"Rough courtship" for a juvenile Mary Stuart
Mary Stuart in a portrait by François Clouet, 1558
In this article, we will talk a little about the famous Mary Stuart, who was crowned already on the sixth day after her birth and unwittingly became the cause of the war between Scotland and England, which lasted 7 years - from 1544 to 1551.
Origin and early years
Mary Stuart, born December 8, 1542, was the daughter of King James (James) V of Scotland and Mary of Lorraine.
James V was the nephew of King Henry VIII of England. His father died in the battle with the British at Flodden, when the boy was not even two years old. From the age of 12 to 16, Jacob was actually in the position of a prisoner with the Earl of Angus, but managed to escape. With the help of the Scottish barons, he drove him out of the country.
Cornel de Lyon. Portrait of James V Stuart
Mary of Lorraine became the second wife of this king. By the way, James V was also her second husband. This woman came from an influential and very noble family and was the daughter of Duke Claude de Guise.
Mary of Lorraine in a portrait attributed to Corneille de Lyon
Her nephews were Heinrich of Guise (Marked), Duke Charles of Mayenne, Catherine-Maria Duchess de Montpensier, and Louis, Cardinal of Lorraine - the heroes of the "Huguenot trilogy" by A. Dumas (the novels "Queen Margot", "Countess de Monsoro" and "Forty-five ").
Before the birth of her daughter, Mary of Lorraine gave birth to two sons by James V, who died in infancy. The third child was a girl - the heroine of our article. She became queen already on the sixth day of her life - her father died of some intestinal disease, accompanied by diarrhea and vomiting 6 hours after the birth of her daughter. It is said that, as he died, he said:
"This crown came with a woman and will leave with a woman."
Mary Stuart, indeed, will be executed by order of Elizabeth of England (although she will then pretend that she “knew nothing”), but her son Jacob (James) will become the king of both Scotland and England.
Arnold Bronkhorst. Portrait of a young Jacob (James) I Stuart
Charles Turner. King James I and his family
Among other things, James I "famous" treatises on demonology and the dangers of tobacco, as well as the order to the British colonists to grow 100 hemp bushes (for the production of ropes and fabrics). During his reign, Shakespeare's troupe received royal status, and Francis Bacon served as Lord Chancellor. It was the favorite of James I who was known to everyone from the novel by Dumas, the Duke of Buckingham, thanks to which a saying appeared in England:
"Elizabeth was king and James was queen."
But the son of Mary Stuart will be born in 1566 and will receive the crown of England in 1603. In 1542, when the newborn Mary was proclaimed queen of Scotland, this was still a long way off. And for this girl, her powerful neighbor, Henry VIII Tudor, who decided to marry her only son Edward, turned out to have his own plans. He immediately demanded that Mary be handed over to him for education at the English court. The refusal of the Scots, who quite rightly believed that this would be the first step towards the loss of their homeland of independence, caused many years of war, which began in 1544 and lasted until 1551, in history she entered under the strange name Rough Wooing - “Rough matchmaking” (or “courtship”).
Bridegroom of Mary Stuart
The English king Henry VIII had 6 wives, which the following rhyme helps English schoolchildren to remember:
Boleyn and Howard lost their heads
Anne of Cleves he would not bed,
Jane Seymour gave him a son - but died before the week was done,
Aragon he did Divorce,
Which just left Catherine Parr, of course!
Anne of Cleves he would not bed,
Jane Seymour gave him a son - but died before the week was done,
Aragon he did Divorce,
Which just left Catherine Parr, of course!
Translated into Russian, it turns out something like this:
"Boleyn and Howard lost their heads,
With Anna Klevskaya he did not go to bed,
Jane Seymour bore him a son and died a week later (actually 12 days later),
he divorced Aragonskaya (Catherine),
Only Katherine Parr remained!
With Anna Klevskaya he did not go to bed,
Jane Seymour bore him a son and died a week later (actually 12 days later),
he divorced Aragonskaya (Catherine),
Only Katherine Parr remained!
And the sequence of Henry's wives is suggested to be memorized with the help of the phrase:
Arrogant Boys Seem Clever, Howard Particularly
The literal translation can be confusing:
"Arrogant boys seem smart, especially Howard."
In fact, the first letters of each word of this phrase matter: A - Aragonese, B - Boleyn, S - Seymour, C - Cleves, H - Howard, P - Parr.
Henry VIII in 1509 (the year of his accession to the throne) in a portrait attributed to Meinnart Wiwick
Wives of Henry VIII
In total, the wives gave birth to Henry VIII 10 children, 7 of whom died in infancy. Mary, daughter of Catherine of Aragon, Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, and Edward, born October 12, 1537 Jane Seymour, survived.
Hans Holbein the Younger. Portrait of Prince Edward, circa 1538
Many people know Edward from Mark Twain's novel The Prince and the Pauper, the plot of which, of course, has nothing to do with reality. Henry VIII was so afraid of losing his heir, whom he called "the jewel of the whole kingdom," that people with access to the boy were forbidden to leave for London, and his maid's rooms were washed every day.
The boy grew up as a quiet and obedient child, he was on good terms with his father's last wife Catherine Parr and older sister Elizabeth. But his relationship with another sister, the Catholic Mary, was much less warm. Prince Edward was 6 years old when adults found him a bride - the Scottish Queen Mary Stuart, who was not yet a year old. The girl was the granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Margaret Tudor and, therefore, the niece of the intended groom. However, this marriage was supposed to contribute to the unification of two eternally warring kingdoms - England and Scotland.
