The quartering of the English arms with Mary’s arms was the start of a lifelong struggle between Elizabeth and Mary although Elizabeth did acknowledge that the initial ambitions stemmed from the House of Guise and Henri II. At this stage in the proceedings it was largely a matter of posturing – but a seed had been sown.
Mary had been in France since she was five-years-old. Her mother, Mary of Guise, widow of James V had sent her only surviving child abroad for fear of kidnap attempts from her own nobles and from the attentions of the on-going English so-called ‘Rough Wooing’. In April 1558, after an upbringing fit for a princess, Mary, aged 15, married the dauphin who was almost two years younger than her. In 1559 Henri II was killed in a jousting accident. The young husband and wife briefly became king and queen of France. Francois had always been a sickly boy so the day to day ruling of France fell to his older relations including his mother Catherine de Medici and his uncles the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise.
In Scotland, Mary of Guise, Mary’s mother who had acted as her daughter’s regent died in June 1560. The Treaty of Edinburgh should have been ratified in the July but Mary insisted that she hadn’t agreed to it so wouldn’t sign it. By the end of the year Mary Queen of Scots would be a widow. She was just eighteen. Her ten-year-old-brother-in-law Charles now became king of France and Catherine de Medici became regent.