Mary of Guise

Queen of Scotland (r. 1554-1560)

• Born: November 22, 1515
• Birthplace: Bar-le-Duc, Lorraine, France
• Died: June 11, 1560
• Place of death: Edinburgh, Scotland

French-born Mary of Guise, attaining the regency of Scotland after the death of her husband, James V, exploited her connections to French elites, which frustrated English attempts to force an alliance with Scotland. Though Mary’s resistance to the Reformation failed and she was deposed by English-backed Protestant insurgents, she succeeded in paving the path to power for her daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots, whose upbringing and marriage she carefully arranged.

Early Life

Mary of Guise was born into the French nobility, the daughter of Claude de Lorraine, the duke of Guise, and Antoinette of Bourbon. Insofar as her father was the leading magnate of the powerful House of Guise, Mary would have been raised in an environment of material wealth and high culture, and she also would have received a grounding in the arts of court politics, which would later serve her as a political leader in her own right.

Mary had ties to numerous relatives in positions of power in French society, and clearly she cultivated these close relations with her French family for the remainder of her political life. Born into a leading Catholic family in a predominantly Catholic country, Mary would later consistently maintain her sense of national and religious identity, even though much of her later life would be spent outside her native France.

In 1534, Mary married Louis d’Orléans, the second duke of Longueville. Mary and Louis had two sons: Francis and a second son, who did not survive infancy. In 1537, Mary’s husband, Louis, died, leaving the young Mary an eminently eligible candidate for a marriage to a powerful noble. Though negotiations for a marriage between Mary and the English king Henry VIII were begun soon after the death of Louis, Mary rejected the proposal. Mary probably sought to avoid a marriage alliance with the ruler of her nation’s perennial enemy, England the first sign of an anti-English ideology that would characterize her later political career.

Life’s Work

In 1538, Mary married James V, king of Scotland , at St. Andrews. James and Mary had three children: two sons, James and Arthur, who both died in 1541, as well as James’s sole surviving heir, Mary (the future Queen of Scots), who was born December 8, 1542.

For the remainder of James’s reign, Mary enjoyed a position of prestige in a court teeming with material wealth and flourishing with the culture of the Renaissance. Weeks after a disastrous defeat by English forces at Solway Moss and just days after the birth of his heir, Mary, James V died at Falkland on December 14, 1542, creating a chaotic political environment in which numerous Scottish factions resisted Mary of Guise’s assumption of the regency during her daughter’s minority.

In 1542, James Hamilton, earl of Arran, who sought to ally Scotland with England, became regent of Scotland. Mary of Guise, who was committed to her late husband’s policy of maintaining Scotland’s alliance to France, immediately began to maneuver to replace Hamilton as regent.

In 1543, Hamilton succeeded in negotiating the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots, to Henry VIII’s heir, the English prince Edward (the future Edward VI ). Mary of Guise successfully nullified the planned marriage, convincing the Scottish parliament, on July 7, 1548, to agree to the Treaty of Haddington, which not only repudiated the marriage of the vulnerable Scottish queen to the English heir but also ensured that the French king, Henry II, would guarantee French military support as Scotland’s “protector.” Henry VIII reacted to the rejected marriage by leading several destructive raids into southern Scotland, winning some support from Protestant Scots, such as James Stewart, earl of Moray, who resented the presence of French troops brought into Scotland by Mary.

As she maneuvered to replace Hamilton as regent, Mary sought aid and advice from two of her brothers, Charles, the cardinal of Lorraine, and Francis, the duke of Guise, seeking to use her ties to France to ensure her position of power in Scotland, France’s perennial ally. After arranging for Mary’s future marriage to the French dauphin (the future French king, Francis II), Mary sent her young daughter, in 1547, to be raised in Francis’s household in France. Mary sought to ensure that Scotland’s heir would share the French cultural background that she felt made herself best suited to govern Scotland until her daughter came of age. By 1554, her careful arrangements for her daughter’s ties to France had paid off, and Mary succeeded in replacing the earl of Arran as the regent of Scotland.

