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To marry Mary
Mary Stuart
Mary of Guise told the English ambassador Ralph Sadler in March 1543 that James’s father, Governor of Scotland after the death of James V, Regent Arran, “mindeth to marry” her daughter, Queen Mary I, to his son, something she was anxious to avoid. Yet, in December 1543, French envoys heard his father wanted him to marry King Henry VIII of England’s daughter, Lady Elizabeth.
After the assassination of Cardinal Beaton in 1546, James was held prisoner by his father’s enemies at St Andrews Castle, who offered him as a hostage for the assistance of an English fleet at the siege. Henry VIII was willing to provide support but it never materialised. In order to limit potential problems, on 14 August 1547, the Parliament of Scotland declared James was no longer the third person in the Scottish succession for the duration of his captivity. Despite Henry’s promises, the siege was relieved by a French naval intervention.
French brides
In April 1548, Henry II of France offered Françoise, daughter of the Duke of Montpensier to be Arran’s bride. James joined Queen Mary in France in July 1548. There, he was made captain of the Garde Écossaise. On 24 January 1553, the French royal armourer Bénédict Claye contracted to supply him with an armour decorated with engraved and gilded borders, a morion and a bourguignon, and accessories before the 8 April 1553.
After Mary was betrothed to the Dauphin, a number of ladies of the court were suggested as brides for James, including in May 1557 the Mademoiselle de Bouillon, daughter of Diane de Poitiers and Henry II, Claude and Louise de Rieux, who married René, Marquis of Elbeuf, and Jeane de Savoie. Nothing came of any of these marriage plans.
Queen Elizabeth
In 1558, with the support of John Knox and John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, he became a pawn in his father’s aspirations who tried to negotiate his marriage to Elizabeth I to seal an Anglo-Scottish alliance. Although Bishop Jewel remained in favour of the marriage as late as June 1560, and Elizabeth’s own opinion is not known, the Earl’s friends Ralph Sadler and Thomas Randolph could not mask their growing awareness of his unstable character in their official correspondence.
Lady Catherine Grey
In September 1560 Sarlabous, the French Captain of Dunbar Castle, tried to spread a rumour that Elizabeth’s council proposed an alternative marriage plan for Arran, with the English royal heiress Lady Catherine Grey, daughter of the Duchess of Suffolk. Arran was found to be enjoying the company of an Edinburgh merchant’s daughter, Alison Craig, described by Randolph as ‘a good handsome wench’ in December 1561, and the interference of the Earl of Bothwell, Lord John Stewart, Prior of Coldingham, and René, Marquis of Elbeuf led to an armed stand-off.
Mary again
Following the death of Mary’s husband Francis II of France in 1560, and the apparent failure of the English marriage plan, his father tried to arrange for his marriage to the Queen of Scots, first suggested in their infancy. George Buchanan, who was unsympathetic to Mary, suggested she had exploited his real affection for her in November 1561 by spreading a rumour that he planned to abduct her from Holyroodhouse to his house at Kinneil, and used this to justify strengthening the armed royal guard. Though Arran’s father disputed the rumour, and Thomas Randolph’s findings confirm Buchanan’s view, physical security was tightened at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
