In July of the same year the queen wedded Darnley. This was the signal for an open insurrection on the part of the Scottish nobles. Again Queen Mary showed herself a worthy descendant of the Stuarts. "She acted in this emergency," remarks Miss Strickland, "with energy and spirit indicative of the confidence inspired by her popularity, and showed herself no whit behind the most distinguished of her predecessors in courage and ability." At the head of five thousand men she left Edinburgh, August 26th, together with her husband, the lords of the council, and her ladies-in-waiting. She was attired in a scarlet and gold-embroidered riding-habit, which, it was said, covered a light suit of armour, while her hood and veil were understood to conceal a steel casque. Pistols hung at her saddle-bow. Darnley, with a vanity inherent in his nature, wore a gorgeous suit of gilded armour.
On the 29th the queen reached Glasgow; and next day the rebels retreated from Paisley towards Hamilton. The queen set out in pursuit. The confederate lords, disappointed in their expectations of a general Protestant rising, were obliged to retreat from place to place before the queen and her army. The bravery and endurance of Mary gained the love and respect of many amongst her subjects.
Mary returned to Edinburgh for a short time; and on the 8th of October she marched again, this time at the head of eighteen thousand men, to renew the war. The rebel lords, terrified at the approach of their royal mistress, fled across the English border, and took refuge in Carlisle.
Queen Mary had no further opportunity of displaying her courage till after the murder of Darnley, in 1567, when the base conduct of Bothwell and the consequent insurrection of nearly all the Scottish nobles forced her once more to take the field in person. When the opposing armies met, June 14th, at Carberry Hill, she rode with her followers to the field, though neither she nor they had broken their fast that morning.
After this followed the captivity of Mary in Loch-Leven Castle. In 1568 she made her escape, and assisted by a few friends, made a last effort to recover her throne. The Earl of Murray (regent during the minority of king James), with a large army intercepted the queen's march at Langside, two miles from Glasgow.
It is not quite clear whether Mary took an active part in the battle of Langside, which for ever crushed her hopes. Brantôme declares "the Queen-mother of France assured him that Mary mounted her good hackney and rode into the battle like another Zenobia, to encourage her troops to advance, and would fain have led them to the charge in person. But she found them all quarrelling among themselves, and insensible to her eloquence, and more inclined to exchange blows with each other than to attack the rebel host."
According to the popular tradition, however, it was beneath the spreading boughs of a hawthorn, which is still known as "the Queen's thorn," halfway up the green hill behind Castlemilk, that the unfortunate sovereign stood and watched the battle, surrounded by her ladies and a few devoted adherents. Legend also points out another "Queen's thorn" on the hill behind the ruins of Cathcart Castle. According to a local history, Lord Livingstone, at the head of "the bairns of Falkirk," rode with the queen to the battle-field, and afterwards aided her to escape; and this would seem to corroborate what Brantôme has said.
Amongst those heroines who distinguished themselves during the religious wars in France, was Magdalaine de Saint-Nectaire,—also called Se' nectaire, or Sennetaire. She was a staunch Protestant, and after the death of her husband, Gui di Saint Exuperi, she retired to her château at Miremont, in Limousin, armed sixty of her retainers, and commenced a series of raids against the Roman Catholics. In 1575, during the reign of the weak and frivolous Henry III., Montal, Lieutenant du Roi, in Limousin, whose soldiers had often been defeated by Magdalaine, resolved to besiege the heroine in her château. With fifteen hundred foot and two hundred horse he arrived before the gates. Magdalaine made a sally, and cut to pieces a detachment of fifty men; but on her return she found that the château had been captured. She gallopped to Turene, a neighbouring town, to gather reinforcements, returning thence with four companies of mounted arquebusiers. Montal awaited her in a defile of the mountains; but he was vanquished and mortally wounded. His soldiers, discouraged by the fall of their leader, withdrew the same evening to a neighbouring castle, where Montal died four days later.