James I.
- ISBN-10
- ISBN-13
- 9798636525936
- Pages
- 186
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2020-05-12
- Author
- Charles Williams
Description
ABOUT two in the afternoon the father of the child, the Lord Henry Stuart, Earl of Darnley, sometimes called the King, came into the chamber where his wife lay. He had been brought with her to the Castle of Edinburgh only for this moment, and had been lodged in the Castle to await it, along with other great persons-the Lord John Erskine, Earl of Mar, Captain of the Castle; the Lord James Stuart, Earl of Murray, the Queen's half-brother; two or three territorial chieftains, such as the Earls of Argyle and Atholl; the Queen's ladies. The Captain of the Queen's Guard, the Lord James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, was discreetly lodged a little farther away from his mistress, in the town at the foot of the Castle. It was Wednesday, the 19th of June 1566, when the Queen's pains began; betwixt ten and eleven that morning, after some danger, she had been delivered of a male child. Now she sent for the father to do his part: publicly to acknowledge his paternity and the legitimacy of the child. He was to do it before the company in the chamber, and through them before the kings and queens of Europe, before the Pope, before John Knox and the other ministers of the Reformed Kirk of Scotland, before the Scottish families related to the royal line, branches of the Stuarts and the Hamiltons, even before his own father, Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox, and himself. In the future neither he nor any one else should be able to deny the child's rights.
