Chapter 12
In This Chapter
● Finding out how Scotland’s Stewart rulers secured their power
● Revealing how the Renaissance came to Scotland
● Exploring the tensions between Scottish Protestants and Catholics
The Stewarts were a long-lasting dynasty of Scottish rulers. They first came to prominence in the 14th century and ruled until the beginning of the 18th century. Scotland changed hugely in this long period, developing from a small medieval country at the edge of Europe to a sophisticated state with close ties with its powerful neighbours.
The early Stewart monarchs had to deal with a series of power struggles - for example, king versus barons, Protestant versus Catholic, Scottish versus English - that made life tough at the top and often at the bottom end of society, too. But the Stewarts held tenaciously to power, and some of them greatly increased Scotland’s standing in the world.
This chapter tells the Stewart story up to 1603, when a dramatic change in the dynasty’s fortunes took place. In 1603, James VI of Scotland took over the throne of England as James I. (For more on the English career of James I, see Chapter 13.)
Trouble with the Barons
In the late 14th century, when the first Stewart kings came to the throne of Scotland, a number of powerful noble families still dominated the country. These nobles had the habit of throwing their weight around, and in order to rule successfully, a Scottish king had to find a way of dealing with them - and preferably getting them on the royal side. The early Stewarts found it tough controlling the Scottish barons, but gradually, they got better at it, becoming stronger rulers and winning Scotland wider respect as a result.
The first two Stewart kings were both called Robert. They seemed a promising, well-liked pair, but both had trouble controlling the noble families around them. Robert II (1371-90) grew up on the west coast of Scotland. He was widely admired - he was good-looking, tall, and, it was said, both generous and honest.
Robert II
When it came to being king, Robert II had a big advantage - he’d already played a huge part in the government of Scotland, acting as Steward of Scotland, holding the office of regent (effectively king) twice during David II’s reign (see Chapter 11), and coming to the throne on David’s death in 1371, by which time he was already a mature man some 55 years old.
In the early part of his reign, Robert developed a policy of giving his nobles, and his sons, power in their own regions. He didn’t travel around the kingdom a great deal, mostly staying at home in Perth and letting his sons (Alexander, John, and Robert) keep control of the more far-flung areas of the kingdom, such as the Highlands. It was a fairly loose style of kingship, and it worked provided that no one rocked the boat. Unfortunately for Robert, after about ten years, the royal boat rocked quite a lot. The 1380s saw two coups:
● Coup No. 1 - 1384: The king’s son Alexander had built up his power in the north of Scotland by marching around the Highlands with an army of mercenaries, grabbing land. Alexander’s elder brother, John, didn’t approve of this approach, nor did he like it when his father failed to deal with the problem. Itching to get on the throne himself, John staged a coup in 1384 and took over power as Lieutenant. Before the Scots knew where they were, they were embroiled in a war France was fighting against England. Robert had allied with France, but did not want to actually fight. John and his noble friends, such as the Earl of Douglas, had other ideas.
● Coup No. 2 - 1388: The war with England brought big trouble for the Scots. The English burned down Edinburgh and forced John to agree to a truce. Even one of the few Scottish successes of the war, the Battle of Otterburn, brought the death of John’s friend, the Earl of Douglas. The earl’s demise changed the balance of power at court and allowed John’s younger brother Robert to take over the Lieutenancy.
Robert II had to spend the last years of his reign under his sons’ thumbs. Historians slated him for being cowed by them - and for refusing to join his allies, the French, in their war with England. The medieval chronicler Froissart said he had bleary red eyes, which showed he was a coward. On the other hand, Robert ruled quite successfully in the first years of his reign. He wasn’t all bad, but he didn’t hold the reins of power tightly enough for a 14th-century monarch.
Robert III
When Robert II died, his first son, John, became king. John took a new name, Robert, and so ruled as Robert III from 1390 to 1406. He probably made the name change to avoid reminding people of the various dodgy kings named John who’d reigned in the past, especially Scotland’s John Balliol.
Like his father, Robert III had to try to deal with clashes between powerful noble families and ambitious sons. Most damaging was the ambition of Robert III’s son, David, Duke of Rothesay:
● David seized power as Lieutenant in 1399, with the excuse that his father was weak and incompetent in dealing with rebels in the north.
● David himself then fell out with some of his own allies over the Lieutenant’s marriage plans and his use of customs money. (He took up with the daughter of one ally, the Earl of Douglas, which alienated another ally, the Duke of Albany.)
● After a vicious propaganda campaign against David, describing him as a moral degenerate who put himself above the law, David was arrested.
