Queen Mary, John Knox, and Queen Elizabeth, 1561-1565
In the year 1558, as we have seen, Mary, Queen of Scots, was married to Francis, the Dauphin of France. The next year, Henry II., the father of Francis, died,…
From: 1561 C.E. To: 1565 C.E.
Location: Scotland
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
Queen Mary and John Knox; Queen Mary and Elizabeth 1561-1565
From A Short History of Scotland by Peter Hume Brown, 1908.
In the year 1558, as we have seen, Mary, Queen of Scots, was married to Francis, the Dauphin of France. The next year, Henry II., the father of Francis, died, and Francis succeeded him, so that Mary was now queen of France as well as of Scotland. After reigning for only about a year and a half, however, Francis died; and then Mary found that it was best that she should return to Scotland.
On the morning of the 19th of August, 1561, the fleet that brought her home appeared in the Roads of Leith. It was not a very cheerful morning on which she arrived, as there was a thick mist on land and sea. Her subjects, however, tried to show how happy they were at her return. At night a band came to Holyrood House, where she had been taken, and played tunes on three-stringed fiddles, though her French friends thought the music very bad.
After thirteen years Mary was now in her native land and among her own subjects, but how could she look forward with any pleasure to reigning over them?
She had come from the sunny land of France, where she had been accustomed to gaieties and grandeur which she could not find in Scotland. Then she was a Catholic and she loved France, and how was she to rule a people that now hated France and had set up the Protestant religion in place of the religion of Rome? It would have required the wisest and most experienced of rulers instead of a girl of eighteen, as Mary was, to rule Scotland at this time.
Images from book, by P. Hume Brown.
In some ways, however, Mary was likely to be popular with her subjects. She was one of the most beautiful women of her time, and had such winning manners that she could make both men and women of all ranks admire and love her. She was also very clever and well educated, and was as brave as the bravest knight. Her great fault was that, like her grandfather James IV., she was so passionate and self-willed that she often did things without considering what would follow.
Of course, Mary would have liked that Scotland should again make friends with France and restore the old Church; but she knew that for the present this was impossible, and that she must allow things to remain as they were. She chose as her chief advisers the Lord James Stewart and William Maitland of Lethington, who was the cleverest statesman then living in Scotland. And, as both of these men were Protestants, this meant that Protestantism was to continue as the religion of the country.
Very soon, however, it was seen how difficult it was for a Catholic sovereign to govern a Protestant kingdom. Mary agreed that the mass should not be said throughout the country, but she insisted that, as she was a Catholic, she should have the mass said in Holyrood Chapel for herself and her Catholic attendants. Lord James Stewart and Maitland thought that this ought to be allowed, and the mass was said in Holyrood Chapel as Mary had desired.
John Knox, however, considered this was quite wrong, since, if the queen had her mass, her Catholic subjects would wish to have theirs also. Knox even preached sermons in the Church of St Giles against the saying of the mass in Holyrood, and Mary was so angry at this that she summoned Knox to Holyrood Palace.
They had a long argument together, but, of course, they could not agree; and all through her reign Knox was Mary's chief enemy, as he thought that she would never give up trying to bring back her own religion, as was, indeed, the case.
After this quarrel about the mass, Knox and the other Protestant ministers were never such friends with the Lord James as they had been before Mary returned to Scotland. And another dispute arose between them which made the quarrel more bitter still. Though the Protestant religion had been set up, the ministers had received little or no money to maintain themselves with.
They asked, therefore, that the property of the old Church should be given to them for the good of religion and education. But the Lord James and the other Protestant lords would not agree to this, and what they did was to take a third part of the property of the old Church, and give one half of it to the queen and the other half to the ministers. As this was not nearly enough to keep up ministers and churches and schools, Knox and his brother ministers were very indignant with the Protestant lords, some of whom had taken care to set aside a large share of the Church property for themselves. In these ways the Protestants came to be divided, and the result was that their cause was greatly weakened.
In the year 1562, just about twelve months after her return, Mary set out on a journey to the north of her kingdom which she had long intended to make. The journey was meant to be one of pleasure, but it turned out very differently.
When she got to Inverness-shire, the Earl of Huntly, a Catholic noble, and one of the greatest men in the country, rose in rebellion. Mary now showed how brave and high-spirited she was.
An Englishman who was with her said that he "never saw her merrier," and he heard her exclaim that she would like to be a man, to be out all night in the fields and carry a buckler and a broadsword. But the rebellion was soon over.
The Lord James Stewart (who now became Earl of Moray) and two other earls collected an army and met the Earl of Huntly and his followers at Corrichie, about fifteen miles to the west of Aberdeen. After a short battle, Huntly was defeated, and, as he rode from the field to Aberdeen, he fell dead from his horse from some illness with which he was seized.
There was one thing on which Mary had set her heart, and that was to succeed Elizabeth as queen of England. Almost all Catholics, indeed, thought that Mary was the rightful queen of England, and for two reasons; because, in the first place, they held Elizabeth was not the lawful daughter of Henry VIII. and Ann Boleyn, as Henry had divorced his first wife, Catharine of Aragon, against the law of the Church of Rome; and, in the second place, because she was a heretic, and, therefore, could not be a lawful ruler.
Mary's two chief advisers, the Earl of Moray and Maitland of Lethington, were also anxious that Mary should be Elizabeth's successor. What they hoped was that, if Mary became queen of England, she would become a Protestant, as England was a Protestant country, and then one Protestant sovereign would be ruler both of England and Scotland. They, therefore, sent word to persuade Elizabeth to name Mary as her successor, but Elizabeth would not agree to this.
She was afraid, she said, that if her Catholic enemies were certain that Mary would be queen of England after her death, they would assassinate her to make way for Mary.
At last Mary grew tired of waiting till Elizabeth should name her as her successor, and she took a step which made Elizabeth very indignant. She married Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, eldest son of Matthew, Earl of Lennox, in 1565.
The reason why Elizabeth was angry at this marriage was that, after Mary, Darnley was the nearest heir to the English throne, as he and Mary were both the grandchildren of Margaret Tudor. Henry VIII.'s sister Mary's grandfather being James IV., and Darnley's grand-father, Archibald, Earl of Angus, who was Margaret Tudor's second husband.
By marrying Darnley, therefore, Mary made her claim to the English throne still stronger, and it was this that frightened Elizabeth and made her so angry with Mary.
And there were others as frightened and angry at Mary's marriage as Elizabeth; namely, the Earl of Moray and the other Protestant lords. What made these persons dislike the marriage was that Darnley was a Catholic, and that he and Mary together would come to have the chief power in the kingdom. But if this happened, the Protestant lords would lose all their authority, and in the end the Church of Rome would be restored.
Moray and his friends, therefore, did all in their power to prevent the marriage, and, after the marriage did take place, they rose in rebellion. Mary, however, at the head of a small army chased them from one part of the country to another, and at last compelled Moray to flee to England. This was called the Chase-about or Round-about Raid.
Thus it seemed at first that Mary's marriage with Darnley was to give her more power than she had ever had since she returned to Scotland. But we shall see that it was to be the chief cause of all her misfortunes.
Brown, Peter Hume. A Short History of Scotland. Oliver and Boyd, 1908.
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