This Marriage Featured a Murder in the First Year, and a Literally Explosive End in the Second
Queen Mary discovered early in her second marriage that her new hubby had been raised a spoiled brat, with an excessive sense of entitlement. Lord Darnley was upset when Mary refused to grant him the Crown Matrimonial, which would have allowed him to rule after her death. When his wife got pregnant, he was not pleased. Instead, he fretted that any heir would push him that much further from the throne. Darnley grew even more displeased soon thereafter, when Mary took the currency with his head on it out of circulation. He eventually focused his rage on Mary’s French secretary, David Rizzio, whom he thought had turned the queen against him, and also suspected was her lover.
Darnley and some sidekicks burst into the queen’s dining room in March, 1566, and stabbed Rizzio to death in the presence of his horrified, pregnant wife. It was an attempt to shock Mary into a miscarriage, and also bend her to his will. She did not miscarry, and gave birth to the future King James in June, 1566. However, she was intimidated enough to pardon 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 when he staggered out of the wreckage, he was seized and strangled to death. Mary married his murderer, the Earl of Bothwell, three months later.