The heir to the throne was under arrest and thrown into a dungeon at Falkland Castle, home of his enemy, the Duke of Albany. By March 1402, poor David had starved to death. Robert himself only lived four more years, most of the time under the thumbs of his nobles. There was a new heir to the throne, Robert’s son James, but the nobles were trying to use him as a pawn in their manoeuvring for power. Robert decided to send James to France for his protection. In 1406, en route to France, the ship carrying James was attacked by pirates, and the young prince was captured. Robert died soon afterwards, despairing. The kingdom was in crisis.
Jim in a Jam: James I
King James I (1406-37) began his reign a minor who had been captured by English pirates when on a journey to France. The young prince was handed over to the English king, Henry IV. Because relations between England and Scotland were cool, to say the least, the English kept James captive. From an English point of view, James was a priceless bargaining tool in any dispute between the two countries.
The English held on to James for 18 years, but the royal captive wasn’t kept in a mouldy dungeon. As a valuable, high-ranking prisoner, James was treated well and educated while he was with the English. In his absence, Scotland was ruled on his behalf by his uncle, Robert, Duke of Albany, and later by Robert’s son, Murdac, who held the rank of Governor.
At the end of 1423, the English and Scots came to an agreement that secured the release of James from captivity. The English, who were fighting France at the time, got the Scots to agree not to send any of their soldiers to fight on the side of the French. The Scots were also to pay an enormous ransom of 60,000 marks. In return, James could return to Scotland.
When he finally returned to Scotland in 1424, James was 20 years old and determined to rule with strength. He clearly wanted to avoid the problems previous kings had met when giving nobles too much power in the Scottish regions.
James concentrated on picking up the pieces of Scottish rule by:
● Removing opponents and potential opponents to his rule, especially the family of Governor Murdac, who threatened to try to hang on to the power they had held before James returned.
● Raising the money needed to pay the huge ransom the English had demanded for his release.
● Establishing a royal court on the European model he had seen in England and France.
James knew that it was important to get Scotland taken seriously as a nation by impressing visiting foreign royals and ambassadors. So he embarked on a spending campaign, building a lavish palace at Linlithgow. The palace was kitted out with the latest tapestries, and James’s queen, Joan, wore the most expensive jewellery.
It was all very glamorous, but the Scottish Parliament wasn’t amused when James tried to raise taxes to pay for all the glitter. The king had to resort to finding money by grabbing land from nobles and raising loans from merchants. Parliament would only give the king money if it was put in a locked box and reserved for spending on things that Parliament thought appropriate.
The big royal spending put a strain on royal relations with the people, especially the rich nobles who resented James’s attempts to wrest power and money from their hands. But James was a success in other ways:
● He was cultured and was one of the few British monarchs to be an accomplished writer - his poem, ‘The Kingis Quair’ (‘The King’s Book’), about his love for Joan and his experiences in England, is still read today.
● He arranged prestigious marriages for his daughters with members of high-ranking European families.
● He developed a strong style of rule that later members of the Stewart family would build on.
But his lavish spending and his moves toward centralised rule weren’t welcome amongst the barons. In 1437, a crisis developed when the interests of powerful families and Parliament came together and tried to arrest the king in Parliament. This attempt failed, and a bunch of opponents rounded on James. An armed group cornered the king in the Dominican monastery at Perth, scuffles broke out, and the king hid in a sewer tunnel. But the other end of the tunnel had been blocked (to prevent tennis balls from the royal court being lost down the drain), and James was trapped. When the attackers found him, they stabbed him to death.
Even poor Queen Joan was injured in the fighting. In fact, her sorry fate garnered her a lot of support as the tragic widow of a king she had loved dearly. As a result, the rebels didn’t take over the Scottish crown. After all, killing a king was looked on in Scotland as the most heinous of crimes.
The dead king found some posthumous sympathy, too. His stabbed body was put on display, and many people mourned the man who not so long ago they had lambasted for his habit of taking over people’s lands to pay his own growing bills. The murderers were caught, tried, and executed, and Queen Joan prepared to have her small son, another James, crowned as king in his father’s place.
Picking Up the Pieces: James II
James II was 6 years old when he was crowned king of Scotland a few months after the murder of his father, James I. During James’s minority, the kingdom was governed in the usual way by a Lieutenant, who was traditionally the king’s closest male relative. The first Lieutenant was Archibald, Fifth Earl of Douglas, but he died of the plague in 1439, and his heir was a minor. His death left the court prey to squabbles between the nobles and the young king’s mother, James I’s queen, Joan. The most powerful nobles were members of the Livingston, Crichton, and Douglas families, including James Douglas, who was most famous for being so fat that he was known as James the Gross. These three families dominated Scotland for some ten years.
In 1449, James II picked up the reins of power himself. His first important act was to get married to one of the best-connected women in Europe, Mary of Gueldres, niece of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. His marriage gave James a close link with one of the most powerful families in Europe - and Mary came with a large dowry of £30,000, albeit paid in instalments.
