A Marriage That Featured a Murder in the First Year, and Ended in a Gunpowder Explosion in the Second
Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (1545 – 1567) was the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and king consort of Scotland from 1565 until his death two years later. Darnley had accomplished little of note in his brief life before his violent death at age 22. His single legacy was to impregnate his wife with the future King James VI of Scotland and James I of England, thus giving rise to the Stuart Dynasty.
His wife, Mary Queen of Scots (1542 – 1587) was also his first cousin. Sole surviving child of Scotland’s king James V, Mary’s father died when she was six days old, and she inherited the throne as an infant. She was raised in France while Scotland was ruled by regents, and in 1558, she was married to Dauphin – the French crown prince – who became king Francis II in 1559, only to die within a year.
The widowed Mary returned to Scotland, and in 1565 met her first cousin, Lord Darnley, a handsome and well proportioned young man who captivated her. In addition to the attraction, a marriage made dynastic sense, as it would unite two branches of the Stuart line, and thus strengthen the Scottish royal family. A marriage was swiftly arranged, and Darnley ascended the throne as king consort.
Soon after the wedding, however, Mary discovered that her second husband had been raised a spoiled brat, with an excessive sense of entitlement. Darnley grew enraged when Mary refused to grant him the Crown Matrimonial, which would have allowed him to continue ruling after her death. When his wife got pregnant, instead of being pleased, he fretted that any heir would push him that much further from the throne.
He grew even more displeased soon thereafter, when Mary took the currency with his head on it out of circulation. Darnley eventually focused his rage on Mary’s French secretary, David Rizzio, whom he accused of turning the queen against him, and of being her lover. In March of 1566, Darnley and some sidekicks burst into the queen’s dining room, and stabbed Rizzio to death in the presence of his horrified, pregnant wife.
It was an attempt to shock Mary into miscarrying, and also bend her to his will. She did not miscarry, and gave birth to the future king James in June of 1566. However, she was intimidated into pardoning Rizzio’s murderers. Darnley did not get away with it for long, however. Mary connived in an assassination plot that set off explosives beneath Darnley’s bedroom on February 19th, 1567. He survived the blast, but upon staggering out of the wreckage, he was seized and strangled to death. Mary married his murderer, the Earl of Bothwell, three months later.