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Maria TudorQueen of Scots, wife of King James IV
Date of Birth: 30.11.1489
Country:  Great Britain |
Biography of Mary Tudor
Mary Tudor, Queen of Scotland, Wife of King James IVMary Tudor was born as the eldest daughter of English King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. In accordance with the terms of the Anglo-Scottish peace treaty of 1502, Mary was betrothed to King James IV of Scotland. In the summer of 1503, she arrived in Scotland accompanied by a lavish wedding procession consisting of the most noble courtiers from both kingdoms. On August 8, 1503, the wedding of James IV and Mary took place at Holyrood Abbey, which was described by the leading Scottish poet of the time, William Dunbar, as the union of "Thistle and Rose". Despite the enormous expenses incurred by the Scottish king for the organization of the wedding festivities, Mary initially struggled to adjust to the relative modesty of the Scottish court compared to the English court and wrote desperate letters to her father. It is also possible that the age difference between the young queen and her husband, who was already thirty years old at the time of their marriage, affected her mood, as she was only thirteen.
After the death of her father, King Henry VII, in 1509, Mary's brother Henry VIII ascended to the throne of England. Anglo-Scottish relations quickly deteriorated. The situation was further complicated by the fact that Henry VIII had no children at the time, and Mary was the heir to the throne. This is demonstrated by the fact that Mary and James IV named their second son, born in 1509, Arthur, in honor of the legendary King of Britain (although the child did not survive past the age of two). In the midst of the worsening Anglo-Scottish relations, Queen Mary tried to persuade James IV to maintain peace, but in 1513, the Scottish king entered into a war with England and was killed in the Battle of Flodden.
After her husband's death, Mary became the regent of Scotland for her one-year-old son, James V. However, her English ancestry and her second marriage, contracted in 1514 with Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, restored the majority of Scottish nobles against the queen. As a result, in May 1515, the regency was transferred to John Stewart, Duke of Albany, and Mary was forced to leave the country for a while. After reconciling with Albany and returning to Scotland, she was reinstated in her possessions but was deprived of the opportunity to see her son. During Albany's rule, Mary was mainly in opposition to his pro-French policies. However, she was not an agent of English influence in Scotland either: the leader of the "English" party was her second husband, Earl of Angus, with whom she had been in extremely poor relations since 1517 and initiated divorce proceedings.
In 1524, joining forces with the Earl of Arran, Mary became involved in the removal of Albany and once again assumed the position of regent of Scotland. However, Earl of Angus managed to capture King James V and push the queen and Arran away from governing the country. Despite the lack of support from the majority of Scottish nobility, Angus managed to maintain his power in Scotland for three years. Meanwhile, Mary's divorce was finalized, and she was able to remarry, this time to Henry Stewart, later Lord Methven. In the spring of 1528, Mary organized the escape of James V from Edinburgh, where he was kept under Angus's supervision. The young king arrived at Stirling, his mother's stronghold. Soon, all the major Scottish barons gathered in Stirling, organizing an army and driving Angus out of the country. After the beginning of James V's independent rule, the queen remained on the royal council for a while, but gradually their relationship deteriorated. The king suspected his mother of involvement in a conspiracy inspired by Henry VIII with the aim of capturing James V. The king's refusal to grant permission for his mother's divorce from her third husband also did not help improve their relationship.
Mary Tudor passed away in 1541. Her great-grandson, James VI of Scotland, who inherited her rights to the throne of England, became the English king in 1603 after the death of Henry VIII's last daughter. (1503) James IV, King of Scotland James (1507-1508) Arthur (1509-1510) James V (1512-1542), King of Scotland (from 1513) Alexander (1514-1515) (1514, divorced 1527) Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus Mary (1515-1578), married (1544) Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox. Their son, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, married Queen Mary Stuart. (1528) Henry Stewart, Lord Methven
