At the start the suggestion of this marriage seemed to strike the precise note that was required to establish harmony. The Scottish lords, whose pockets were quickly and amply filled with moneys from England, gladly agreed to the proposal. But Henry VIII was astute enough not to be satisfied with a mere piece of parchment. Too often had he suffered from the double-dealing and greed of these honourable gentlemen not to know that such shifty wights can never be bound by a treaty, and that should a higher bidder present himself—should, let us say, the French King offer his son and heir as aspirant for Mary’s hand—they would snap their fingers at the first proposal in order to reap what advantage they might from the second. He therefore demanded of the negotiators that Mary should immediately be sent to England. But if the Tudors were suspicious of the Stuarts, the latter wholeheartedly reciprocated the sentiment. The Queen Mother, in especial, opposed the treaty. A Guise and a strict Catholic, she had no wish to see her daughter brought up by heretics. Moreover, in the treaty itself she was not slow to detect a trap which might prove highly injurious to her child’s welfare. In a clause that had been kept secret Henry VIII bribed the Scottish nobles to agree that if the little girl died before her majority the whole of her rights and ownership in the Scottish crown should pass to him. The clause was undoubtedly suspect, especially when associated with the fact that its inventor had already done away with two wives. What more natural than to suppose that a child might die prematurely and not altogether by natural means in order that he might come into the heritage the sooner? Mary of Guise, in her role of prudent and loving mother, rejected the proposal of sending her infant daughter to London. Thereupon the proxy wooing was upon the verge of being converted into a war, for Henry VIII, overbearing as was his wont, dispatched his troops across the border that they might seize the coveted prize by force of arms. The army orders disclose the brutality of those days: “It is His Majesty’s will that all be laid waste with fire and sword. Burn Edinburgh and raze the city to the ground, as soon as you have seized whatever is worth taking. Plunder Holyrood and as many towns and villages as you can; ravage, burn and destroy Leith; and the same whithersoever you go, exterminating men, women and children without mercy, wherever resistance is shown.” At the decisive hour, however, mother and child were safely conducted to Stirling and placed within the shelter of its fortified castle. Henry VIII had to rest content with a treaty wherein Scotland was committed to send Mary to England on the day she reached the tenth year of her life—again she was treated as an object of chaffering and purchase.

Now all was happily settled. Another crown had fallen into the cradle of the Scottish infant Queen. By her future marriage with young Edward of England the kingdoms of Scotland and England would become united. But politics has always been a science of contradiction. It is forever in conflict with simple, natural, sensible solutions; difficulties are its greatest joy, and it feels thoroughly in its element when dissension is abroad. The Catholic party soon set to work intriguing against the compact, wondering whether it would not be preferable to barter the girl elsewhere and offer her as a bride for the French King’s son; and, by the time Henry VIII came to die, there was scant inclination anywhere to hold to the bond. Protector Somerset, acting on behalf of Edward, who was still in his minority, demanded that the child bride should be sent to London. Since Scotland refused to obey, an English army was dispatched over the border. This was the only language the Scottish lords properly understood. On 10th September 1547, at the Battle, or, rather, the massacre, of Pinkie, the Scots were crushed, leaving more than ten thousand dead on the field. Mary Stuart was not yet five years old when blood in gallons flowed in her cause.

Scotland now lay open to any incursion England chose to make. But there was nothing left worth the plundering; the countryside was empty, was cleaned out. One single treasure remained so far as the House of Tudor was concerned: a little girl in whose person was incorporated a crown and the rights this crown commanded. It was essential, therefore, to place the treasure where covetous hands could not reach it.