On 8 December 1542, a baby girl was born at Linlithgow in Scotland. Less than a week later, her father died of a fever. He was King James V of Scotland and his two sons had died in infancy the previous year. Now this 6-day-old baby girl would forever be known to history as Mary, Queen of Scots.
To become queen at such an early age may have been an extraordinary privilege, but it was also the beginning of a life full of trauma and conflict. Rival powers England and France saw an opportunity to gain control of Scotland by securing a marriage agreement between the infant queen and a suitable prince from their own royal family. This was a race for which France was in pole position because Mary’s mother, who would rule Scotland as regent while her daughter remained a child, was a French princess, Mary of Guise.
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