The Auld Union

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Info: I attempted a TL of similar nature roughly a year ago but later abandoned it. This timeline will be significantly more in depth and a little more realistic

The Early Years: Mary I (1542-1562)
"It started with a lass, it'll end with a lass," - James V of Scotland's reaction to being told of the brith of his one and only child, Mary Stuart. James died barely a week later, leaving behind a domineering wife, Marie de Guise, and his infant daughter turned monarch.
Nobles were quick to seize on the power vacuum, with James Hamilton becoming Lord Regent and Governor, and de facto leader of the English Protestant Faction. Hamilton later signed the Treaty of Greenwich, promising Mary's hand in marriage to Henry VIII's son, Edward Tutor. The Treaty was repudiated by Scottish Parliament, an act which took Scotland directly into conflict with England.
In 1543 Henry VIII launched an invasion of Scotland, in a conflict that would come to be known as the Rough Wooing. In the attempt to force his dynastic ambitions upon the nation, he achieved precisely the opposite. Hamilton had become enormously unpopular following the English invasion, forcing him to come to terms with Cardinal Beaton, head of the French Catholic Faction. Hamilton sent an offering to King Henry II of France, Mary's hand, for french military support against the English. The French arrived in Scotland and threw the english out of the country, ending the Rough Wooing. Soon thereafter, the marriage treaty was approved, giving Hamilton a French Duchy, and placing the Catholic party in charge, signified by the placement of Marie de Guise as Queen Regent, while Cardinal Beaton remained as the real power behind the throne.
From 1544-1546 ushered in a turbulent, although relatively positive era for the Catholics as they remained in control of Scotland with no Organized resistance. All of this came to an end however when Cardinal Beaton was murdered in a robbery gone bad, leaving Marie as the head of the Catholic party. Marie quickly realized her position and her daughter's life were in peril and began to make arrangements for Mary to escape the country for the increased safety of French Court.
The movement of the young queen was successful and Mary arrived in France in 1548 and took up court life. The Scottish monarch became a darling of the court almost overnight, earning admiration and loyalty in all, with the exception of the French Queen, Catherine de Medici. The Medici Queen hated Mary's domination of the Dauphin, Francis, understanding that any power she had came from the influence she wielded over her royal children. For 11 years Mary lived safely in France as events in Scotland forced her mother and allies to make several drastic decisions to retain the dominance of Catholicism in Scotland.
In 1559, Henry II was injured in a jousting accident, leading to his eventual death not long after, throwing Mary and Francis onto the throne leading to several new problems for Mary. Not least of all was the apparent new faction politics that had almost certainly existed in Henry's reign but had so far left Mary relatively unaffected. Mary used her domination of Francis to further the Ultra-catholic factions interests and became a figurehead for the cause, while the real power rested in the hands of her cousins, the Duke of Guise and Cardinal of Lorraine. Catherine quickly established herself as the head of the Tolerant Faction and attempted numerous power plays against the queen. The couple continued to reign in 1560, a year Mary would later refer to as her "year of misery."
In June, Mary's mother died rather suddenly leaving a Scotland ripe for the taking. The Protestant Faction very quickly solidified their control over the country. James Stuart, Earl of Moray, and illegitimate half-brother of Mary, was named Lord Regent and Governor of Scotland and pushed through several Protestant Policies, but never challenged his sisters sovereignty over the nation. Almost as soon as she came out of morning for her mother, another tragedy struck both Mary and France as a whole, King Francis II died of an ear infection.
Mary was both politically and emotionally devastated. Catherine did not take long to act, establishing dominance over France politically and made it very clear Mary was no longer welcome in Paris. She moved from Paris into residence with her Guise cousins. On day 31 of the 40 days required to wait to see if a Queen Dowager had conceived the late king's offspring, Mary announced her pregnancy, much to Catherine's dismay.
In 1561, Mary was named Queen Regent of France, and the entire country waited in anguish for the birth to see if she had produced a male heir for Scotland and France, or if a daughter, who could not inherit the throne of France, would be born. Nearly 10 months after her husband's death, Mary gave birth to a boy named James Francis Henry Valois-Stuart, King of France. Catherine and her eldest remaining son were understandably upset over the birth. Mary and her cousins moved quickly and coronated James in a relatively small ceremony, although both Catherine and Charles were absent, citing illness as the culprit, but more likely it was pettiness.
In March of 1562, Catherine gathered her remaining supporters and officially published and adopted the "Declaration of Incest and Adultery" labelling James as the product of incest between a desperate Mary and power-hungry Duke of Guise, using the rather late birth as proof that the child couldn't have been Francis's. This one action would be the basis for the Queens' War, the first of three wars in the series of conflicts now known as The French Wars of Religion and Succession, between the Ultra-Catholic, Tolerant, and, later, Protestant factions.

