did you know? Richard III of England was born in Fotheringhay Castle in 1452.

Did you know? Mary was executed at Fotheringhay Castle on 8 February 1586 (Julian) / 18 February 1587 (Gregorian).

Did ye know? She was dressed in red when she died, aged 44.

Did you know? Her body was initially entombed in Peterborough Cathedral but was later, on the orders of James VI of Scotland and I of England, reburied in Westminster Abbey, close to the resting place of her cousin Elizabeth I of England.

Did ye know? A year after Mary's execution, her Catholic friend Philip II of Spain tried to take the English throne by force. Ye all know what happened to the Spanish Armada in the end.

I have just read about Mary, Queen of Scots in the glossary at the end of Chapter 11, “History of mankind”, under the section THE HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT in Volume 2, “The human world”, of the Reader’s Digest Library of Modern Knowledge. Did you know? Mary became queen when she was only one week old.