Mary of Guise
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Mary of Guise | |
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| Tenure | 18 May 1538 – 14 December 1542 |
| Coronation | 22 February 1540 |
| Spouse | Louis II, Duke of Longueville James V of Scotland |
| Issue | |
| François de Longueville Louis de Longueville James Stewart, Duke of Rothesay Robert Stewart Mary I of Scotland |
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| House | House of Guise |
| Father | Claude, Duke of Guise |
| Mother | Antoinette of Bourbon-Vendôme |
| Born | 22 November 1515 Bar-le-Duc, Lorraine, France |
| Died | 11 June 1560 (aged 44) (dropsy) Edinburgh Castle, Scotland |
| Burial | Saint Pierre de Reims, France |
Mary of Guise (French: Marie de Guise; 22 November 1515 – 11 June 1560) was the Queen of Scots as the second spouse of King James V of Scotland. She was the mother of Queen Mary I of Scotland and served as regent of Scotland in her daughter's name from 1554 to 1560.
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[edit] Duchess of Longueville
The eldest daughter of Claude, Duke of Guise, head of the French House of Guise, and his wife Antoinette of Bourbon-Vendôme, Mary was born at Bar-le-Duc, Lorraine.
On 4 August 1534, at the age of 18, she married Louis II, Duke of Longueville (born 1510), at the Louvre. Their union was a happy one and on 30 October 1535, her first son, François, was born. On 9 June 1537, Louis died at Rouen and left her a widow at the age of 21. On 4 August, Mary gave birth to her second son, Louis.
Later that year, James V, having lost his first wife, Madeleine of Valois to tuberculosis, wanted a second French bride to further the interests of the Franco-Scottish alliance against England. Mary became the focus of his marriage negotiations and his uncle Henry VIII of England tried to prevent this union by asking for Mary's hand himself. Henry had recently lost his third wife Jane Seymour in childbirth and given Henry's marital history – banishing one wife and beheading the next – Mary refused the offer. She was said to have replied, "I may be a big woman, but I have very little neck." (A tribute to the famously macabre jest made by Henry's French-educated second wife, Anne Boleyn, who had joked before her death that the executioner would find killing her easy because she had "a little neck.") Francis I of France accepted James's proposals over Henry's and conveyed his wishes to Mary's father. Mary received the news with shock and alarm.
She did not rejoice at the prospect of leaving family and country, especially as she had just lost her younger son, Louis, at only four months. Her father was caught in a diplomatic wrangle. He tried to delay matters until James, perhaps sensing her reluctance, wrote to her, appealing for her advice and support. Mary accepted the offer and hurried plans for departure.
[edit] Queen of Scots
On 18 May 1538, at Notre-Dame de Paris, James V and Mary of Guise were married with Robert, Lord Maxwell acting as proxy. Accompanied by a fleet of ships sent by James, Mary left France in June, forced to leave little François behind. She landed in Fife on 10 June and was formally received by James. They were married in person a few days later at St Andrews. She was crowned as Queen Consort at Holyrood Abbey on 22 February 1540. James and Mary had two sons: James Stewart, Duke of Rothesay (b. 22 May 1540) and Robert (b. 24 April 1541). Both sons died in April 1541: James at less than a year old, and Robert only days after his older brother, and only eight days after his baptism. The third and last child of the union was a daughter, Mary, who was born on 8 December 1542. King James died six days later, making young Mary queen regnant.
[edit] Regency
From 1554, she succeeded James Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Arran as Regent of Scotland for her daughter Queen Mary I, who had been sent to France to be raised with her husband-to-be, the son of the French king Henry II. Mary consulted her brothers in France – Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, and Francis, Duke of Guise, both of whom held government positions – so Scotland and France worked as allies in dealing with other nations.
Arran, in 1554, was given the title Duke du Châtellerault and removed from the regency in favour of Mary of Guise (the Queen Mother). During her regency (1554–59), Frenchmen were put in charge of the treasury, the Great Seal, and the French ambassador sometimes attended the Privy Council.
Mary's regency was threatened, however, by the growing influence of the Scottish Protestants, (namely the Protestant Lords of the Congregation), supported secretly by Elizabeth I of England. The Lords of the Congregation deeply distrusted Mary which led to a breakdown in authority. Mary called on her French family for help, which in the eyes of the Scottish Protestants questioned her loyalties to Scotland (at this time Scotland was worried about being dominated by either England or France). In 1559, the Lords of the Congregation had Mary deposed.
At first Mary of Guise cultivated the now growing number of Protestant preachers. She needed to win support for her pro-French policies, and they could expect no alternative support from England, which had recently come under the rule of the Roman Catholic Mary Tudor. However, the marriage of Mary Queen of Scots to the dauphin in 1558 heightened fears that Scotland would become a French province.
