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In May 1565, Mary, Queen of Scots, married her cousin, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley. This antagonised not only Elizabeth of England but also a group of Scottish noblemen. Although a son, Charles James (the future James VI), was born of the marriage in July 1566, circumstances soon escalated. Darnley was an unpopular, disease-riddled, drunk. Since her return to Scotland, Mary had relied heavily on a group of continental servants and this provoked a reaction from the discontented noblemen (using Darnley as a figurehead). On 9 March 1566 (with Mary five months pregnant), the lords broke into the Queen\'s chamber at Holyrood and stabbed her Italian secretary, David Rizzio, to death. Although Mary recovered and attempted to reconcile the discontented factions - notably at Prince Charles\'s baptismal ceremony at Stirling in December 1566 - by early 1567 the situation had only deteriorated. On 10 February 1567, Henry, King of Scots, was strangled and blown up in a house on the outskirts of Edinburgh.Although the Queen claimed innocence, her position was not helped when, three months later, she married the unpopular James, fourth Earl Bothwell - the man widely suspected of killing her former husband. Forces were raised and at Carberry Hill, a month after her marriage, Mary surrendered to the discontented lords. As Bothwell escaped to exile (and imprisonment) in Denmark, Mary was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle, where on 24 July 1567 - the day after she miscarried twins - she was forced to abdicate.
The queen\'s opponents crowned her one-year old son as James VI (1567-1625). Mary was in prison for eleven months whereupon she escaped and again raised forces. These were decisively beaten at the Battle of Langside (13 May 1568) and Mary fled south.Although she may have been trying to reach France, in the end Mary threw herself on the mercy of Elizabeth of England. Elizabeth imprisoned her for the next nineteen years. Meanwhile in Scotland, the forces still backing Mary and those backing James undertook a frenetic civil war which lasted until the Pacification of Perth and the fall of Edinburgh Castle in 1573.
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