James Hamilton, who at that time acted as regent of Scotland, signed the Treaty of Greenwich on July 1, 1543, according to which, upon reaching the age of 10, Mary was to marry Edward by proxy, and then go to the English royal court. However, the Scots did not want to unite their country with England, and on December 11, 1543, the Treaty of Greenwich was rejected by Parliament. After that, Henry VIII moved his troops against Scotland. Thus began the war, which was later called Rough Wooing (“Rough matchmaking”), but no one thought that this conflict would last as long as 7 years.
"Rough courtship" of the British
At first, the British troops attacked the border areas of Scotland, but in May 1544 they went inland and even burned Edinburgh. In January of the following 1545, one of the English detachments captured the city of Melrose, also robbing the local monastery, in which the family tombs of the Earls of Angus were devastated. This was a mistake, because the 6th earl of this family, Archibald Douglas, decided to take revenge on the British. At first, there were only 300 people in his detachment, but other Scots began to join him one by one and in small groups, who wanted to get even with the British. And then a large detachment of Norman Leslie joined the army of Angus - 1 people.
In February 1545, the Scots defeated an army of English and German mercenaries at the Battle of Ankrum Moor. The fighting then subsided, then resumed and went on with varying degrees of success. As part of the English army, a detachment of Spanish cavalry riflemen fought at that time, in which the "best soldier of Spain" Julián Romero de Ibarrola, who later rose to the rank of commander of the Sicilian Tercio, served. We have already talked about it in separate articles. Meanwhile, in January 1547, the English King Henry VIII died, and the throne was inherited by the "groom" of Mary Stuart - 9-year-old Edward VI.
Of course, he could not rule on his own; his relative, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, became the regent of the kingdom. In August 1547, Somerset stepped up the fighting, and on September 10, the British won the Battle of Pinky, where warships fired at the enemy units with cannons and provided assistance to the land units.
However, the Scots still refused to marry Mary Stuart to King Edward. Instead, in July 1548, the 5-year-old queen was sent to Scotland-friendly France. Her mother, Mary of Lorraine, remained in Scotland as locum tenens of the throne. The French took the girl for a reason, but as a bride for the eldest son and heir of King Henry II - Francis.
Paired portraits of Francis II and Mary Stuart. French school, 1550s
Even before the departure of the infant queen in June 1548, the French army of d'Esse de Montalembert was sent to Scotland, which laid siege to the city of Haddington and defeated the English troops sent to help the garrison. Somerset threw in a new army of 20 men, forcing Montalembert to retreat from Haddington.
Having received reinforcements from France, Montalembert again turned to active operations, capturing several cities. He was then replaced as commander by Paul de Thermes. By 1550, the allied Franco-Scottish troops liberated the entire territory of the Scottish kingdom from the British.
As a result, on June 10, 1551, a peace treaty was finally concluded between England and Scotland at Norem Castle.
Mary Stuart in France
So, Mary Stuart became the bride of the heir to the French throne. The British were forced to temporarily abandon their long-term plans to annex Scotland. Yes, and the failed husband of Mary Stuart - the young English king Edward VI died in 1553 - at the age of 16. He named the great-granddaughter of Henry VII Jane Gray, an unfortunate girl who was overthrown after 9 days, as his heiress. It was the turn of the daughters of Henry VIII - Mary and Elizabeth. On the last of them, the Tudor dynasty was stopped, and the son of Mary Stuart, James, was elected to the English throne.
But the possibility of joining Scotland at that time was seriously considered in France: according to the secret clause of the marriage contract, in the event of the death of the childless Mary Stuart, the crown of Scotland passed to her husband, Francis.
It must be said that the years spent at the French court were probably the happiest in the life of Mary Stuart. She was not just the bride of the Dauphin, but the queen, and therefore she was higher in status than even the children of Henry II. In addition, everyone at court liked the smart and easy-to-communicate girl (which happens not so often). Ten years later, on April 10, 24, Mary Stuart married the Dauphin Francis. It is believed that she was the first to put on a white wedding dress, marking the beginning of a new tradition (before that, brides wore red dresses).
Antonio Moro. Marriage of Francis II and Mary Stuart
Meanwhile, not everyone in England recognized the legitimacy of Elizabeth, who ascended the throne on November 17, 1558. And one of the "senior comrades" advised Mary Stuart, who was in France, to include the English crown in her coat of arms. Elizabeth and her many supporters did not like this very much.
In 1559, Protestants rebelled in Scotland, and English troops came to their aid, and the French came out on the side of Mary de Guise (mother of Lorraine). On July 6, 1560, England and France signed the Treaty of Edinburgh, under which the French troops left Scotland, and Elizabeth was recognized as the rightful queen of England. Mary Stuart now had no chance for the English crown, but for her part she refused to ratify this treaty.
Return of Mary Stuart to Scotland
As we remember, on November 17, 1558, the wedding of the Dauphin Francis and Mary Stuart took place. And already on July 10, 1559, Henry II died from a wound received at a tournament. The Queen of Scots also became the Queen of France, but the weak and sickly Francis II died a year and a half later, on December 5, 1560. Childless and useless, Mary Stuart went to her homeland - to Scotland. She had two more marriages ahead of her, a forced abdication in 1567, English captivity, the betrayal of a Protestant son, and an execution that made her the heroine of many poems, novels, and plays.
Robert Herdman. Execution of Mary Stuart
But that's another story.
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