Like his father, James II realised the importance of culture and education. Although he didn’t write famous poetry like his father, James II encouraged the arts and Scotland’s contribution to the Renaissance, the great renewal of art, science, and culture that was taking place in this period in Europe. A key move was his foundation of Glasgow University.
Deadly Douglases
The courtly manoeuvrings for power didn’t end when James was able to act as king in his own right. After a few years, James saw the Douglas family as a major threat to his power. Here’s how the issue came to a head in the early 1450s:
● William, 8th Earl of Douglas, built around him an alliance of nobles. Although the earl made the alliance for mutual protection, James seems to have taken it as a threat to royal dominance.
● In 1452, James summoned Douglas to account for what he had done.
● When Douglas came to court, a blazing row ensued, and the earl was set upon by the king and courtiers. Daggers were drawn, and the hapless earl was stabbed to death. His body was said to have 26 stab wounds.
● The new Earl of Douglas gathered an army together and burned down Stirling shortly after James II had left the town.
● By 1455, James II had annexed all the Douglas lands and put an end to the family’s power.
James was successful in limiting the power of this noble family, and his work stood the Scottish monarchy in good stead. He stood out as a figure of authority, and people came to respect the king, an imposing figure with a large red birthmark on his face that inspired the nickname James of the fiery face.
Explosive ending
With the Douglases out of the way, James spent much of the rest of his reign attacking England to recover lands that he felt were rightly his. In the 1450s, rival claimants to the English throne were fighting the Wars of the Roses (see Chapter 9), and James was able to score at least one success while they were distracted.
James was an enthusiast for artillery and had acquired a number of big guns, including one affectionately known as Mons Meg from Burgundy. But the big guns led to James’s downfall. In 1460, when one of the weapons fired, it broke up, bits of metal flying everywhere. James was standing too close, a fragment pierced his leg, and the king died from blood loss.
People Trouble: James III
When James II was killed in an explosion in 1460, his 9-year-old son, James III (1460-88) became king. When he was a boy, his mother, Queen Mary, was very influential, and not surprisingly, she carried on many of the policies of her late husband. Another important influence on the young king was James Kennedy, Bishop of St Andrews, who took James on a royal tour of Scotland in 1464, encouraging people to state their loyalty to the young king as they went around the country. The third influential noble was Sir Alexander Boyd, who took over control of the king and his government in 1466 by effectively kidnapping James while he was hunting.
Looking to Europe
James took control himself in 1469, soon after marrying Margaret of Denmark, daughter of the ruler of Denmark and Norway, Christian I. This marriage was just one example of a key aspect of James’s rule - the way in which he looked to mainland Europe. He had ambitions to give himself the status of emperor and made plans to invade Brittany and take over areas of French territory.
These imperial ambitions came to nothing, but James’s policy of making peace with England seemed to make more sense. Even this manoeuvre was doomed, however, because the people of border Scotland were set resolutely against England. The habit of reiving, or cross-border raiding, was so ingrained in their way of life that no royal treaty would stop them. There were too many rich pickings, from jewellery to livestock, south of the border.
Nobles versus favourites
James’s main failing was in his dealings with people. Like many Scottish kings, he had troubled relations with the country’s powerful noble families, and he had a reputation of ignoring the advice of his aristocratic followers and promoting favourites of the lower classes.
James also managed to alienate his relatives. He fell out with his two brothers, Alexander, Duke of Albany, and John, Earl of Mar. Apparently, as a result of their disagreements, John was killed, and Alexander disappeared into exile before the same happened to him. One of the king’s sisters, Mary, also fell out with James because he made her marry against her wishes. And the younger sister of the family, Margaret, rebelled against the king’s plans for her by having an affair with a nobleman, William, Lord Crichton, and getting herself pregnant in the process.
It wasn’t just a dysfunctional family, it was an explosive mixture, and it exploded twice, with dire results for James:
● Explosion No. 1, 1482: Mary, Queen Margaret, and a pair of royal uncles staged a rebellion with the backing of English king Edward IV and the involvement of the king’s brother, the Duke of Albany. The rebels captured James, and the king was imprisoned in Edinburgh. But Edward died in the spring of 1483, and James recovered his power.
● Explosion No. 2, 1488: The problems of 1482 didn’t teach James a lesson, and he carried on ruling in a capricious and arbitrary way, dismissing one of his most faithful supporters, Colin Campbell, Earl of Argyll. Another rebellion began, coming to a head in a battle at Sauchieburn near Stirling. James was killed, leaving his 15-year-old son, yet another James, to become king.
