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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