The New Year Wedding that Changed Scottish History

Everyone loves a royal wedding. Dynastic weddings have changed the flow of nations and empires… Scottish historty tour guide, Bruce Fummey, looks at how one New Year’s Day wedding did.
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Scotland History Tours is here for people who want to learn about Scottish history and get ideas for Scottish history tours. I try to make videos which tell you tales from Scotland’s past and give you information about key dates in Scottish history and historical places to visit in Scotland. Not all videos are tales from Scotland’s history, some of them are about men from Scotland’s past or women from Scotland’s past. Basically the people who made Scotland. From April 2020 onward I’ve tried to give ideas for historic days out in Scotland. Essentially these are days out in Scotland for adults who are interested in historical places to visit in Scotland.

As a Scottish history tour guide people ask: Help me plan a Scottish holiday, or help me plan a Scottish vacation if your from the US. So I’ve tried to give a bit of history, but some places of interest in Scotland as well.

One New Year s Day, a bride and  a groom took their wedding vows   in the splendour of one of  Europe s grandest cathedrals.   Both had to overcome obstacles to get there. The bride s father had been against the marriage  

They say New Year brings fresh starts but five years later it d be over…   and the course of Scotland s  history would be changed.   If you re interested in the people,  places and events in Scottish history  

Then click the subscribe button at  the bottom right of the screen   and ring the notification bell to  be told when I upload new videos.   In the meantime let me tell you a story The story is of how a 24-year-old  

Groom and a 16-year-old bride changed the path of Scotland.   I m even going to speculate on  how it might have changed,   but to do that I have to take you to Paris… on 1st January 1537.  

Only one wedding venue will do for our couple. Imagine renaissance splendour in a cathedral   that had already stood for  three hundred and fifty years.   Pageant, pomp and reverence… religion, regal procession and all   that you d expect from a ceremony in the cathedral of Our Lady of  

Paris… Notre Dame   OK so we didn t have the  budget or a time machine…,   or for that matter a ticket on Eurotunnel,  but as the bride waited at the alter   she must have thought of how this  day very nearly didn t happen.  

Her dad had been against it. He meant well, and of course,   he was only thinking of her. She knew herself her health was frail.   We d probably call it tuberculosis. She just knew that she was ill…  

That s why her dad didn t want her  going off to colder foreign climes…   but she d wanted this. Her name was Madelaine.   Madelaine of Valois, the eldest daughter  of Francis of Valois, King of France.  

As she stood at the alter, did  she wonder about her groom?   You see it wasn t just her dad who s  plans had been very different from this.   Her fianc had left his  homeland four months earlier,   coming to France with the intention  of marrying someone else…  

The daughter of the Duke of V ndome. The marriage contract had been drawn   up back in March, It had been approved by   Madelaine s father, the king, everything was settled.   The Scottish wedding party had  arrived in Dieppe in September,  

Made their base at Rouen and headed off  to meet his intended bride on 10th;   but four days later, that wedding was off and James Stewart and his party were heading   south to meet Madelaine s dad. What would Madelaine have  

Known about James Stewart? Obviously, he was the king of Scots,   because every king of Scots  was called James Stewart.   Did she know how many  mistresses he d already had.   Did she know about his nine  illegitimate children?  

That s right I said it…. nine. In fact, one of his bastard children was to the   woman he really wanted to marry all along…, and, as I m about to explain, if he had   things might have been so much different. Her name was Margaret Erskine.  

In spite of the illegitimate  son she d borne James,   she d married some other Scottish  nobleman ensconced in Loch Leven   Castle. I mean…   and if that doesn t appear unseemly enough James then sends a request to the pope  

To have that marriage annulled so that he can mary the previously   married woman who he himself had deflowered. No wonder the pope told him to get on his bike.   Obviously, that wasn t the  phrase the Pope used…  

Because it d be another three hundred years  before a Scotsman invented the bicycle.   The point is that were it  not for the pope s refusal,   James Stewart may not have  been standing at the alter  

In Notre Dame Cathedral with Madelaine Valois, but back in Scotland married to Margaret Erskine.   Madelaine saw past all that. She wanted to be a queen before she died.   She had told her dad that… and now she was.  

