Three Galleasses for the Queen Of Scotland

Abstract

What do we know of the events surrounding the coming of Marie de Guise Lorraine to Scotland? Less perhaps than we think, particularly if we rely on the chroniclers and writers of patriotic accounts designed to boost the importance of Scotland and the glory of the event. A century after the event, William Drummond of Hawthornden wrote: 

The Abbot of Arbroth, and the Lord Maxwell by many enterchanged letters full of Princely Love, had assured the King and the Lady Mary of Lorrain, and Articles being agreed upon, to the great content of the French, they were espoused by Proctors, as is the custome amongst Princes, with great triumph in the City of Paris, in the presence of the French King and many Peers; after which solemnity Monsieur d’Annanbault Admiral of France, accompanied her to New haven in the beginning of the Moneth of June 1538 where she embarqued and with many French Ships, when she had been tost on the Seas came to Fyffeness where at Cayrel she was attended by the Noblemen and the King, who consummated the mariage in the Cathedral Church of St Andrews in July.¹