By 1557, a group of Scottish lords (known as 'the Lords of the Congregation') drew up a covenant to 'maintain, set forth, and establish the most blessed Word of God and his Congregation.' This was followed by outbreaks of iconoclasm in 1558–9. At the same time, plans were being drawn up for a Reformed programme of parish worship and preaching, as local communities sought out Protestant ministers. In 1558, the Regent summoned the Protestant preachers to answer for their teaching, but backed down when lairds from the west country threatened to revolt.
The accession, in England, of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth in 1558 gave fresh hope to the reformers. January 1559 saw the publication of the anonymous Beggars' Summons, which threatened friars with eviction on the grounds that their property belonged to the genuine poor. This was calculated to appeal to the passions of the populace of towns who appeared to have particular complaints against friars.[11] Fearing disorder, the Regent summoned the reformed preachers to appear before her at Stirling on May 10: insurrection followed. The men of Angus assembled in Dundee to accompany the preachers to Stirling, on May 4 they were joined by Knox recently arrived from France. Here, stirred by Knox's sermons in Perth and Dundee, the mob sacked religious houses (including the tomb of James I). In response, the Regent marched on Perth, but was forced to withdraw and negotiate when another reformed contingent arrived from the west. Among the Regent's ambassadors was the Earl of Argyll and Lord James Stewart (both professed Protestants), however when the Regent went back on her word, by stationing French mercenaries in Perth, both abandoned her and joined the Lords of the Congregation at St Andrews, where they were joined by Knox. Even Edinburgh soon fell to them, as Mary retreated to Dunbar. Chatelherault, at this point, accepted the leadership of the 'Lords of the Congregation' and established a provisional government. However, Mary of Guise was reinforced by professional French troops, and drove the rebels back to Stirling. All seemed lost for the Protestant side until an English fleet arrived in the Firth of Forth, in January 1560, causing the French to retreat to Leith. The 'blast' rendered Knox unacceptable to Elizabeth, although it had been aimed at her predecessor Mary
Negotiations then began (from which Knox was excluded, his earlier tract The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women rendering him unacceptable to Elizabeth I). The resulting Treaty of Berwick (February) was an agreement between Chatelherault and the English to act jointly to expel the French. However, in June 1560, Mary of Guise died, allowing the Treaty of Edinburgh: a negotiation between France and England, which secured the withdrawal of both French and English troops from Scotland. Although the French commissioners were unwilling to treat with the insurgent Lords of the Congregation, they offered the Scots certain concessions from King Francis and Queen Mary, including the right to summon a parliament according to use and custom. The effect of the treaty was to leave power in the hands of the Protestants.
[edit] Death
When Mary died of dropsy on 11 June 1560 at Edinburgh Castle, her body was taken to France and interred at the church in the Convent of Saint-Pierre in Reims, where Mary's sister Renée was abbess. Of Mary's five children, only her daughter survived her. Her only other child to survive infancy was her eldest son from her first marriage, François. Unfortunately he died in 1551.
In modern times, such as in Philippa Gregory's novel The Virgin's Lover, it has been suggested that Queen Elizabeth I of England ordered Mary's assassination by poisoning her, or, as portrayed in the 1998 film Elizabeth, that she was assassinated to protect Elizabeth's interests (although apart from the queen's direct order). However, there is a lack of evidence to prove such an allegation. In the usually paranoid 16th century political climate, many royal deaths were suspected of having been the result of poisoning; such as Catherine of Aragon's, Henry Fitzroy's or Jeanne d'Albret's. However, Mary's death was evidently of natural causes and it was, in fact, one of the very few which her contemporaries felt bore no signs of "foul play".[citation needed]
[edit] Portrayal in fiction
- Mary de Guise appears in volumes 1, 2, 3 and 5 of The The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett. Most notably, the events around her visit to her daughter in France in 1550 are portrayed in the second volume, Queens' Play.
- In the 1998 film "Elizabeth", Mary was played by the French actress Fanny Ardant.
[edit] Ancestry
| Ancestors of Mary of Guise |
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[edit] References
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This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (February 2008) |
- Marshall, Rosalind K, Mary of Guise: Queen of Scots, NMS Publishing, Edinburgh, 2001 (reprinted 2008) ISBN 978 1 901663 63 1
- Pamela E. Ritchie - Mary of Guise in Scotland, 1548-1560: A Political Study (2002)
- Undiscovered Scotland
[edit] External links
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Mary of Guise
Cadet branch of the House of Lorraine
Born: 22 November 1515 Died: 11 June 1560 |
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| Scottish royalty | ||
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| Vacant
Title last held by
Madeleine of Valois |
Queen consort of Scots 18 May 1538 – 14 December 1542 |
Vacant
Title next held by
Francis II of Franceas king consort |
| Vacant
Title last held by
Margaret Tudor |
Queen mother 14 December 1542 – 11 June 1560 |
Vacant
Title next held by
Henrietta Maria of France |
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