For all his fears of her travelling to  the cold northern climes of Scotland…   after more than twenty years of diplomacy with eighteen women having been   suggested to James as possible brides, on 1st January 1537,   in fulfilment of the Treaty of  Rouen twenty years earlier  

She was Queen of Scots. They travelled to Chantilly then Compiegne,   where James spent 1100 crowns on a ring for her and 1600 crowns on wine form Bordeaux.   What are those Scots like for the drink? At Rouen Madelaine fell ill.  

Nonetheless, when they sailed  from Le Havre on 10th May   Madelaine had jewels, furs, silver plate,  furniture, hangings for her new home   and a plethora of attendants and doctors. They arrived at Leith on 19th May,   but despite constant medical care, on 7th July Madelaine died at Holyrood  

And she s buried at the Abbey there. But that s not where our story ends   you see the reason this short  marriage was so important   is because of what came  before… and what came after.  

Just before I tell you about that, let me  say that I ve added dates for my live show   Stories of Scotland in Grangemouth, West Linton,   Haddington and Musselburgh. Of course, my first show in   Canada will be in Toronto on 27th April, so check out the ticket link top right,  

Or in the description below for dates and tickets for these and   all my other shows. Those of you who follow Scotland s story   will know that when James was in France, he had met a very tall attractive  

Woman called Marie de Guise. Now just one month before Madelaine died,   Marie s husband also died… and so within a year Marie   and James were married. Once again, a wedding brought together   two powerful French and Scottish families this time in St Andrews Cathedral.  

Even if you don t follow Scottish history, you ll have heard of their only   surviving daughter, Mary Queen of Scots   She went off to France to marry the  next generation of Valois royalty…  

Francis II was no luckier when it came to  health than his aunt Madelaine had been,   and another Stweart Monarch of  Scotland saw her French partner die   when their marriage had barely started… …and here s a turning point…  

Because with her young husband dead the  Queen of Scots, no longer Queen of France,   received a visitor, who persuaded  this young Catholic queen   to return to newly Protestant Scotland. Who was it that came to France to give her that  

Counsel, but her elder half-brother James. The illegitimate son of James   V and Margaret Erskine… the wife that James had really wanted…   the marriage the Pope had denied. Little surprise that this young James   had grown up to become one of  the new Scottish Protestants.  

Mary and this half-brother would lock horns  for most of her personal reign in Scotland.   It was at Loch Leven Castle, that had been his mother   and stepfather s stronghold that Mary would be imprisoned in Scotland.  

It was against his army that Mary would meet  her final defeat at the Battle of Langside.   It was his campaigning that persuaded  Elizabeth of England to keep Mary imprisoned   for nineteen years after that battle. How might Scotland have been different  

If James Vhad married Margaret Erskine and legitimised this, his first son?   If he had been James VI, then the man we  call James VI would never have been born.   He would never have been crowned  king of Scots in this church.  

You see there would never have  been a Mary Queen of Scots.   James V would never have travelled  to France to marry Madelaine,   would never have met Marie de Guise. There would have been no Rough Wooing,   there would have been no  need for a Treaty of Leith.  

Who knows what the relationship  with England would have been like,   but if THIS James had become James VI, then he wouldn t have had the Tudor blood   that was passed to Mary Queen of Scots and  led to the Union of Crowns with England.  

Now for those who postulate about what ifs in Scotland we ve got a saying   that if the Queen had baws she d be the king… but more than that…   she might have been she might  have been her half brother.  

Now you all know how Mary the  Queen of Scots ended up…   …but what DID happen to, her half-brother? The man who might have been James VI.   You need to know what happened  to him, and you re in luck,  

Because I ve made a video to tell  you…. and it s coming up on screen   I can only keep this channel going with  your support, so why not click top right   to become a Patreon member or buy me a  coffee in the description below.