Mary Queen of Scots

The song The Four Marys refers to Mary Queen of Scots’ four maids: Mary Beaton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael, and Mary Hamilton.

A WEE HISTORY:

1295 - 1560

“The Auld Alliance” between Scotland and France, designed to protect Scotland from the English.

1503

James Stuart IV of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII of England, linking the royal houses of Scotland and England. James’s son James V 1512-1542 marries a French noblewoman Mary of Guise.

1542

James V dies and his French daughter Mary Stuart becomes Queen of Scotland (at the age of 6 months) She is raised in France.

1561

Mary lands in Leith on 19 August to claim her throne and went to the merchant Andrew Lamb’s house on the corner of Burgess Street and Water’s Close.

300 years later in 1871 my great great grandfather William Robertson 1856 (aged 15) would live on Water’s Close and work as a message boy at the harbor.

The earliest people in our tree to live in Leith were Alexander Young and his wife Elspeth Thomson. They married in S Leith in 1610, and had our ancestor Lawrence Young in 1620. There are no old parish records before 1588 but it’s likely our ancestors were in Leith when the young queen arrived.

Luckily the transcribers at the National Records could read this: “Alex. Young and Elspeth Thomson had a man child bapt. Nov 12 and it named Lawrence”

Mary’s Coat of Arms from the Leith Tollbooth

Wee History contd…

So what happened to Mary?

1565

Mary marries her cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley

1566

Her son James is born

1567

Darnley is murdered; Mary marries James Hepburn (Earl of Bothwell); She’s forced to abdicate; her baby son becomes King James VI of Scotland; Mary flees to England to her cousin Elizabeth I for protection but Elizabeth keeps her imprisoned for the rest of her life.

1587

Mary is executed for suspected treason at Fotheringhay, Northamptonshire

Witch Hunt!

The Twa Grannies