Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587)


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Royal Anniversary- December 8th,1542-Birth of future Mary Queen of Scots.



YoungMaryStuart.jpg
 
Does anyone know if there was anything good said about Mary's husband Lord Darnley? Even some of the most maligned historical characters have defenders and I was wondering if Darnley has any?
 
I've wondered about that, too. The closest I ever heard was that Darnley's only good traits were his youth and good looks.
 
The only redeeming trait of Darnley's was that he helped produce an heir. :ROFLMAO:
 
An Ard Ri said:
Royal Anniversary- December 8th,1542-Birth of future Mary Queen of Scots.
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Every time I see this portrait, I feel slightly creeped out; Mary looks exactly like my older sister there. Save from the outfit and hairpiece, it could have been her portrait - and her name is Mary too. I mean, I know we are descended from her, but the resemblance is still a bit eerie.
 
Grace Angel, I too thought that Mary's porphyria was only speculated upon, and that James I/VI might have inherited it from his father, Lord Darnley. However, some months ago someone here on TRF posted a link to the actual words of the study by Hunter and McAlpine on porphyria in the royal family. I read this--I had heard about it but not been able to locate it. The description of Mary's symptoms proves to me that she very likely had porphyria. I was unable to print off the Hunter and McAlpine article, so I have lost it. I am not a computer nerd by a long shot. However, this description exists and it is taken from eye witness accounts written down at the time of Mary's life.

You know that Mary and her second husband Lord Darnley were cousins, although not close cousins. Both were descended from the Tudor line which I believe was a porphyria line coming into England through Owen Tudor's wife Katherine of Valois, the widow of Henry V. Therefore to me it is possible that Darnley was the porphyria donor to James I/VI. The Stewart line probably already had porphyria in it, in my view, so either parent could have given the gene to James I/VI. 50% of of children, statistically, inherit hepatic porphyria from one parent, 75% from two parents; it is a dominant gene which will not skip generations, although some people are said to inherit it but go through life without it being triggered into active porphyria.

In any family with a porphyric parent, it is possible for all children to inherit, or none, but the most likely statistical situation is 50% inherit.
 
persian85033 said:
I've wondered about that, too. The closest I ever heard was that Darnley's only good traits were his youth and good looks.
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Everytime I read about Mary that is the only good thing said about Darnley, he was good looking and also a good horseman. Then as soon as they get married it I never ending negativity about him. I am definitely not a fan of his, I was just wondering if he had any defenders who gave a different take on his personality.
 
Artemisia said:
Every time I see this portrait, I feel slightly creeped out; Mary looks exactly like my older sister there. Save from the outfit and hairpiece, it could have been her portrait - and her name is Mary too. I mean, I know we are descended from her, but the resemblance is still a bit eerie.
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I had no idea you were related to her!
 
:previous:
A descendant through two different lines (both illegitimate, I'm afraid).
Also a descendant of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, mother of Sophie, Electress of Hanover (though not of Sophie herself).

It's kind of a running joke in my family that although we've always identified ourselves as Armenians, we probably have just tiny amount of actual Armenian blood in our veins. In the last 4-5 generations, my ancestors on both sides were of Russian, German, French, Italian, Georgian, Persian and Greek ancestry. And if we dig a bit further, my ancestry resembles a list of UN member states. That's what not having a home land for centuries does to a gene pool.
 
That's interesting, Artemesia. I believe I have Stuart descent, probably mostly because of my having porphyria as they did and having ancestors who followed the Stuarts for centuries, but I also look like a description of Stuarts someone posted here on TRF. When young I was tall, slim, and had reddish hair, and was pale. I did not have the Stewart Roman nose they described, that was the main difference. I was really taken aback when I read that description of James I/VI, and it was said that his appearance was common among the Stuarts of his time and before. But my Scots ancestors of recent centuries did not keep track of any relationship to the Stuarts. Someone I told this too, that there was no "track", said that probably my recent ancestors were sick enough with chronic porphyria that they did not bother with frivolous things like that. Or they may have simply drifted into the masses of commoners due to poverty...but probably also due to illness. James I/VI was ill with porphyria from time to time, and he is usually shown as one of the royals whose porphyria was '"definite." In fact, the most definite, even more so than George III. I never knew this stuff until 16years ago when I was dx'd with porph and started digging. The only written records I have of "relationship" to Stuarts are the records of common donations to abbeys which were made when the first "Stewart" (Walter FitzAllen) and my ancestor Robert Pollock lived on adjacent tracts in what is now Glasgow. The round "Templar" towers belonging to Robert Pollock and Walter Fitzallen on their adjacent tracts were found by anthropologists and identified by National Geographic. Some of the names in the Pollock "first son" descent are "Stewart" but I would have no idea about which of them I might have descended from.
 
