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Baptism of Fire

If there is one thing all can agree on about Mary Queen of Scots, it was that the glamorous, French-educated sovereign knew how to put on a show. And that, during the chilly December of 1566, was exactly what she intended to do.

The occasion was the baptism of her son and heir, Charles James Stuart, whom she expected to succeed her as James VI of Scotland and, if she had her way, James I of England, assuming her own claim to the English Crown was duly recognised. As he was the putative heir to both British nations, it was important that the world should be aware of the baptism. Accordingly, the invitations had gone out the previous August: to England, France, Savoy; the black velvet gowns (black being a particularly expensive colour) had been ordered to outfit the prince’s nurses; a cradle had been especially carved and covered in a cloth-of-silver blanket; and, less charmingly, £12,000 Scots had been chiselled out of the Scottish people.1 As it had under earlier Renaissance monarchs, such as James IV and James V, a little bit of continental flair was coming to Scotland.

Stirling Castle, perched on its craggy rock overlooking the royal burgh of Stirling, was the venue. Accordingly, the night sky above the town came to life with the novel spectacle of fireworks. Below, the baby prince was carried to the courtyard’s chapel by the French ambassador, who walked through an avenue of Scottish barons and was followed by the country’s Catholic noblemen, bearing the accoutrements of baptism. Soldiers were clad in ‘Moorish’ costumes, the better to entertain the visiting dignitaries as they laid siege to a mock castle. A banquet – then a term denoting rich sweets and drinks – was given in the hammerbeam-roofed Great Hall, which rocked with music and pulsed with torchlight. Latin verses composed by the leading humanist George Buchanan were sung, followed by Italian songs and masques. The festivities carried on over three days, from the 17th to 19th, in a blaze of bonfires, fireworks, hunts, and cannon blasts. The ambassadors were suitably impressed and eager to play their part, distributing their gifts of a solid gold baptismal font (from England, but too small to baptise a six-month-old), jewelled fans, and earrings for the prince’s mother.

This frenzy of revelry was, however, an example of the beleaguered Queen of Scots protesting too much – an attempt to paint a little gold leaf over the deepening cracks within the political nation. Conspicuous by his non-appearance was the baby’s father, Henry, uncrowned King of Scots – more often known by his lesser title of Lord Darnley. Though provided with a suit of cloth-of-gold, the supposed king remained immured in his chambers at the castle, preferring not to face the contempt of foreign ambassadors, who were all too aware of the division between him and his wife and sovereign. Most irritating of all was that Elizabeth of England, sovereign of the country in which he had been born and raised, had expressly forbidden her ambassador, the 2nd Earl of Bedford, from acknowledging him at all.

This suited Queen Mary. Legends have abounded over the centuries about her whirlwind romance with Darnley, and they have rather tended to obscure what really went on in 1565. Then, the Englishman had been given leave by Elizabeth to leave his homeland to trav