Mary of Guise’s reign as queen regent was beset by the rising tide of Protestantism within her traditionally Catholic realm. At first, Mary sought a lenient policy toward Reformers, but, as their numbers grew and their backing by English supporters began to pose a grave threat to Scotland’s stability, Mary soon began a campaign to violently suppress the Reformation movement. In 1557, Protestant insurgents, led by John Knox, formed an ideologically Calvinist group calling itself the Lords of the Congregation. In 1559, the Lords of the Congregation sought to bring about the overthrow of Mary of Guise by forming an alliance with England; soon, they were in open rebellion against Mary’s rule. Although Mary gained support in the civil war from French forces, the Reformers, empowered by English support, prevailed, successfully deposing Mary in 1559.

In 1560, Mary died, shortly after urging the competing sides to unite in loyalty to Mary, Queen of Scots, advice that led the many competing parties to agree to the Treaty of Edinburgh. Mary’s body was removed to the Convent of Saint-Pierre in Reims, where her sister Renée held the position of abbess, ensuring that her final resting place would be in her native and beloved France.

Significance

Throughout her political life, Mary of Guise proved committed to the cause of her native France, successfully avoiding any ties through marriage to her nation’s perennial enemy, England, even as she worked to acquire the most powerful position in the government of France’s traditional ally, Scotland.

Mary proved a patient and very effective political operator, securing the regency in the chaotic political landscape of Scotland created by the death of James V, even as she worked to attain for her daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots, an acceptably French and well-placed marriage.

Throughout her tenure in Scotland, Mary effectively exploited her connections to power-players in France, working to frustrate English military incursions by securing French military backing, while simultaneously countering England’s attempts to ally itself to Scotland during the volatile period of her daughter’s minority. Although Mary’s resistance to the rise of the Reformation in Scotland ultimately failed, she managed, even after being driven from power, to convince her opponents to agree to the Treaty of Edinburgh, which strengthened the hand of her daughter, Mary, whose upbringing and marriage she had so carefully engineered.

Bibliography

Cowan, Ian Borthwick. The Scottish Reformation: Church and Society in Sixteenth Century Scotland. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1982. A broad survey of the impact of the Reformation as it swept into the formerly Catholic Scotland. Offers detailed discussion of Mary’s unsuccessful struggle against Protestant reformers.

Fraser, Antonia. Mary, Queen of Scots. London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1977. Detailed biography of Mary’s daughter, featuring in-depth analysis of Mary’s efforts to raise her daughter in a French household to prepare her to assume the throne of Scotland. Plates, genealogical tables.

Marshall, Rosalind K. Mary of Guise. Edinburgh: National Museums of Scotland, 2003. A revised edition of Marshall’s 1977 biography of Mary, offering a narrative of the entirety of Mary’s life. Plates, genealogical tables.

Marshall, Rosalind K. Scottish Queens, 1034-1714. East Linton, Scotland: Tuckwell Press, 2003. Incorporating gender studies into the study of Scottish queenship, this broad survey offers analysis of the status of queens and consorts in Scottish history. Includes brief biographies of key female rulers of Scotland, including Mary of Guise. Color plates, dynastic tables.

Ritchie, Pamela E. Mary of Guise in Scotland, 1548-1560: A Political Career. East Linton, Scotland: Tuckwell Press, 2002. Revises the view that Mary was concerned primarily with defending Catholicism, arguing that Mary had personal, “dynastic” motives that centered on the advancement of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the strengthening of the alliance between Scotland and France.

Schama, Simon. A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World? 3000 B.C.-A.D. 1603. New York: Hyperion, 2000. A broad survey of British history through the sixteenth century, featuring numerous color plates, maps, and genealogical tables. Offers in-depth discussion of Mary of Guise’s role in resisting the English-backed Reformation movement in Mary’s Scotland.