A Spanish match for Mary Queen of Scots

IOTL Philip II of Spain thought about marrying his son Charles with Mary Stuart. However, as it would bring many problems with England and France he gave up the idea. However, if he hadn't changed his mind, would Mary have accepted such marriage (with the heir of Spain, or even with Philip himself)? Let's assume the proposal happens between the death of Francis II in 1560 and 1565.
 
Charles died at 23 in 1568: any direct long term implications would depend on surviving children. The marriage, however, would mean than Philip had broken with any hope of a continuing Burgundian alliance; and had simultaneouly cooked the King of France's goose. More significantly, he would no longer desire to dissuade the Pope from excommunicating Elizabeth. What would an earlier excommunication have meant? Only five years after the Elizabethan Religious Settlement could an excommunicate Elizabeth have relied upon, or received, the loyalty of her subjects seen in 1569 when so few joined the Rebellion of the Northern Earls and after 1570 when the response to the long awaited excommunication was so negligable?
Of course the marriage would rule out - or at least postpone - Mary's actual marriage to Lord Darnley. He was murdered in 1567 but had Mary been married to Charles until 1568 it is not impossible that they would have married later.
 
If the marriage takes place, would Charles be sent to Scotland to live with Mary of happens the contrary, with Mary going go live in Madrid? And assuming that she goes to Spain, wouldn't it cause someone in Scotland taking her throne? After all, she lived pratically all her life in France (and later in Spain), was a Catholic, and now she is married to a Spanish Habsburg.
 
If the marriage takes place, would Charles be sent to Scotland to live with Mary of happens the contrary, with Mary going go live in Madrid? And assuming that she goes to Spain, wouldn't it cause someone in Scotland taking her throne? After all, she lived pratically all her life in France (and later in Spain), was a Catholic, and now she is married to a Spanish Habsburg.

The point of the marriage was to guarantee Scottish independence, the thinking being that Scottish independence could only be guaranteed if Scotland had a continental sponsor powerful enough to balance out England. France was traditionally the continental sponsor that fulfilled the above role.

If Mary is married to a Hapsburg, then that would signal a significant departure in Scottish foreign policy, since it would mean the end of the traditional Auld Alliance. This marriage, if it produces children, would be interesting, since it would align Scotland with Spain, which is hostile to England, but also hostile to France. And ultimately the Spanish rivalry with England was a short-term feud, compared to the centuries long struggle between the Hapsburg and the French. France's power ultimately was what dictated the European alliances.

Charles would need to live in order for Mary to marry him. His frailty and apparent bouts of madness would hedge against him living long enough to father children (if he was even capable of it). But, this is althist. So Charles lives and marries Mary and they have children. Those children will be able to inherit both Spain and Scotland, and thereby unite the realms. Something that is not going to be popular in Calvinist Scotland one imagines.

I tend to think that if Mary had a male child with her OTL French husband, the English would end up invading and controlling Scotland, either through an out-and-out invasion, or through supporting a Scottish usurper. With OTL history of bad blood between Philip II and Elizabeth, I can only think that Elizabeth would view overthrowing Mary's regime in Scotland (whether or not she was actually ruling in person) as very important.

If Mary has a surviving male heir with Charles, then Elizabeth is definitely going to cut Mary out of the succession. I think that Elizabeth I would probably go by her father's will, which would mean that her successor would be the descendents of her aunt, Mary Tudor (Queen of France). I don't know how that would shake out, but I think Elizabeth would take a much keener interest in the marriages of her cousins. With the threat of Mary, Queen of Scots, Hapsburg son the court politics of Elizabeth may be even more cut throat since there would be no doubt that the next English monarch would come out of Mary Tudor's line. Combined with intrigue surrounding a possible usurption of the Scottish throne, Elizabeth's reign looks like it could be a lot of fun if Mary, Queen of Scots manges to have a child with Charles.
 