Strong-man: James IV
James IV (1488-1513) became king at age 15 and did not take full control until he was 22, in 1495. That was quite old for a late-medieval king, but James wanted to be fully educated when he took up the responsibilities of kingship. When he finally did so, James proved himself to be a strong character who developed an effective way of ruling Scotland, but who got involved in a problematic foreign policy that finally brought him to grief.
James was also a colourful character. He continued the work of his predecessors in bringing the culture of the renaissance to Scotland. And he had an eventful personal life, producing a small tribe of illegitimate children.
Money and government
James had a distinctive take on one old royal problem: how to raise money without getting peoples’ backs up. James didn’t like calling Parliament. He knew that Parliament could be a meeting point for disagreement and opposition, so he tried as much as possible to rule without it. Because he gathered around him a group of advisers who came from all over Scotland, men who could speak up for the interests of the different Scottish regions, James succeeded in ruling without Parliament most of the time.
But rulers usually called Parliament when they wanted to raise taxes. It could be difficult to get people to pay up without parliamentary sanction. Although James sometimes did get away with raising taxes, he tried other ways of raising money, too - getting control over lands, levying fees in return for charters, increasing rents, and so on.
Sometimes, though, the financial demands of James and his servants got too much to bear. These demands were probably the reason for two rebellions that James had to face in the early years of the 16th century. The two rebels, Donald Dubh and Torquil MacLeod, were eventually defeated in 1506.
But the rebels were the exception. Most people accepted James’s kingship, and James made himself more acceptable by putting himself about more than his predecessor, James III, had done. Whereas the earlier James had spent much of his time in Edinburgh, James IV was always travelling around his kingdom, holding courts and settling disputes between his people. These travels made him a more popular king on the whole.
The bed-hopping king
James IV’s queen was Margaret, daughter of Henry VII of England. The marriage was politically extremely important to James because it gave him a close alliance with his powerful neighbour, Henry VII. James had always had his eyes on England. As an ally of the French, he had been, in theory, an enemy of England and had supported a usurper, Perkin Warbeck, who had tried to grab the English crown from Henry (see Chapter 13).
But Warbeck failed, and James saw that it made sense to get power over England through subtler means. Marriage to Margaret meant that the Scottish royal family got much nearer the throne of England. In fact, when Henry VII died, and his son Henry VIII became English king, James was actually heir to the English throne until Henry had a son - and it took a long time, and several wives, before Henry’s son Edward was born.
All these political considerations meant that the marriage of James IV and Queen Margaret was above all a political one. When it came to having fun in bed, James relied on a string of mistresses, both before and after his marriage. The royal roll-call of mistresses included:
● Marion Boyd, who bore him two children, a son and a daughter.
● Margaret Drummond, with whom he had a daughter.
● Janet Kennedy, with whom he had a son.
● Isabel Stewart, mother of a daughter.
● Bessie Bertram, who historians know about because she was the recipient of royal gifts.
● Another Janet, known as Janet Bare-arse, who leaves nothing to the imagination.
Queen Margaret, incidentally, bore James six children, but all but one of them (a son who became James V) died in infancy.
The Renaissance man
The other side of James’s character was his love of learning and his enthusiasm for the developments in Renaissance art that were taking place in Europe during his reign. James presided over a period of excellence in the arts in Scotland, both patronizing important artists and writers himself, and helping to create the kind of society in which they flourished. Here are a few examples:
● The king commissioned fine textiles and other decorations for his palaces.
● He employed talented artists from continental Europe to make illustrated books, such as a Book of Hours (a book containing prayers for the different hours of the day and different days of the religious calendar).
● He had his new homes at Holyrood and Linlithgow redecorated in the fashionable French and Italian styles.
● He encouraged notable poets, such as William Dunbar, who was awarded a royal pension.
James was also said to speak a large number of languages. He certainly knew Latin, French, some Gaelic, and probably some Danish, from his mother, Margaret of Denmark. He probably knew a few words in several other European languages, too.
Floundering at Flodden
James VI was intelligent and was a capable ruler of Scotland who managed to up royal revenues without offending his people too often. He brought justice to his people with his travelling courts and encouraged the Scottish cities at least to become centres of culture with close links to developments in Europe.
It sounds like a success story, but it all went badly wrong for James. How did it happen? Well, it was to do with his foreign policy and the king’s troubled relations with England, the southern neighbour that was nearly always a thorn in the Scottish side.
James knew that Scotland, with its long coastline, was vulnerable to attack from the sea. And his oldest enemy, England, was famed as a nation of seafarers. So James decided that Scotland should have a Navy, too. The king took more than ten years, vast amounts of money, and most of the oak woods of Fife building a mighty fleet. He was proud of his achievement. One ship was named Margaret, after his queen. Another, the Great Michael, took four years to build and was the biggest wooden ship to date.
