Mary, Queen of Scots

December, 1543

King Henry VIII of England hurled the wine goblet to the floor in a fit of rage. "Rejected my offer did they!" he raged. "Those Scottish ingrates! I'll crush them and take their little queen and the whole of Scotland with her!" Henry's face reddened as his anger grew more intense. "Get me Seymour!" he shouted to a cowering messenger. "These Scots will have a Protestant marriage, and an English King!" He stormed from the room leaving his councillors astounded and silent.

Finally, to break the tension, one of the king's councillors said with a slight grin on his face. "Now there's a romantic moment for you. Such a wooing of gentile and sweet tenderness will this be once Seymour is brought in as chaperone."

A second councillor looked gravely at the first and whispered, "With Seymour's bloody ways, I am afraid this will be more of a rough wooing, and a costly venture, all to insure the wedding of Prince Edward to this Catholic, Scottish princess."

The first councillor looked directly at his fellow advisor, "Better a rough wooing than a French and Catholic Scotland. Don't you agree-"

The second councillor raised his eyebrows, and replied, "Exactly our dilemma."

"Get Seymour," the first councillor ordered the messenger as he sat heavily down beside his fellow advisors. "How soon can the French have troops in Scotland-" he asked.

The Rough Wooing

King Henry VIII of England feared his powerful Catholic rivals in Europe. He was threatened by France from the mainland, and in the north, Scotland. Also, Scotland had become more closely allied with the French during the 1540s. So Henry attempted a

marriage alliance that would bring Scotland under English influence, and eventually English rule. He proposed to wed his son, Edward, to Mary, Queen of Scots. In July of 1543, this union was agreed upon by the Scots through the Treaties of Greenwich, arranged by James Hamilton, the Earl of Arran. At the time, Mary was still less than a year old. However, in December of that year, the Scottish Parliament rejected the agreement. This rejection reflected not only the Scot's distrust of Henry VIII, and their natural hatred of English rule, but also the rising conflict between Catholic and Protestant factions in Scotland.

Hearing of the rebuff, Henry began to press the issue and attempted to capture Mary in order to guarantee the wedding would take place. In 1544, the king sent Edward Seymour to Scotland with orders to kidnap Mary. This Rough Wooing, as it came to be known, involved a series of battles resulting in the looting and burnings of the abbeys of Holyrood, Jedburgh, Kelso and Dryburgh. Before the war's end much more death and destruction would follow.

This English invasion lasted until 1547, during which time, Mary's mother, Mary of Guise, repeatedly moved her from castle to castle to avoid capture by the English. Prompted by a decisive English victory at Pinkie Cleugh ^{battlefieldstrust.com map} in September of 1547, Mary's mother signed the Treaty of Haddington with Henry II of France in July of the next year. This treaty betrothed Mary, Queen of Scots, to the Dauphin of France and secured French aid in the war against England. Mary set sail for France one month later, eventually becoming Queen of France in 1559, but for hardly a year before her return to Scotland.

It was a 'rough wooing' indeed as the war drained Henry VIII's English treasury of half a million pounds, and the loss of many lives on the battlefields. Add to this the costly destruction of castles and farmland in Scotland and it became a difficult expense for both countries to bear. Had this courtship been successful, the course of history might have been very different, but as it is, with so many of the events of Mary, Queen of Scots', life, it was not to be.