On 24th, April 1558 Mary Queen of Scots married the Dauphin Francois at Notre Dame de Paris.



Francois_Second_Mary_Stuart.jpg
 
Mary Queen of Scots married The Earl of Bothwell at the Great Hall of Holyrood Palace on this day (May 15th 1567).
 
National Museum of Scotland will hold an exhibition devoted to Mary, Queen of Scots.The exhibition will run from June 28 to November 17, 2013.
Mary Queen of Scots
 
Anyone else surprised that the sword that was used to behead her has never popped up? Although, it could be in The Tower and has never seen the light of day. Yes, I know she was not beheaded there.
 
She was beheaded with an axe, and quite brutally. :eek:
 
Ok, an axe. Wouldn't that have been kept? Especially when James I came to power.
 
Maybe it wasn't a souvenir that anyone wanted to see again, especially when James I came to power. As frantic as Elizabeth I was when she was told the beheading had taken place, they probably wouldn't have wanted her to know the axe was still around, either.
 
padams2359 said:
Ok, an axe. Wouldn't that have been kept? Especially when James I came to power.
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Do you seriously believe anyone would have presented James I with the axe that took his mothers head off?

Why would an executioner have thought the axe he used on Mary was anything special? He likely went one to use it on many other people before tossing it away. I doubt if it ever had a brass plaque attached saying "this is the axe that beheaded Mary of Scotland".
 
Well Artemisia, I found my connection to the Stuarts. I am a descendant of Eschyna, the wife of Walter FitzAllen, the first High Steward of Scotland. I descend from her daughter Isabella, born to Eschyna and her first husband Robert Croc. Isabella married my ancestor Robert Pollock, a knight following Walter Fitzallen. Robert Croc was also a knight following Walter Fitzallen. I found this in two places, "Normans in Scotland" by Ritchie, and a Wiki presentation on Walter Fitzallen. Looking in various books, thinking one might find some strange needle in the haystack, I finally found this descent of Isabella from Eschyna and Robert Croc. Eschyna married 3 times, the last one to a man who took Eschyna's name as title holder to an estate in Shropshire. The whole "gang", my relative Robert Pollock, Robert Croc, Eschyna, and Walter FitzAllen, all came from Shropshire.
I have been referring to them as the Shropshire Gang when writing my friend in Australia whose ancestors also came from Shropshire. I just found this two days ago. I might have other connections to Stuarts, probably do considering the amount of cousin marriage which went on among that gang, but here I have a direct descent from an ancestor of Mary Queen of Scots, which is what I always have told people I expected I had, not descent "from" her.

Isabella Croc Pollock's name does not appear in all records you can read online.
Some refer to her as "unknown daughter" or ignore her. She was not important, compared to her brothers, or, later, her half-sibling-cousins born of her mother and Walter FitzAllen.
 
This is a very interesting thread. A lot has been written about Queen Mary's lack of knowledge about Scotland and its complicated (and treacherous) politics, but how do people think Mary would have fared if Francis had lived a few years longer and she had been able to bear him children.

I'm not sure about the custom of the time, but it seems to me that it had been assumed that she and Francis were going to live in France. The French monarchy was far more prestigious than the Scottish monarchy. I've read that Mary was very popular in the French court and only Catherine de Medici didn't like her because she was jealous.

Would Mary have gone back to Scotland after her husband's death if she had children in France? If Francis had lived longer, would Catherine de Medici's influence have waned after Mary had children or would the two women battle for supremacy within the court?
 
If Mary had a son with Francis she might have held some influence but she'd have to go head to head against Catherine which I'm sure the wily eternal Regent would have won hands down!
 
An Ard Ri said:
If Mary had a son with Francis she might have held some influence but she'd have to go head to head against Catherine which I'm sure the wily eternal Regent would have won hands down!
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Interesting. I agree that Mary's would have had difficulties if she had remained in France--although the results probably would not have been fatal. Mary didn't seem capable of thinking more than one or two steps ahead. I think she would have been fine if she had married someone competent. It's not fair to compare her to Queen Elizabeth, but she wasn't even as competent as Mary of Guise.
 
US Royal Watcher said:
Interesting. I agree that Mary's would have had difficulties if she had remained in France--although the results probably would not have been fatal. Mary didn't seem capable of thinking more than one or two steps ahead. I think she would have been fine if she had married someone competent. It's not fair to compare her to Queen Elizabeth, but she wasn't even as competent as Mary of Guise.
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Or if Mary's shrewd mother had lived longer,Mary's rule of Scotland might have been more successful.
 
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