[MR] Wikipedia: Mary, Queen of Scots' First Marriage

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends, Especially Fellow Scots,

On this date in 1558, Mary, Queen of Scots, married Francis, Dauphin of
France.

Henry VIII began the "Rough Wooing" in 1544, a series of raids into
Scotland intended to force a marriage between Mary and his son, Edward.
Instead, the Scots made a treaty with France in July 1548 to wed Mary to
Francis. For her safety, five-year-old Mary was spirited away to France
that August. Mary was raised in the French court, and was really more
French than Scottish by the time she was a young woman.

Mary and Francis apparently had a happy, if brief, marriage. On 10 July,
1559, the French king Henry II died of injuries from a jousting accident.
Francis became King Francis II, and Mary was now Queen Consort of France,
as well as Queen of Scotland. Sadly, this didn't last long. Francis died of
an inner ear infection that cooked his brain on 5 December 1560.

Mary's mother-in-law, Catherine de' Medici became regent for Francis'
younger brother, Charles IX. Catherine found Mary's presence at court a
problem, so Mary was sent packing back to Scotland in August 1561, to
assume personal rule of that fractious country.

You can read more about Mary's tragic life, and her disastrous second and
third marriages, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary,_Queen_of_Scots .

An unsurprisingly brief bio of Francis is at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_II_of_France .

Yours Aye,


Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