James’s Navy was very impressive and was a clear signal to the English that the Scots weren’t to be messed with. Of course, after James married the English princess Margaret in 1503, the English were much less likely to attack Scotland. But James was still friendly with the French, England’s old enemy, so relations were often strained - all the more so because James encouraged privateers (pirates, with royal backing) to plunder English ships.
Things got really tense when Scottish privateer Andrew Barton was killed when fighting a ship of Sir Edward Howard, admiral of England, in 1511. It looked as if England and Scotland may go to war - especially because things on the European mainland were getting tense, too.
European politics around 1511 were quite complicated, but to cut a long story short, Pope Julius II (often known as the Warrior Pope - you can see what kind of churchman he was) formed an alliance, called the Holy League, against France. The Holy Roman Empire, Venice, Spain, and England (now ruled by Henry VIII) were in the League. James took the side of his old ally, France.
In June 1513, Henry attacked France, and James’s ships were sent off to attack Henry’s fleet. Bad weather meant the expected fight never took place. But James had an even bigger attack planned. He decided to challenge England on land, and the next month, a vast Scottish army - some say it contained 40,000 men - marched south and were soon taking castles in northern England. It seemed as if James and the Scots were on a roll.
The Scottish attack on England came to a head at Flodden Field, on the edge of the Cheviot Hills, on 9 September 1513. Henry VIII had sent an army north, under the overall command of his wife, Katharine of Aragon, who was in charge because Henry himself was away fighting another war in France.
When the English arrived, James was, apparently, ready for them, with his huge army lined up in a good position on the hill.
But then it all went pear-shaped. James sent his massed lines of pikemen through bucketing rain and howling wind to meet the English. But these formally arrayed lines found it impossible to deal with the fast, hand-to-hand fighting of the English. The Scots were soon in a muddy mess and were losing men by the minute.
The Scottish losses were disastrous. As well as thousands of their troops, they lost a host of senior commanders - 14 lords and nine earls. And above all, they lost their leader: James IV himself perished at Flodden. His optimistic reign had come to a sudden, violent end.
King and Queen Mother: Margaret
The sudden death of James IV at the Battle of Flodden Field put his 18-month-old son, James V (1513-42), on to the throne. The boy’s mother, Queen Margaret, stepped into the power vacuum and became ruler as Queen-Regent.
Margaret must have known that, as an Englishwoman, she would not be popular as ruler of Scotland. She tried to get around this obstacle by marrying a Scot, Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, in 1514.
But Margaret’s marriage didn’t stop the power struggles that so often dogged a royal minority. Worse still, Margaret found that she didn’t get on with her second husband, and James felt he was virtually imprisoned by the Earl of Angus. Finally, Margaret divorced Angus and found herself a third husband, Henry Stewart, Lord Methven, in early 1528.
By this time, James V was 16 years old and sick of being a political pawn, still effectively controlled by his stepfather’s family, the Anguses. So in June 1528, James escaped from Edinburgh Castle, reached Stirling, and announced that from then on he would rule in his own right.
Ruthless Ruler: James V
Once he was personally in power, James V had to face a number of the usual problems that beset the Scottish rulers of this period, problems to do with noble opponents, unrest in the Highlands, and raising money. In finding solutions for these challenges, James got himself the reputation of being one of Scotland’s most ruthless monarchs:
● Challenge No. 1 - The nobles: As soon as he’d assumed personal power, James realised that the noble families who had previously vied with each other to control him wouldn’t go away. The Earl of Angus, for example, was ousted by James with the excuse that he had failed to deal with trouble on the English borders. Other opponents and potential opponents were dealt with more violently. Janet Lady Glamis, a supporter of Angus who was rumoured to have tried to poison James, was executed in 1537. So was Sir James Hamilton of Finnart, who was alleged to have plotted against the king.
● Challenge No. 2 - The Highlands: The year 1540 saw a royal expedition to the Highlands and islands during which a number of Highlanders were taken prisoner. The king, concerned about unrest in the north of his realm, seems to have been taking these men as hostages to ensure that the Highland lords would behave themselves.
● Challenge No. 3 - Money: Raising money when the population doesn’t like being taxed is always a problem. Like his father before him, James V looked to other sources of income, especially the church. He rifled church coffers by giving a string of abbeys to his illegitimate children and by putting the screws on the Pope. He made veiled threats that Scotland would not stay loyal to the Catholic Church without a hefty bribe from Rome. Because English king Henry VIII had recently broken from the Roman church, the Pope was worried and paid up: ker-ching!
So did behaviour like this make James exceptionally ruthless? Scottish writers who came after him certainly thought so, and the king had a reputation as a ruthless ruler for centuries afterwards. But more dispassionate historians now think that his actions were par for the 16th-century course. England’s Henry VIII had the habit of executing his wives. James just did it to his enemies.
