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How does one crown a baby? I could barely get them to stop shitting, pissing, and puking long enough to change a damn diaper. Nevertheless, the Scots managed to make infant Mary a queen. They didn’t have a lot of choice, because it was the 16th century and medicine sucked and everyone was fucking dying young all the time, including her dad.
--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: September 9, 1543--
King James V got sick and died of shit that would probably be fixed by fucking Tylenol and maybe some penicillin. Mary was six. Days. Six days old. James had Baratheon levels of bastards o’er the land, but only three legitimate children, two of whom died before their first birthdays, because, again, 16th century. Mary was the one that survived.
It takes time to plan a coronation even for someone too young to know what the fuck is going on. On September 9, 1543, at the age of nine months, Mary’s coronation as Queen of Scotland took place. Her first royal command was probably to barf up some breast milk.
Henry VIII, that pervy fuck, said Mary should marry his son, Edward, as a way to unify England and Scotland. One of the Scottish regents running things while Mary was shitting things, a Catholic Cardinal, said fuck that Mary should marry a French dude because Catholic. Henry was pissed because he wanted to break the Scottish alliance with France. He got militarily aggressive about the Mary marriage and the regents were all “Not winning too many hearts and minds here, Hank” and Henry II of France said, “Send Mary to marry my son and all shall be merry.” And that’s what happened.
Mary went to France at age five to get away from the English dick king. There, she was a favorite at court and educated in literature, languages, riding, music, and the all-important needlework. She married 13-year-old Francis, Henry II’s son and heir, when she reached 15. That same year, Elizabeth I became Queen of England.
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Henry II died the following year and Mary’s husband became King Francis II. Then Francis died the following year FROM A FUCKING EAR INFECTION because, again, medicine sucked. Mary returned to Scotland and having lived in France since the age of five, was a fish out of water.
Okay, tl;dr time. Six years of Catholic vs. Protestant fuckery. Queen Mary married her half-cousin and had a son, James. Her husband was murdered, and Mary married the alleged murderer. She was then forced to abdicate in favor of son James and fled to England asking cousin Liz for protection. Liz’s “protection” basically meant fancy imprisonment because lots of Catholics thought Catholic Mary should be queen instead of Protestant Elizabeth.
After 18 years a prisoner, Mary got involved in a plot to assassinate Elizabeth and put herself on the throne. The plot was uncovered, and Mary got her head chopped off in 1587.
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