Mary (1542-1587), Queen of Scots, daughter of King James V and his wife
Mary of Lorraine, was born in December, 1542, a few days before the
death of her father, heart-broken by the disgrace of his arms at Solway
Moss, where the disaffected nobles had declined to encounter an enemy of
inferior force in the cause of a king whose systematic policy had been
directed against the privileges of their order, and whose representative
on the occasion was an unpopular favorite appointed general in defiance
of their ill-will. On the 9th of September following, the ceremony of
coronation was duly performed on the infant. A scheme for her betrothal
to Edward, Prince of Wales, was defeated by the grasping greed of his
father, whose obvious ambition to annex the crown of Scotland at once to
that of England aroused instantly the general suspicion and indignation
of Scottish patriotism. In 1548 the Queen of six years old was betrothed
to the dauphin Francis, and set sail for France, where she arrived
August 15th.
The society in which the child was thenceforward reared is known to
readers of Brantome as well as that of Imperial Rome at its worst is
known to readers of Suetonius or Petronius--as well as that of papal
Rome at its worst is known to readers of the diary kept by the domestic
chaplain of Pope Alexander VI.
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