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Henry Darnley, the eldest son of the 4th Earl of Lennox and Lady Margaret Douglas, was born in 1545. Henry's cousin, Mary Stuart, returned to Scotland after the death of her husband, Francois II of France. It was proposed that Darnley should marry Mary and the couple were married at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. He then was proclaimed, Henry, King of Scots.

Elizabeth became concerned about this development. Henry's mother was the granddaughter of Henry VII. The marriage therefore strengthened her descendants' claim to the English throne.

In 1566 Mary gave birth to a son named James. The marriage was not a happy one and when Darnley was mysteriously killed while recovering from smallpox at Glasgow in January 1567, when the house in which he was in was blown up by gunpowder.

Suspicion fell on Mary and her close friend, the Earl of Bothwell. When Mary married Bothwell two months later, the Protestant lords rebelled against their queen. After her army was defeated at Langside in 1567, Mary fled to England.

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(1) Earl of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion (1667)

At Edgehill... the foot soldiers stood their ground with great courage; and though many of the King's soldiers were unarmed and had only cudgels, they kept their ranks, and took up the arms which their slaughtered neighbours left to them.