On this day in history - 24th April

On this day in 1558, Mary Queen of Scots married the Dauphin of France

Fifteen-year-old Mary became Queen Consort of France by the marriage and the union also made fourteen-year-old Francis King Consort of Scotland.

Mary became Queen of Scots when she was less than a week old, on the death of her father, James in December 1542. Crowned at nine months, she was in the charge first of the Earl of Arran and then of her redoubtable mother, Mary of Guise, who was from one of the most powerful aristocratic families in France. A Roman Catholic and regent from 1554, she had to contend with both the rising tide of Protestantism in Scotland and the machinations of the English who had tried to force a marriage between the baby queen and Edward Tudor, the young heir to the English throne.

Mary was fifteen and Francis fourteen when they were married with spectacular pageantry and magnificence in the cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris, by the Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen, in the presence of Henry II, Queen Catherine de’ Medici, the princes and princesses of the blood and a glittering throng of cardinals and nobles. The Duke of Guise was master of ceremonies. Mary in a white dress with a long train borne by two young girls, a diamond necklace and a golden coronet studded with jewels, was described by the courtier Pierre de Brantôme as ‘a hundred times more beautiful than a goddess of heaven … her person alone was worth a kingdom.’ The wedding was followed by a procession past excited crowds in the Paris streets to a grand banquet in the Palais de Justice with dancing far into the night.

Mary became Queen of France when Henry II died the following year, but Francis died prematurely in 1560. Whether the marriage was ever consummated is uncertain. Mary’s mother also died in 1560 and it suited the French to send her back to Scotland and claim that she was the rightful queen of England as well. She would eventually meet political and romantic disaster in Scotland, enduring years of imprisonment in England where, too dangerous a threat to Elizabeth’s throne, she was executed in 1587, at the age of forty-six.

Mary Queen of Scots

Births

1727 - Douglas, Lieutenant-General Robert
1824 - Douglass, Piercy
1824 - Douglass, Tiercy
1872 - Douglas, Ada May
1880 - Douglas, Count Karl Robert

Births on this day

Deaths

1770 - Douglas, Sir Robert (6th Bt of Glenbervie)
1799 - Douglas, Jean
1824 - Douglas, Mary
1947 - Douglas, Orilla Lucretia

Deaths on this day

Events

1184 BC – Traditional date of the fall of Troy.
1558 – Mary, Queen of Scots, marries the Dauphin of France, François, at Notre Dame de Paris.
1800 – The United States Library of Congress is established when President John Adams signs legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress".
1877 – Russo-Turkish War: Russian Empire declares war on Ottoman Empire.
1895 – Joshua Slocum, the first person to sail single-handedly around the world, sets sail from Boston, Massachusetts aboard the sloop "Spray".
1915 – The arrest of 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Istanbul marks the beginning of the Armenian Genocide.
1916 – Easter Rising: Irish rebels, led by Patrick Pearse and James Connolly, launch an uprising in Dublin against British rule and proclaim an Irish Republic.
1918 – World War I: First tank-to-tank combat, during the second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux. Three British Mark IVs meet three German A7Vs.
1922 – The first segment of the Imperial Wireless Chain providing wireless telegraphy between Leafield in Oxfordshire, England, and Cairo, Egypt, comes into operation.
1926 – The Treaty of Berlin is signed. Germany and the Soviet Union each pledge neutrality in the event of an attack on the other by a third party for the next five years.
1933 – Nazi Germany begins its persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses by shutting down the Watch Tower Society office in Magdeburg.
1957 – Suez Crisis: The Suez Canal is reopened following the introduction of UNEF peacekeepers to the region.
1965 – Civil war breaks out in the Dominican Republic when Colonel Francisco Caamaño, overthrows the triumvirate that had been in power since the coup d'état against Juan Bosch.
1970 – The Gambia becomes a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, with Dawda Jawara as its first President.
1980 – Eight U.S. servicemen die in Operation Eagle Claw as they attempt to end the Iran hostage crisis.
2004 – The United States lifts economic sanctions imposed on Libya 18 years previously, as a reward for its cooperation in eliminating weapons of mass destruction.
 

Events on this day