Why Lord Darnley's marriage to Mary, Queen of Scots, didn't work out

There were different motives on each side. To carry on the hostilities would surely have turned out even more disastrous for England. In any case, Scotland would in future be able to keep the peace not by brute force but by subtle manoeuvres – one of which was cordial relations between the royal houses in Edinburgh and London, without either of them seeking to dominate the other.

The strategy did have its risks, though. If the royal houses could reconcile themselves, then so, more generally, could the ruling classes of each nation. A time might come when members of them could doubt to which of the neighbour nations their loyalties truly lay. For the Border clans this might not matter much, but others had to take it more seriously.

READ MORE: The misunderstood Mary, Queen of Scots and the people in her life

The dangers came home in 1514 when the Battle of Flodden was fought, with the defeat and death of James IV, King of Scots. It might seem all the odder to recall that James had taken to himself a queen, Margaret, who was the sister of King Henry VIII of England.

But the habit of the multinational marriage was spreading among all European countries. Before the 15th century, Kings of Scots did not marry outside Scotland and let the lasses of their own land capture their hearts. By the end of the 15th century, Scots of royal rank clearly operated in a continental marriage market where spouses got chosen for strategic purposes inside a network to serve the aims of policy, not love.

A risk lurked in this – marriages were more likely to go wrong. Royals remained human, after all, and like the rest of us were never fully in control of personal relationships. A notorious example is Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. In 1567, he came to a sticky end at the age of 22, even while bidding for another regal honour, the crown matrimonial – that is, to be king because his wife was queen.

Despite these appearances, Darnley was by any normal standards an Englishman. For a start he had been born in England, at a stately home called Temple Newsam, today within the urban boundary of Leeds. King Henry VIII confiscated it from a Catholic family and gave it to his sister, Lady Margaret Douglas, the widow of King James IV who later married Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus. The latter couple had a daughter, also Margaret, who married Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox. Their son Lord Darnley bore the surname of Stewart too, but was universally known by his personal title.

This youngest sprig on the royal family tree had through his complicated ancestry a claim to the thrones of both Scotland and England. It might have been the making of him but instead it turned out to be the death of him.

Lennox had already muddled the family’s allegiances in 1545. He was found guilty of treason to Scotland for siding with the English in the War of the Rough Wooing, when Henry VIII sought to dictate from across the Border the marriage of the infant Mary, Queen of Scots. Lennox’s Highland estates were forfeited and he went into exile in England for 22 years.

His son, the young Lord Darnley, with Scottish, English and French royal blood in his veins, was conscious of his status and inheritance. Of his personal hopes, he said he wanted “every hair in his head for to be a worthy soldier”. He was a good boy to start with, competent in Latin, familiar with Gaelic, English and French, ready for service in more than one kingdom. He had social skills as well, in singing, dancing and playing the lute, as well as athletic prowess, in horsemanship, weaponry, hunting and hawking.

His kinswoman Mary rose to become Queen of France too in 1558, on her marriage in Paris to King Francis II. Darnley went over to offer his congratulations, and no doubt live it up a bit in the French capital. At their first meeting she took quite a fancy to him. She gave him 1000 crowns and invited him to the coronation. When, after her first husband’s early death, she returned to Edinburgh, Darnley hurried there too. Within a couple of weeks, the two of them were inseparable. In July 1565 they got married.

But it did not take Mary long to realise how vain, arrogant and unreliable her new husband was. Like blue-blooded youngsters in all ages, he had a taste for drink. In him, it brought out a violent streak as well, which he indulged with other young Scottish noblemen during Edinburgh’s dark nights. In Mary’s presence in March 1566, they forced their way into Holyrood and killed her Italian secretary, David Rizzio. They claimed he was her lover but, then and now, nobody has ever taken this seriously.

David Rizzo served as Mary's Italian secretary (Image: Getty)

Since she was in any case pregnant at the time, more sensible noblemen saw that a consort behaving like this was a danger to the kingdom. Darnley had to be dealt with somehow, but it would not be a pleasant or a pretty task. Meanwhile, Mary gave birth on June 19, 1566, to the future King James VI, so at least she had a successor other than her husband and cousin.

Mary would obviously not make peace with Darnley on any terms he could accept. The following winter he spent in Glasgow, and during his revels caught syphilis. He was described as having deformed pocks on his face and body.

Mary brought him back to Edinburgh to recuperate at a house called Kirk o’ Field, just inside the eastern city wall a short distance from Holyrood. It was said she meant to integrate him into the court again. But in the small hours of February 10, the building was rocked by two explosions. As the rubble got cleared away, Darnley’s body was discovered in the garden, with an unfortunate servant beside him. They did not look as if they had been blown up, but they were undoubtedly dead.

Had Mary finally got her way with her second husband? We will never know for certain, but before long her luck would run out too.