Mary, Queen of Scots

The daughter of King James V and his second wife, Mary of Guise, was born at Linlithgow Palace on 8 December 1542. James had been wounded at the defeat of the Scots army at the Battle of Solway Moss on November 24 1542 and he died six days after the birth of his daughter.

Mary was crowned at Stirling Castle on 9 September 1543. Under the guardianship of the 2nd Earl of Arran, the infant Mary was betrothed to the son of King Henry VIII of England. However, a pro-Fench and Catholic faction led by Mary's mother, Mary of Guise, gained the ascendancy and the agreement was overturned. King Henry VIII sent an army into Scotland to enforce the marriage in what became known as the "Rough Wooing".

Mary was sent for safety to France (with her mother, Mary of Guise and her four childhood friends - the "Four Marys") where she married the Dauphin, the heir to the French crown, in 1558. She became Queen of France and Scotland in 1559 but her husband, King Francis II, died in 1560.

Mary returned to Scotland despite the Protestant faith gaining the ascendancy. Mary was by now the heir presumptive of England, following the death of Henry VIII and the accession of Queen Elizabeth I. During Mary's reign she was attacked for her Catholic beliefs by the Protestant religious reformer John Knox.

Despite other potential marriages (including the Roman Catholic heir to the Spanish throne) she married her first cousin, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, after a whirlwind courtship, in July 1565. Darnley was a worthless, arrogant man who alienated many of the Scottish nobles. He was also a member of the group which murdered David Rizzio, Mary's secretary, in Holyrood Palace in 1566, in the presence of Mary. The future James VI was born a few months later.

Darnley was murdered in 1567 and the Earl of Bothwell was accused - but acquitted - of the crime. A few months later Mary and Bothwell were married. Scandalised nobles imprisoned Mary in Loch Leven Castle and she was forced to abdicate in favour of her son, James VI. Mary escaped from Loch Leven in May 1568 but was defeated at the Battle of Langside on 13 May.

She escaped to England but was imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth I who saw her as a threat to her throne. A focus for Catholic plots, some of which were aimed at making Mary the Queen of England, she was beheaded at Fotheringay Castle on 18 February 1587.

Information Taken From

Rampant Scotland

Wikipedia

Interviewing A Historical Figure

Hey, Today I will be interviewing Mary, Queen of Scots, Who became Queen of Scotland when she was 9 months old.

Lets get straight into it shall we?



Hey, how’s it going?
It’s going fine thank you.

You were the first queen of Scotland, how did you feel when you found out?
Well I was 6 days old at the time so I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into.

I can imagine, but being the ruler of a country and having everyone at your command, at that age, is something most people can only dream of.
Yes it came with a lot of responsibility, but it’s also a lot of fun, I mean just think of the fun you can have ordering people around.

You were sent to France for safety, how did you find the experience?I was sent to France because there were fears I would be killed so Im sure it could’ve been a more pleasant experience, but it was nice to get a change of scenery.

When you were in France you married Dauphin François.
Yes, I became the Queen consort of France, so being queen of two countries was a pretty interesting feeling.

We are running out of time but we have time for one more question.

You were imprisoned twice, how did you manage to escape?
Well anything’s possible when you have the contacts

Well on that note I will wrap up the interview, thank you very much to today’s interviewee Mary, Queen of Scots

Shambala, Page 5

You see a piece of paper on the ground telling you to beware of a Dutch Tourist. You hear the sound of a group of people coming from the room down the dimly lit corridor. You see the huge stone archway leading into the crowded area.

The Way to the Crowded Area

Google Analytics

So far I've not had much traffic but hopefully that will change once I start to add more to my blog.

Most of the traffic I've had has come from Aberdeen, probably from my classmates, but I've had a few visits from London too.

Its times like these where I should throw in a random word or place name, like The Shetlands..

Where I Want To Be When I Finish College

It's something iv'e been asked a lot. To be honest i still don't know the difinitive answer.

Obviously I wan't to do something with computers but I don't know what. I would love to be a video game designer but I don't have and doubt I will ever have the maths to do that.

So far I'm finding this course relativly easy, most of the stuff was covered last year. Im hoping the HNC will be more challenging and that it will hopefully help me decide what I wan't to do with my life.

Holiday Fun

I suppose I should write a bit about what I did during the holidays, or at least make something up so that I look like I have an interesting life..

They didn't get off to the best of starts to be honest. I was scheduled to to be going to see Kataklysm play the Cathouse in Glasgow and all was well until about 20 minutes into the journey down we get a phone call saying the gig has been cancelled.

So instead of going to Glasgow for a gig, we ended up going to Glasgow To watch a DVD. Needless to say I wasn't a happy bunny.

Most of the week was spent taking advantage of not having anything to do, so I played a lot of games, mainly Football Manager, where I proceeded to split the Old Firm with Hibernian. It all ended horribly though as the lousy board wouldn't back my plans financially and sacked me, after all I had done for them! That's loyalty for you!

Well as you can see My holidays have been pretty boring. I suppose I should make up something like I'm secretly a top secret ninja and have been busy doing ninja type things but alas it wasn't to be.

Soundtrack to the holidays has been Serj Tankians "Elect The Dead" and obviously Nine Inch Nails "Year Zero"

I also seem to be addicted to the new Avenged Sevenfold song! Which is, in the words of Springfields favourite evil old person, Mr. Burns...Excellent





Laters

The Week So Far

So the holidays are over and once again they didn't seem long enough.

Back to the early starts and long days. To be fair this week has been pretty good. Its taken some getting used to though. Most of the classes have focused mainly on revision of the stuff we learned before the break.

On Wednesday we were using pascal in computer programming and I'm amazed to say I actually understood it, something I never thought would happen. Other than that every class has been just like a refresh, especially using html in web development.

Halloween was also this week. Sad to say i didn't dress up this year. My plan of dressing up as Jason Voorhees and battling my friend, who would be cunningly dressed as Freddy Kruger, failed miserably due to lack of funds.

I went to see Saw IV and i have to say it was rather awesome. Lots of blood and gore which is always a crowd pleaser! It actually asks more questions than answers, leading up to the inevitable release of Saw V next Halloween.

I haven't really done much else this week, picked up the new Birthday Massacre album on Monday. Its easily their best album. Its criminal that no one knows about this band. They are one of the most unique bands around and more people should check them out.

The Birthday Massacre - Video Kid