If the marriage takes place, would Charles be sent to Scotland to live with Mary of happens the contrary, with Mary going go live in Madrid? And assuming that she goes to Spain, wouldn't it cause someone in Scotland taking her throne? After all, she lived pratically all her life in France (and later in Spain), was a Catholic, and now she is married to a Spanish Habsburg.

The point of the marriage was to guarantee Scottish independence, the thinking being that Scottish independence could only be guaranteed if Scotland had a continental sponsor powerful enough to balance out England. France was traditionally the continental sponsor that fulfilled the above role.

If Mary is married to a Hapsburg, then that would signal a significant departure in Scottish foreign policy, since it would mean the end of the traditional Auld Alliance. This marriage, if it produces children, would be interesting, since it would align Scotland with Spain, which is hostile to England, but also hostile to France. And ultimately the Spanish rivalry with England was a short-term feud, compared to the centuries long struggle between the Hapsburg and the French. France's power ultimately was what dictated the European alliances.

Charles would need to live in order for Mary to marry him. His frailty and apparent bouts of madness would hedge against him living long enough to father children (if he was even capable of it). But, this is althist. So Charles lives and marries Mary and they have children. Those children will be able to inherit both Spain and Scotland, and thereby unite the realms. Something that is not going to be popular in Calvinist Scotland one imagines.

I tend to think that if Mary had a male child with her OTL French husband, the English would end up invading and controlling Scotland, either through an out-and-out invasion, or through supporting a Scottish usurper. With OTL history of bad blood between Philip II and Elizabeth, I can only think that Elizabeth would view overthrowing Mary's regime in Scotland (whether or not she was actually ruling in person) as very important.

If Mary has a surviving male heir with Charles, then Elizabeth is definitely going to cut Mary out of the succession. I think that Elizabeth I would probably go by her father's will, which would mean that her successor would be the descendents of her aunt, Mary Tudor (Queen of France). I don't know how that would shake out, but I think Elizabeth would take a much keener interest in the marriages of her cousins. With the threat of Mary, Queen of Scots, Hapsburg son the court politics of Elizabeth may be even more cut throat. Elizabeth and her advisors might be able to come up with a plan that allowed them to both secure Elizabeth's succession and remove Mary, Queen of Scots, from the throne of Scotland, by advancing a member of Margaret's (Queen of Scotland, sister of Henry VIII) line to the Scottish throne, and naming that person as the heir of the English throne as well. If someone like Arabella Stuart (I guess it would be Stewart, no French-influenced name change, right?) from OTL were still born, then she would be the prefect candidate for this kind of plan. It would probably require some kind of military force however, if only to support the pro-English Scottish nobles who want to overthrow Mary's rule.
 
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If Mary has a surviving male heir with Charles, then Elizabeth is definitely going to cut Mary out of the succession. I think that Elizabeth I would probably go by her father's will, which would mean that her successor would be the descendents of her aunt, Mary Tudor (Queen of France). I don't know how that would shake out, but I think Elizabeth would take a much keener interest in the marriages of her cousins. With the threat of Mary, Queen of Scots, Hapsburg son the court politics of Elizabeth may be even more cut throat. Elizabeth and her advisors might be able to come up with a plan that allowed them to both secure Elizabeth's succession and remove Mary, Queen of Scots, from the throne of Scotland, by advancing a member of Margaret's (Queen of Scotland, sister of Henry VIII) line to the Scottish throne, and naming that person as the heir of the English throne as well. If someone like Arabella Stuart (I guess it would be Stewart, no French-influenced name change, right?) from OTL were still born, then she would be the prefect candidate for this kind of plan. It would probably require some kind of military force however, if only to support the pro-English Scottish nobles who want to overthrow Mary's rule.

And could we see in this scenario a Spanish fleet with soldiers sailing to Scotland to protect the rights of Mary's son?
 