James’s other problem was who to marry. He cast around Europe for an eligible bride, and his advisers came up with a long list of possible princesses and nubile nobles in France, Italy, Denmark, and the Holy Roman Empire. In 1536, James settled on Mary of Bourbon, the daughter of a French duke. The Scots were no doubt attracted mainly by her very large dowry. So James set off to France to meet Mary - and was horrified! He said she was a hunch-back.
Undeterred, James found an attractive - and wealthy - bride at the court of the French king, Francois I. The lucky girl was Francois’ daughter, Madeleine, and James married her on 1 January 1537. But soon after the couple got back to Scotland, poor Madeleine died. James kept her dowry, though.
The death of Queen Madeleine left James free to remarry, and he was soon hitched to Mary of Guise-Lorraine, generally known as Mary of Guise, another Frenchwoman with a big dowry. James was finding out that making good marriages was another way of solving his financial problems!
Mary gave James two sons, but both died in infancy. Their only surviving child was a girl, called Mary after her mother. Mary was born on 8 December 1542 at Linlithgow Palace. The joy of her birth was cut short by tragedy. Just six days after the baby was born, James V died of cholera or dysentry. He left behind a baby girl who was to become probably the most famous of all Scottish monarchs, Mary Queen of Scots.
James V, like any king in this period, wanted a son. There is a story that, just before he died, he made this sententious comment about the Stewart dynasty: ‘It cam wi’ a lass and it’ll gang wi’ a lass.’ In other words, the dynasty began with a girl, and it was now set to end with one. This saying was made famous by the Scottish writer John Knox, and it’s probably a myth. The odd thing was that the prediction came true, but not in the way James meant. The dynasty continued well after Mary’s death - but the last of the family’s monarchs was a woman, Queen Anne, who died at the beginning of the 18th century.
Mary, Queen of Scots
Scotland’s most famous ruler, Mary (1542-67) became queen as a baby and spent most of her youth in France. Although she was both attractive and intelligent, she lacked the political skill to navigate her way through the troubles of the mid-16th century.
These troubles centred mainly on two related issues: Scotland’s relations with her neighbours, France and England, and the religious disagreements that raged between Protestants and Catholics. There was a personal problem, too. Although Mary’s first marriage, to the heir to the French throne, was arranged before she was an adult, Mary later proved to be a disastrous picker of husbands - with explosive results.
Rough wooing, smooth Wooing: Young Mary
As queen in her own right, young Mary was hot property. Royals from more than one country were keen for her to marry into their families so that they could get their hands on Scotland. The two most persistent wooers of Mary were the kings of England and France, both of whom had eligible sons.
English king Henry VIII wanted control of Scotland and wanted Mary to marry his son Edward. Eventually, Henry hoped, Edward would become king of both England and Scotland. Henry’s way of trying to achieve this goal was to attempt to invade Scotland by attacking the borders. The Scots feared that he would kidnap the small princess and take her away to be married.
This aggressive approach became known as the rough wooing of Mary, Queen of Scots. Needless to say, the Scots didn’t want their princess kidnapped, so when very small, Mary was hidden away inside the strong walls of Stirling Castle.
Help eventually came from Scotland’s old ally, France. French troops helped the Scots fight off Henry’s violent advances.
By 1548, the young queen was 5 years old, and the immediate threat from England had been avoided. But the French now pushed for Mary to be taken to France, to become the bride of their prince, Francois, son of King Henri II. Mary of Guise, the Queen Mother, agreed, so in the summer of 1548, young Mary set off by ship.
Mary settled in France, staying there for 13 years. Surrounded by members of the French court, she soon developed the skills and accomplishments of a European princess:
● She learned French, and the tongue soon became the language with which she was most comfortable.
● She picked up the basics of other languages, such as Latin and Greek.
● She learned how to write poetry.
● She was taught music.
Mary also grew tall, at around six feet, and strikingly attractive. She became a good friend of the French prince, Francois, and it was no surprise when in 1558 it was announced that the couple were betrothed. They were married in Paris shortly afterwards.
Of course, the royal wedding wasn’t just a matter of two young people who liked each other. It had huge political implications, and a group of Scottish diplomats, representing the Scottish Parliament and the interests of Scotland generally, brokered the deal. All kinds of provisions were made for what should happen to the thrones of Scotland and France when the pair died, not to mention what the Scottish people got out of the arrangement. For example:
● If Mary died first, the relevant Scottish heir to the throne, the Earl of Arran, would become king in Scotland.
● If Francois died first, Mary could choose whether to live in France or Scotland.
● With the crowns of France and Scotland united, dual nationality would be given to the Scottish people.
