ON December 5, 1560, King Francois II of France died of an ear infection that had spread to his brain. He was aged just 16, and Le Petit Roi – as his subjects called him – had been on the throne just shy of 17 months. With his passing, Scotland also lost its King Consort as he had married Mary, Queen of Scots, on April 24, 1558.
THE Spanish Civil War has fascinated historians and the politically minded for nearly nine decades and most Scots with an interest in the subject will know that hundreds
ASK any reasonably knowledgable Scot about Glasgow’s most famous architect of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and they will usually reply Charles Rennie Mackintosh and perhaps Alexander “Greek” Thomson.
IN this series about powers behind the Scottish throne through the ages, I am dealing in this latest column mainly with one of the few women on the list, Marie de Guise, mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, who acted as Regent of Scotland for her daughter.
THIS week will see the 190th anniversary of the death of one Enlightenment personality who should be much better known in Scotland and elsewhere for his usually unsung contribution to our understanding of the very stuff of planet Earth.
WE are so used to thinking of Mary, Queen of Scots, as a tragic figure that we often forget that for an admittedly short period in the 1560s, she was a monarch who had some successes in reigning over a convulsed nation.
TOMORROW is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Chrystal Macmillan who is not hugely famous in her home country but who I consider to be one of the greatest Scottish women of all time.
IN this series about powers behind the Scottish throne, we have reached the reign of King James V who, like most Stewart/Stuart monarchs, became king at a young age so that regents were needed to rule Scotland while the child grew up.
THE celebrations for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee centre around her official birthday which this year took place on Thursday, June 2, the 69th anniversary of her coronation, with the Trooping of the Colour – otherwise known as the Queen’s Birthday Parade – and the flypast the most notable events.
IN this series about the men – and they were nearly all men – who were the powers behind the throne of Scotland, we have reached the reign of James IV.
