[1] In a letter dated the 4th of April 1882, referring to the publication of his drama Mary Stuart, Swinburne wrote to Edmund Clarence Stedman: “Mary Stuart has procured me two satisfactions which I prefer infinitely to six columns of adulation in The Times and any profit thence resulting. (1) A letter from Sir Henry Taylor ... (2) An application from the editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica—who might, I suppose, as in Macaulay’s time, almost command the services of the most eminent scholars and historians of the country—to me, a mere poet, proposing that I should contribute to that great repository of erudition the biography of Mary Queen of Scots. I doubt if the like compliment was ever paid before to one of our ‘idle trade.’” The present article is the biography contributed by the poet to the 9th ed. in response to the invitation referred to in this letter.
[2] It is to be observed that the above conclusion as to the authenticity of the Casket Letters is the same as that arrived at upon different grounds by the most recent research on the subject.—Ed. E. B.
MARY (1457-1482), duchess of Burgundy, only child of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, and his wife Isabella of Bourbon, was born on the 13th of February 1457. As heiress of the rich Burgundian domains her hand was eagerly sought by a number of princes. When her father fell upon the field of Nancy, on the 5th of January 1477, Mary was not yet twenty years of age. Louis XI. of France seized the opportunity afforded by his rival’s defeat and death to take possession of the duchy of Burgundy as a fief lapsed to the French crown, and also of Franche Comté, Picardy and Artois. He was anxious that Mary should marry the Dauphin Charles and thus secure the inheritance of the Netherlands for his descendants. Mary, however, distrusted Louis; declined the French alliance, and turned to her Netherland subjects for help. She obtained the help only at the price of great concessions. On the 11th of February 1477 she was compelled to sign a charter of rights, known as “the Great Privilege,” by which the provinces and towns of the Netherlands recovered all the local and communal rights which had been abolished by the arbitrary decrees of the dukes of Burgundy in their efforts to create in the Low Countries a centralized state. Mary had to undertake not to declare war, make peace, or raise taxes without the consent of the States, and not to employ any but natives in official posts. Such was the hatred of the people to the old regime that two influential councillors of Charles the Bold, the Chancellor Hugonet and the Sire d’Humbercourt, having been discovered in correspondence with the French king, were executed at Ghent despite the tears and entreaties of the youthful duchess. Mary now made her choice among the many suitors for her hand, and selected the archduke Maximilian of Austria, afterwards the emperor Maximilian I., and the marriage took place at Ghent on the 18th of August 1477. Affairs now went more smoothly in the Netherlands, the French aggression was checked, and internal peace was in a large measure restored, when the duchess met her death by a fall from her horse on the 27th of March 1482. Three children had been the issue of her marriage, and her elder son, Philip, succeeded to her dominions under the guardianship of his father.
See E. Münch, Maria von Burgund, nebst d. Leben v. Margaretha v. York (2 vols., Leipzig, 1832), and the Cambridge Mod. Hist. (vol. i., c. xii., bibliography, 1903).
MARY (1496-1533), queen of France, was the daughter of Henry VII. of England and Elizabeth of York. At first it was intended to marry her to Charles of Austria, the future emperor Charles V., and by the treaty of Calais (Dec. 21, 1507) it was agreed that the marriage should take place when Charles should have attained the age of fourteen, the contract being secured by bonds taken from various princes and cities in the Low Countries. On the 17th of December 1508 the Sieur de Bergues, who had come over as Charles’s representative at the head of a magnificent embassy, married the princess by proxy. The contract, originally made by Henry VII., was renewed on the 17th of October 1513 by Henry VIII. at a meeting with Margaret of Savoy at Lille, the wedding being fixed for the following year. But the emperor Maximilian I., to whom Louis XII. had proposed his daughter Renée as wife for Charles, with Brittany for dowry, postponed the match with the English princess in a way that left no doubt of his intention to withdraw from the contract altogether. He was forestalled by the diplomacy of Wolsey, at whose instance peace was signed with France on the 7th of August 1514, and on the same date a treaty was concluded for the marriage of Mary Tudor with Louis XII., who had recently lost his wife Anne of Brittany. The marriage was celebrated at Abbeville on the 9th of October. The bridegroom was a broken man of fifty-two; the bride a beautiful, well-educated and charming girl of eighteen, whose heart was already engaged to Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, her future husband. The political marriage was, however, no long one. Mary was crowned queen of France on the 5th of November 1514; on the 1st of January following King Louis died. Mary had only been induced to consent to the marriage with Louis by the promise that, on his death, she should be allowed to marry the man of her choice. But there was danger that the agreement would not be kept. In France the dukes of Lorraine and Savoy were mentioned as possible suitors, and meanwhile the new king, Francis I., was making advances to her, and only desisted when she confessed to him her previous attachment to Suffolk. The duke himself was at the head of the embassy which came from England to congratulate the new king, and to the detriment of his political mission he used the opportunity to win the hand of the queen. Francis good-naturedly promised to use his influence in his favour; Henry VIII. himself was not averse to the match, but Mary feared the opposition of the lords of the council, and, in spite of Suffolk’s promise to the king not to take any steps in the matter until after his return, she persuaded him to marry her secretly before he left Paris. On their return to England in April, Suffolk was for a while in serious danger from the king’s indignation, but was ultimately pardoned through Wolsey’s intercession, on payment of a heavy fine and the surrender of all the queen’s jewels and plate. The marriage was publicly solemnized at Greenwich on the 13th of May 1515. Suffolk had been already twice married, and his first wife was still alive. He thought it necessary later on (1528) to obtain a bull from Pope Clement VII. declaring his marriage with his first wife invalid and his union with Mary therefore canonical. Mary’s life after this was comparatively uneventful. She lived mainly in the retirement of the country, but shared from time to time in the festivities of the court, and was present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. She died on the 24th of June 1533. By the duke of Suffolk she had three children: Henry, born on the 11th of March 1516, created earl of Lincoln (1525), who died young; Frances, born on the 16th of July 1517, the wife of Henry Grey, marquess of Northampton, and mother of Lady Jane Grey (q.v.); and Eleanor.
See Lettres de Louis XII. et du cardinal Géorges d’Amboise (Brussels, 1712); Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. (Cal. State Pap.); M. A. E. Green, Lives of the Princesses of England (vol. v., 1849-1855); Life by James Gairdner in Dict. Nat. Biog.