Matthew STUART, EARL LENNOX 4TH

                   	2  GIVN Darnley
	2  SURN STUART
	2  NSFX , Duke of Albany


The second husband of Mary Queen of Scots, was her cousin Henry Stuart. Henry was a thoroughly disreputable young man that history describes as vain, arrogant, self-centered, egotistical, and disliked by many of his peers. Nevertheless, this was the man Mary chose to be her second husband. His Catholic birthright did not enamour him to the powerful Scottish lords and against their advice and stong protestations, Mary married Henry on July 29th, 1565 in the Chapel at Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh. He was in line for the throne of England through his mother, the Lady Margaret Douglas, and was Catholic by birth but had embraced Anglicanism at the court of Elizabeth 1st. Henry was considered to be handsome by the standards of that time. Mary, a very young and lonely widow, said of him when she first saw him at Wemyss Castle, he was the properest and best proportioned long man that ever she had seen .... . In other words, he was tall and handsome. He was over six foot tall, (his height has been estimated between 6' 1 to 6' 3.) Since Mary was 6' tall she must have found this to be a pleasant change from the smaller stature of the Scottish lords who attended her at court. At last, a dance partner that she did not tower over Also, coming from the English court of Elizabeth, he charmed her with his
courtly manners, his fine clothes and conversational ability. Something that was missing in the rough and sometimes rowdy Scottish nobility. Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, a great-grandson of Henry VII of England, with claims to both English and Scottish crowns, had always a possible candidate for Mary's hand, and, as more powerful suitors fell out, his chances improved. He was, moreover, a Catholic, though of an accommodating sort, for he had been brought up at Elizabeth's court, and she in February, 1565, let him go to Scotland. Mary, at first cool, soon fell violently in love. The Protestant lords rose in arms, and Elizabeth backed up their rebellion, but Mary drove them victoriously from the country and married Darnley before the
dispensation required to remove the impediment arising from their being first cousins had arrived from Rome. But she did leave enough time for a dispensation to be granted, and it was eventually conceded in a form that would suffice, if that were necessary, for a sanatio in radice. As soon as the victory had been won, Darnley was found to be changeable, quarrelsome, and, presumably, also vicious. He became violently jealous of David Rizzio, who, so far as we can see, was perfectly innocent and inoffensive, a merry fellow who helped the queen in her foreign correspondence and sometimes amused her with music. Darnley now entered into a band with the same lords who had lately risen in rebellion against him: they were to seize Rizzio in the queen's presence, put him to death, and obtain the crown matrimonial for Darnley, who would secure a pardon for them, and reward them. The plot succeeded: Rizzio, tornfrom Mary's table, was poignarded outside her door (9 March, 1566). Mary, though kept a prisoner, managed to escape, and again triumphed over her foes; but respect for her husband was no longer possible. Her favourite was now James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who had served her with courage and fidelity, in the late crisis. Then a band for Darnley's murder was signed at Ainsley by most of the nobles who had been implicated in the previous plots. Darnley, who had been ill in Glasgow, was brought back to Edinburgh by his wife, and lay that night in her lodgings at Kirk o' Field. At two the next morning (10 February, 1567) the house was blown up by powder, and the boy (he had only just come of age) was killed. Inquiry into the murder was most perfunctory. Bothwell, who was charged with it, was found not guilty by his peers (12 April), and on the 24th he carried Mary off by force to Dunbar, where she consented to marry him.
He was her second husband.
Source includes, but is not limited to;
Bloodline of The Holy Grail, Descent to Charles Edward Stuart,Mary, Queen
of Scots Lineage, by Laurence Gardner (1996). Page 444. Element BooksLtd.
ISBN 1-85230-870-2.
Murdered by an explosion of Gunpowder