Coronation of Mary, Queen of Scots explained

Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587), the daughter of James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise, was crowned as Queen of Scotland in the Chapel Royal at Stirling Castle on 9 September 1543.^[1]

Background

Mary's father, James V, died in December 1542 six days after Mary's birth. James Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Arran was appointed Regent of Scotland, to rule on her behalf. Mary and her mother remained at Linlithgow Palace. Arran's rule and his policies, especially his pursuit of an English alliance was challenged by Cardinal Beaton. It was planned to move Mary to Stirling Castle. First, a standoff between the two factions was settled by mediation at Kirkliston.^[2] Mary came to Stirling on 27 July 1543.^[3]

Coronation at Stirling Castle

Only a little is known of the ceremony and celebrations at Stirling Castle. A few details of the preparations are known from the household books of Mary of Guise, which mention some food for the day and the preparation and cleaning of silverware.^[4] An English diplomat, Ralph Sadler, who was following events in Scotland suggested the ceremony was not very costly.^[5] The English herald Henry Ray was his representative at the event.^[6]

According to reports sent to William Parr and a later narrative by Mary's secretary Claude Nau, in the coronation procession, Regent Arran held the crown, the Earl of Lennox held the sceptre, and Campbell of Argyll held the sword of estate.^[7] The role played by Mary of Guise was not recorded, but she may have appeared in her own coronation robes.^[8] The crown jewels used in the coronation ritual (which survive) are known as the Honours of Scotland.^[9]

According to the Scottish chronicle writer, Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, there were pageants and dancing at the castle.^[10] Pitscottie mistakenly dates the event to 20 August, writing that the Scottish nobility came to Stirling to celebrate the coronation of the young queen and danced with the French ladies in waiting, they:

convenit with the young quein with gret solempnitie, trieumphe, plays, phrassis [farces, comedies], and bankatting and greit danceing befor the quene [Mary of Guise] with greit lordis and Frinche ladyis.^[11]

Notes and References

1. Marcus Merriman, The Rough Wooings (Tuckwell, 2000), p. 127.
2. James Aikman, History of Scotland by George Buchanan, vol. 2 (Glasgow, 1827), p. 334.
3. Marcus Merriman, The Rough Wooings (Tuckwell, 2000), p. 126.
4. Lucinda H. S. Dean, 'Crowning the Child', Sean McGlynn & Elena Woodacre, The Image and Perception of Monarchy in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Newcastle, 2014), pp. 254-80: Lucinda H. S. Dean, 'In the Absence of an Adult Monarch', Kate Buchanan, Lucinda Dean, Michael Penman, Medieval and Early Modern Representations of Authority in Scotland and the British Isles (Routledge, 2016), p. 147.
5. Morgan Ring, So High A Blood: The Life of Margaret Countess of Lennox (Bloomsbury, 2017), p. 81: Marcus Merriman, The Rough Wooings (Tuckwell, 2000), p. 127 fn. 95.
6. Lucinda H. S. Dean, 'In the Absence of an Adult Monarch', Kate Buchanan, Lucinda Dean, Michael Penman, Medieval and Early Modern Representations of Authority in Scotland and the British Isles (Routledge, 2016), p. 147.
7. Andrea Thomas, 'Coronation Ritual and Regalia', Julian Goodare & Alasdair A. MacDonald, Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Brill, 2008), p. 53: Letters and Papers Henry VIII, 18:2 (London, 1902), no. 181: Joseph Stevenson, History of Mary Stewart (Edinburgh, 1889), pp. 311-2
8. Lucinda H. S. Dean, 'In the Absence of an Adult Monarch', Kate Buchanan, Lucinda Dean, Michael Penman, Medieval and Early Modern Representations of Authority in Scotland and the British Isles (Routledge, 2016), pp. 148-149.
9. [John Guy (historian)|John Guy]
10. Marcus Merriman, The Rough Wooings (Tuckwell, 2000), pp. 127-8.
11. Aeneas Mackay, Historie and cronicles of Scotland, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, SHS, 1899), p. 15