But, without consulting the commissioners, Mary did another deal, a secret deal with Francois and Henri, stating that Francois should continue to reign in Scotland if the queen should die without giving birth. Mary was handing over Scotland on a plate - and, to make matters worse, half of the commissioners who had brokered the official deal died suspiciously before they could return to Scotland.
Catholic versus Protestant
Mary was headstrong, but her life was also deeply touched by sadness. Francois died in 1560, and Mary’s mother died the same year. Mary now had to decide whether to stay in France or return home to Scotland. She decided to go back to the home country, a land she didn’t know.
When Mary got back to Scotland, most of her people welcomed her. She was a beautiful young woman who looked every inch a queen. But some people were less enthusiastic. Mary was a Catholic, and Scotland, like many places in Europe at this time, was in the process of turning Protestant. Mary did the sensible thing and said that, while she would not give up the Catholic faith herself, her subjects were free to worship as they pleased.
That suited many, but it didn’t please the more fanatical Protestants, who wanted to banish Catholicism from Scotland. Chief among these was John Knox, zealous Protestant reformer and founder of the Church of Scotland.
Even before Mary returned to Scotland, Knox had published a book called First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, the women concerned being Catholic queens who tried to make their subjects into Catholics, too.
When Mary returned, Knox objected to her celebration of Mass in the chapel at Holyrood and preached an angry sermon in St Giles High Kirk in Edinburgh. The sermon led to a meeting between Mary and Knox during which the queen insisted that subjects should obey their rulers - to do otherwise was treasonable. Mary didn’t have Knox executed for treason, though. The priest withdrew from the front line of public life and concentrated on writing. But the struggles between Protestant and Catholic did not go away.
Too hot to handle
With Francois dead, the thoughts of Mary, and those near to her, turned to a royal remarriage. Various suitors lined up, and each had his supporters. Catholics, for example, fancied the idea of Mary marrying Don Carlos, son of King Philip II of Spain, and Protestants were relieved when it was announced that Don Carlos had had an accident and was no longer fit to marry.
Husband No. 2: Darnley
Queen Elizabeth, England’s Protestant ruler, sent two suitors north to meet Mary. Elizabeth probably doubted that either would succeed, but Mary fell in love with one of them, Henry Lord Darnley, who was actually her second cousin, and the pair were married at six in the morning on 29 July 1565.
Why so early in the day? Well, the Protestant-Catholic enmities still raged on, and Mary’s advisers feared that there would be riots if people realised a Catholic marriage ceremony was taking place at Holyrood. Everyone felt it was best to get the ceremony out of the way quickly.
But Mary’s troubles had only begun with that ceremony. Darnley turned out to be a disaster as royal consort, for several reasons;
● He turned out to be a repugnant character - self-centred and arrogant.
● He was obsessively jealous, and his jealousy may have led to the murder of Mary’s Italian secretary, David Riccio.
● His presence contributed to unrest in Scotland, which came to a head in a rebellion, known as the Chaseabout Raid, in 1565.
Just about the only good thing about Darnley was that he gave Mary a son, James - who had to be locked away in Stirling Castle to prevent rebels from kidnapping him and making him king to replace Mary and the hated Darnley. But hiding away James didn’t put off the queen’s enemies. In 1566, Mary found herself surrounded by rebels near Musselburgh.
By now, Mary was estranged from Darnley, surrounded by enemies, and her small son was locked away in virtual imprisonment. Then the most dramatic event of her whole reign took place. The house where Darnley was staying blew up in an almighty explosion. Darnley was dead - but not from the blast. His body was found afterwards nearby, lifeless but whole. Everything about Darnley’s death was suspicious, but no one knows to this day who killed the hapless consort.
Husband No. 3: Bothwell
Chief suspect in the murder of Darnley was James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, a nobleman for whom it was already rumoured that Mary had the hots. What’s certain is that Darnley was killed in February 1567, and Bothwell and Mary were married in May the same year. Unfortunate haste or deadly duplicity? Historians will never know.
Bothwell wasn’t much better for Mary than Darnley had been. The rebels hadn’t gone away. There were now two distinct sides - those who supported the queen, and the so-called King’s Men who wanted to put James on the throne. Scotland was in the throes of civil war. But when Mary was surrounded by her enemies at Carberry Hill, a mere month after her wedding, Bothwell was not at her side. Fearing the might of the rebels, he had disappeared and left her in the lurch. Finally, the rebels turned on the pressure still further and forced Mary to give up her throne to her young son. On 24 July 1567, James VI effectively became king of Scotland.
Mary versus Elizabeth
Mary’s opponents locked her up in the castle at Lochleven, but her supporters got her free, and Mary fled south to England. The Scottish queen had heard a story that England’s queen, Elizabeth, had been sympathetic when she had heard that Mary was in prison. She hoped to be granted asylum in England.