Next post will consist of the description of the events of the Queens' war and should be posted by either Wednesday or Thursday

 

[WGSG]

The Queens' War (1562-1564)

After the Declaration, Catherine moved herself and her son, Charles (styling himself as Charles IX), to Lorraine for the time being with her daughter, Princess Claude, and son-in-law, Charles III, Duke of Lorraine. There she ordered the seizure of the Cardinal of Lorraine's assets and a considerable amount of material wealth as well. Using her Florentine Fortune, and her new money, she raised an army of locals, and purchased a considerable amount of German and Italian mercenaries. She also began to launch as series diplomatic overtures to multiple states, most significantly Austria and Spain. Catherine pushed through a series of policy reforms, the most important of which was the Edict of Saint-Germain, which granted Huguenots a degree of toleration that was before unseen. The Edict alienated the Spanish, despite the fact Catherine's daughter, Elizabeth of Valois, was the Queen of Spain. In fact, the Spanish Queen was so torn between her daughter and brother, and her sister-in-law, who she had grown quite fond of while a girl, and nephew, that it frequently brought her to tears, even during official court events. However, the Edict also garnered a large amount of support from the moderate Protestant nobility, though many extremists still called for further reforms and increased tolerance.
Mary and her uncles were not idle during this period either. They quickly amassed their own French Army, and Mary officially declared war as Queen of Scotland, though James never definitively asserted her right to do so. In fact, only a few Highlander chiefs, along with the Earl of Erroll, came to her aid, totaling barely 1,000 troops. After the publishing of the Edict, Cardinal Charles of Lorraine began to use his Spanish contacts in order to gain foreign support for the Ultra-Catholics. A deal was eventually brokered, with Philip II's granddaughter, Anne of Austria, marrying James when they both turned 13, in exchange for Spanish men and money as a dowry. The bulk of the army was camped outside Paris, while smaller portions were sent to major cities in the north.
The Tolerant Factions army was split from Lorraine and sent to lay siege to both Reims, another holding of Cardinal Charles, and Dijon. Charles and Catherine both rode with the army to Reims, where the presence of their proclaimed king was a major morale booster for the troops throughout the tiresome affair. The men sent to Dijon were led by the Duke of Lorraine and was comprised as a mainly German army. Catherine was then able to come to terms with the Austrian Habsburgs, betrothing Charles to Elizabeth of Austria. This seemingly dividing action by the two branches of the Habsburg family was later known as a united effort, assuring that no matter who was king, there would be a Habsburg Queen. The treaty was similar to the Spanish one, promising both men and money in exchange for a royal marriage.
Starting in 1563 the Guises also split their army, sending men to relieve both besieged cities, with the men sent to Reims being led by the Earl of Erroll. Catherine and Charles watched the battle from nearby Courcy, knowing their lives probably depended on the outcome. After a miscommunication between the Scottish infantry and the French men, the Earl of Errol's contingent was decimated, killing most of the men, including the Earl himself. Reims fell not long after, with Catherine authorizing the looting of Reims Cathedral to target the Cardinal Charles. Dijon was, however, successfully relieved, with the Duke of Guise being injured, giving him a limp for the rest of his life.
The death of a powerful, Scottish Catholic Noble was extremely significant, as it gave the Protestants a majority on the Regency Council. As John Knox became increasingly influential, he began to preach on the ungodliness of their Catholic Queen. These words eventually reached the ears of leading Protestant nobility, particularly the Earls of Argyll and Glencairn, members of the Council. After the eventual accession of James to the Extremists, the Regency Council purged itself of the remaining Catholic members, and abolished the Catholic Monarchy, proclaiming the creation of "The State of Scotland." Elizabeth, as a queen, was appalled at the actions of the men she had secretly supported and invaded Scotland to restore her cousin, stating "If one queen can be overthrown, why not another."
The fall of Reims also had an immediate effect on Mary. The threat of a Tolerant Reims forced her and the court to Orleans where she remained until 1564. In March of the new year, Catherine and her forces embarked from Reims, with their sights set on the prize of Paris. Mary understood what Paris meant in solidifying the legitimacy of any French king and ordered that her forces would meet theirs outside the gates. Mary went with her army, as did Catherine, and they parleyed outside the very gates of the city. After both sides offered surrender to each other, it was decided they would resolve their differences on the battlefield. The battle seemed to be going either way for the majority of the engagement, however it was settled when the remainder of the Parisian Garrison marched out and joined the Catholics as both sides began to falter.
After trying to escape on horseback, Charles and Catherine were both captured. 3 days after the pivotal conflict, Charles was paraded through the streets of the capitol, bound in golden chains and guarded by what was left of the Scottish contingent. As the procession entered its final leg of the journey, one of the Scots' pistols "misfired" shooting the 13 year old Charles in the neck, causing him to die not long after from blood loss.
A grieving Catherine was then forced to sign the rather humiliating Treaty of Paris, ending the Queens' war and the first phase of the Wars of French Religion and Succession. The contract stipulated that Catherine gave up all claims to being the Queen of France, and any other titles associated along with it. It required both the Edict of Saint Germain and the Declaration of Incest and Adultery be denied, now and forever. Catherine's third son henry was recognized as the legitimate heir of James, so long as both he and Catherine remained loyal subjects. It also prohibited Catherine from making marriages with any foreign royal families so that her cause may not grow.
With the signing Mary had solidified both her and her families station definitively. In France, at least.


Next post will be either Friday or Saturday and will tell the events of The Scots War