Any suggestion of a spanish marriage would have put Mary's Council's backs up - whilst Mary (until she met pretty Lord Darnley) was pretty aware of her dignity and the attractions of such a marriage would have appealed to her vanity. Her main problem is her lack of domestic allies to support her in such a marriage.
On her return to Scotland she'd made a relatively good start by showing no wish to force people back to Rome but she'd also alienated the largest Catholic family the Huntly's. Her marriage to the catholic Darnley caused her illegitimate half brother and several of the Protestant Lords to desert her - imagine their reaction if she married a Roman Catholic.
The heir to Scotland before the birth of James VI was James 2nd Earl of Arran a man with numerous sons and who sat on Mary's council (he was the senior heir of Mary daughter of James II and had been heir since the birth of Mary and the death of James V). Intially a Protestant, he switched sides and become Catholic, then switched again to join the Lords of the Congregation in 1559...hardly trusted by either side so not an ideal heir to the throne - but if Mary alienated the council and people by choosing a Catholic Spaniard as her second husband he may well have seen advantage in denouncing the marriage. He had numerous sons at this point - the eldest James 3rd Earl of Arran was a husband candidate for both Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart before going insane in 1562 (his claims eventually passed to his nephew).
An alternate to Arran was Matthew Stewart Earl of Lennox (descended from the daughter of Princess Mary daughter of James II) he was in exile in England and married to James V's half sister Lady Margaret Douglas and was father to Henry Lord Darnley and Charles Stuart. He returned to Scotland in 1564 at Elizabeth I's urgings at the time Darnley was being promoted as the main candidate for Mary's hand. (Elizabeth took care that his wife and younger son remained in England though).
A Catholic Spanish marriage would have severely damaged her claims to the English Throne - whilst Elizabeth's religious settlement is still only a few years old the memories of Mary Tudor's reign (which did more to damage the Catholic cause in five short years than the 45 year reign of her Protestant sister) are still fresh. Whilst some of her council in the 1560's were catholic most were Protestants. In strict primogeniture after Mary the heir to the throne was Lady Margaret Douglas Countess of Lennox (Roman Catholic but more importantly Elizabeth wasn't too fond of her), under Henry VIII's will the heir was Lady Catherine Grey (who'd blotted her copybook in 1560 by secretly marrying Edward Seymour - having two sons by him both declared illegitimate by Elizabeth), her sister Mary Grey was a hunchback, after them came the Lady Margaret Stanley Countess of Derby and her sons (and the Stanley's were also considered Catholic sympathisers)
Under the circumstances of a spanish marriage for Mary it's highly likely that the Council might have been able to push Elizabeth into a marriage with one of Charles IX of France's younger brothers despite the disparity in age in 1565 say the future Henri III of France was 14 and his brother Francois was 10. It would be far more important for Elizabeth to marry and produce an heir if Spain was going to be at England's back door. It also might have appealed to Elizabeth to flirt with the idea of a French match which given the age of the potential groom she could have delayed whilst she watched to see what was the outcome of her cousin Mary's marriage. I also suspect that the Countess of Lennox and her young sons would have been brought pretty quickly back to court from Yorkshire (Margaret Lennox was an intelligent woman and very well aware of her Royal connections she'd have tread carefully to avoid offending Elizabeth in those circumstances). I suspect the young Lord Darnley and his brother would have been given places of precedence behind Elizabeth in pretty much the way she treated Arabella Stuart in the late 1580's to keep James V on his toes - pointing out the alternative heir if you like).
Whatever happens I suspect - Mary announces to the Council her wish to marry the Spaniard - uproar - denouncements by the Kirk and Council and Civil War before the wedding could even happen if Mary couldn't be persuaded to change her mind - and under those circumstances Elizabeth might be more willing to support the Scots Lords in their battle against the Queen than she was in OTL when she deplored their rebellion against an annointed Queen.
 
Any suggestion of a spanish marriage would have put Mary's Council's backs up - whilst Mary (until she met pretty Lord Darnley) was pretty aware of her dignity and the attractions of such a marriage would have appealed to her vanity. Her main problem is her lack of domestic allies to support her in such a marriage.

Could she have accepted it before her arrival in Scotland, maybe sometime after the death of her French husband? Then, instead of sailing to Scotland she lives some more years in Spain before going back, probably arriving at Edinburgh with a son and her Spanish husband.
 
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