Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/397

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Mary of Guise
391
Mary of Guise

James III, who was crowned at Kelso on 10 Aug., she retained her position as regent of the kingdom, with Bishop Kennedy [see Kennedy, James] as her principal minister. In July 1460 she entertained Margaret of Anjou and her son in Lincluden Abbey; and she also gave Margaret and her husband, Henry VI, shelter after their defeat at Towton in 1461. Henry VI also obtained the promise of help from the powerful Earl of Angus; but a proposal of the Earl of Warwick, on behalf of Edward IV, for the hand of the queen regent, tended to weaken the influence of his rival in Scotland. Mary died, according to Bishop Leslie, on 16 Nov. 1463 (History of Scotland, Bannatyne ed. p. 36), but according to the ‘Exchequer Rolls’ (vii. 389) on 1 Dec. 1464. The year given in the ‘Exchequer Rolls’ is clearly a clerical error; but otherwise this date is probably correct. She was buried in the church of Trinity College, Edinburgh. Although credited with intrigues with Somerset, who after Towton took refuge in Scotland, and with Adam Hepburn, second lord Hales, she was as a sovereign both prudent and energetic. She built the castle of Ravenscraig, near Dysart, Fife, and the church of Trinity College, Edinburgh, besides providing for extensive repairs on Stirling Castle, the palace of Falkland, and other royal residences.

[Chroniques de Matthieu de Coussy; Auchinleck Chronicle; Histories of Leslie, Lindsay of Pitscottie, and Buchanan; Francisque Michel's Les Écossais en France; Exchequer Rolls of Scotland; see arts. James II and James III of Scotland.]

T. F. H.


MARY of Guise (1515–1560), queen of James V of Scotland [q. v.], and mother of Mary Queen of Scots [q. v.], was the eldest child of Claude, count, and afterwards (1527) duke, of Guise, second son of René II, duke of Lorraine, and Philippa of Gueldres; her mother was Antoinette de Bourbon, daughter of Francis de Bourbon, count of Vendôme (Forneron, Les Ducs de Guise et leur Époque). Born on 22 Nov. 1515 at Bar-le-Duc, Mary was, until the birth of her brother Francis, in 1519, the heir-presumptive of the rising house of Guise (Croze, Les Guises, les Valois, et Philippe II, i. 5–6). On 4 Aug. 1534 she was married to Louis of Orleans, second duke of Longueville and grand chamberlain of France, who was about twenty-three years old. The Duke of Guise settled eighty thousand livres tournois upon Mary, who received also from her husband a handsome jointure, including Chateaudun on the Loire. Here, and at his northern castles of Amiens and Rouen, their short but happy married life was passed, and here, on 30 Oct. 1535, Mary bore him a son, who was christened Francis. They were both present at the marriage of Magdalene, daughter of Francis I, to James V of Scotland [q. v.], on New-year's day 1537, but the Duke of Longueville died on 9 June following (Strickland, Queens of Scotland, i. 346). A posthumous son, born shortly after (4 Aug.), and named Louis, lived only four months.

On 10 July Magdalene, queen of James V, died, and soon afterwards James, who had probably seen Mary on his French visit, obtained a promise of her hand (State Papers, v. 112; Herkless, Cardinal Beaton, p. 130). Nevertheless, Henry VIII, on losing Jane Seymour in October, made ardent suit to Mary himself, and continued to urge his suit, not over-gently, both with Francis and Mary herself, even after her betrothal to James had been made public early in 1538 (Strickland, p. 350). Lords Maxwell and Erskine and Cardinal David Beaton [q. v.], however, came over to Paris and concluded the marriage treaty. She brought James as dower one hundred and fifty thousand livres, nearly half of which was the gift of the French king, Francis, who adopted her as his daughter. James bestowed upon her for life the handsome jointure of the counties of Fife, Strathearn, and Ross, with the palaces of Falkland, Stirling, and Dingwall, and the lordships of Galloway, Orkney, and the Isles (Teulet, Papiers d'État relatifs à l'Histoire d'Écosse, Bannatyne Club edit., i. 131–4). As they were both descended from the house of Gueldres, and Mary was nearly related to James's first wife, a dispensation for the marriage was procured from Pope Clement VII. It was celebrated on 9 May in Notre-Dame at Paris, Robert, fifth lord Maxwell [q. v.], acting as proxy for James (Bouillé, Hist. des Ducs de Guise, i. 123). Henry VIII ungraciously refused her permission to pass through England on her way to Scotland, and James sent a large fleet to escort her thither. She landed near Crail in Fife on 14 June (Knox, Works, ed. Laing, i. 61, but cf. Lesley, p. 155), and in the cathedral of St. Andrews James and she were finally married by Cardinal Beaton. The dowager-queen Margaret informed her brother Henry that the young queen bore herself very honourably to her, and would, she trusted, prove a wise princess (State Papers, v. 135). Mary seems, indeed, to have managed her vain and touchy mother-in-law with considerable tact, and it was reported to Cromwell that the young queen was ‘all papist and the old queen not much less’ (ib. p. 154). For nearly two years Mary was childless, and it was not until there was