Mary’s action posed a problem for Elizabeth. Mary had frequently said that she should be queen of England, basing her claim on the fact that she was the great-granddaughter of Henry VII. Elizabeth could not afford to have a claimant to her throne wandering around her country, possibly gathering supporters for a coup, especially as it soon became clear that Mary was indeed a target for any Catholic conspirator who wanted to get rid of Elizabeth.
So Elizabeth did what she had to do. She received her Scottish rival as a guest - and promptly detained her in prison. Being a royal prisoner was often not that much different from being a guest in Elizabethan England. Mary was given quite comfortable accommodation initially. But plotters continued to use Mary as a focus for opposition to Elizabeth, and Mary continued to encourage them.
Finally, after 18 years in captivity, Mary was charged with treason against Elizabeth - an unusual case of one ruler being accused of treason against another. She was executed at Fotheringhay Castle on 8 February 1587. She was initially buried in Peterborough Cathedral, not far away from her place of execution, but later her remains were removed to Westminster Abbey, where she lies in permanent exile amongst the tombs of the rulers of England.
New Hope: James VI
The only son of Mary, Queen of Scots, James VI (1567-1625) became king as an infant and had a long reign, during which the kingdoms of Scotland and England were finally united. After a difficult upbringing, James proved himself an able monarch - an intellectual who wrote several books and who was also a peace-maker.
James’s father was murdered and his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed, so he was brought up as an orphan. He was confined for a long period in Stirling Castle to prevent rivals from kidnapping him, and here his guardians, the Earl and Countess of Mar, brought him up strictly. He was educated by tutors who tried to convince him that his mother was a worthless woman of loose morals.
Meanwhile, Scotland was ruled by a series of regents, dukes, earls, and others, who continuously swapped places in their jockeying for power. During this period, James was given none of the personal support he needed, and the ugly upbringing ended when a group of lords, including Lord Ruthven, kidnapped him in order to grab the advantages of royal power for themselves.
The notorious Ruthven Raid took place in 1582, and by the following year, the teenage James had had enough. He escaped from Ruthven and his cronies, but swiftly found himself dominated instead by James Stewart, Earl of Arran. Finally, in 1585, James announced that he would now rule in his own right.
The late 1580s and 1590s saw the king develop his policy of keeping the peace. Although brought up as a staunch Protestant by his harsh tutors, he resolved to be kind to his Catholic colleagues, letting them off even when coded letters to Spain were discovered - a sure sign that anti-Protestant plotting was afoot.
In 1589, James married a young Danish princess, Anna. Although Anna had a number of miscarriages, the couple produced several children, to the delight of James. Scotland’s strict Protestants didn’t like the marriage much, however. The king and queen were lambasted for partying, drinking, and dancing.
This criticism was too much for James, and he looked for a way to rein in the church. So he brought back senior clergy to the previously bishopless Scottish church, to provide more authority over carping clerics.
Royal paranoia
Although he was a lover of peace, James’s difficult upbringing made him a rather jumpy man who often over-reacted to threats. He had a reputation for being paranoid about his safety and was apt to react violently when cornered. A couple of times, his paranoia had dramatic consequences:
● Incident No. 1 - Bothwell’s visit: In 1593, James had trouble with Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell (a relative of Mary, Queen of Scots’ troublesome husband), who’d had several arguments with the king. Bothwell burst into James’s bedchamber, James immediately thought the earl was going to attack him, and he instantly ordered those around him to grab Bothwell. The hapless earl was carted off and banished - even though he insisted that he’d come to make peace with the king.
● Incident No. 2 - The Gowrie plot: An even more serious incident occurred in 1600 when the Earl of Gowrie and his brother invited James to dinner at their house in Perth. It quickly transpired that those present were going to attack James, who yelled for help. Courtiers dashed to the rescue, and the earl and his brother were soon dead on the floor before anyone could tell how serious their threat had really been.
James the scholar
James was more at home pursuing the peaceful art of scholarship. The king wrote a number of books, was also a poet, translated some of the psalms - and was interested enough to be a patron of other writers. His books include:
● Basilikon Doron, a book about the best way to govern a country, written for the benefit of his son.
● The True Law of Free Monarchies, which argues against writers who said that kings should be elected by the people and be responsible to them.
● Demonology, a book about witchcraft.
● A Counterblast to Tobacco, which unfashionably said that smoking was a smelly, unpleasant habit.
James was rather ahead of his time in his thinking on tobacco, if nothing else. But he could not have predicted the huge shift in the history of his nation when in 1603, England’s Queen Elizabeth died, and he became king of England. (You can find out how he fared as James I of England in Chapter 14.)