Born in Linlithgow Palace on 8th December 1542, Mary Stuart was the daughter of James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise. James V (10 April 1512 – 14 December 1542) was the son of King James IV of Scotland and Queen Margaret Tudor, a daughter of Henry VII of England. Mary of Guise was French and the eldest daughter of Claude of Lorraine the Duke of Guise. Six days after the birth of Mary Stuart her father died and she became Queen of Scotland. Her mother was chosen as regent to rule on her daughter’s behalf, and Mary was sent to France in 1548 where she lived as part of the French royal family.
In April 1558, Mary married the heir to the French throne Francis. In July 1559 Francis succeeded his father becoming King Francis II and Mary became Queen of France as well as of Scotland. This uniting of the French and Scottish crowns caused considerable concern to England. In December 1560 Mary's husband Francis II died after a reign of just 17 months. Mary decided to return to Scotland at the age of 18, a Catholic monarch in what had become a nation where the Protestants were in the ascendancy and on 19th August 1561, she landed at Leith (Scottish Gaelic: Lite). Understanding the difficulty of her situation she took the advice of James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray (c. 1531 – 23 January 1570) who was her half-brother and William Maitland of Lethington. James Stuart had become a supporter of the Scottish Protestant Reformation and despite their religious differences, Moray became the chief advisor to his sister.
