Tudor Times is the online repository for all things Tudor and Stewart (1485–1625)

On 19th August 1561, Mary Queen of Scots returned to Scotland after thirteen years in France. During those years she had grown up, married, been crowned Queen of France, and widowed but was still only nineteen years old. The weather that day was appalling - ‘in the memory of man, that day of the year, was never seen a more dolorous face of the heaven…the mist was so thick and so dark that scarce might any man espy another the length of two pair of boots…’ but Mary, naturally high-spirited and resourceful probably did not take this as an evil omen.

What she might have taken as an evil omen was the refusal of her cousin, Elizabeth I of England, to grant her safe passage through England to travel overland. Elizabeth was still furious that Mary had had the temerity in 1558 to claim that she was the rightful Queen of England, and to quarter the arms of England with her own.

On 18th August 1572 the Huguenot Henri, King of Navarre, married nineteen year old Marguerite of Valois, sister of King Charles IX of France, in Paris. The alliance was an attempt by the Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici, to unite the warring factions of Catholic and Huguenot. Marguerite had previously had an affair with Henri, Duke of Guise, for which she had been severely punished. The wedding was overshadowed by the Massacre of St Bartholomew, after which Henri was held captive in Paris for three years before escaping back to his own kingdom.

Eventually, Marguerite joined him in Navarre, where they were both notoriously unfaithful to each other. In a life of complex personal and political upheavals, Marguerite was imprisoned, first by her brother, then by Henri. In due course, Henri became King of France, but Marguerite was not released. Their marriage was annulled in 1599, after which they were on better terms.

Marguerite became a celebrated patron of the arts, although after her death she was more notorious for the scandalous memories that were then published. She is famous in literature as Dumas’ 'La Reine Margot'. Read more about Marguerite's unique career here

On 17th August 1560, the Three Estates of Scotland – Lords, Commons and Clergy – set out a Protestant confession of faith, to be adopted by the whole country as its religion. This came at the end of a long and bitter struggle for control of the country between England and France but was also the result of the conversion of a number of the senior nobles to Protestantism, many of them strongly influenced by the charismatic preacher, John Knox. With the death of the Regent, Marie of Guise, and the accession in England of the Protestant Elizabeth I, whom they believed would help defend them against Catholic France (as 15 years before, Catholic France had protected Scotland against England), the Scottish Lords felt able to proclaim and institutionalise their faith. The mass was banned, and a third offence of hearing it could be punished by death. John Knox’s First Book of Discipline was the basis for a new ecclesiastical structure and discipline within the kirk.