James Earl Hamilton Marsden Romance

A royal consort?
To marry Mary
Mary Stuart
Mary of Guise told the English ambassador Ralph Sadler in March 1543 that
Jamess father, Governor of Scotland after the death of James V, Regent Arran,
mindeth to marry her daughter, Queen Mary I, to his son, something she was
anxious to avoid. Yet, in December 1543, French envoys heard his father
wanted him to marry King Henry VIII of Englands daughter, Lady Elizabeth.
After the assassination of Cardinal Beaton in 1546, James was held prisoner
by his fathers enemies at St Andrews Castle, who offered him as a hostage for
the assistance of an English fleet at the siege. Henry VIII was willing to provide
support but it never materialised. In order to limit potential problems, on 14
August 1547, the Parliament of Scotland declared James was no longer the
third person in the Scottish succession for the duration of his captivity.
Despite Henrys promises, the siege was relieved by a French naval
intervention.
French brides
In April 1548, Henry II of France offered Franoise, daughter of the Duke of
Montpensier to be Arrans bride. James joined Queen Mary in France in July
1548. There, he was made captain of the Garde cossaise. On 24 January 1553,
the French royal armourer Bndict Claye contracted to supply him with an
armour decorated with engraved and gilded borders, a morion and a
bourguignon, and accessories before the 8 April 1553.
After Mary was betrothed to the Dauphin, a number of ladies of the court were
suggested as brides for James, including in May 1557 the Mademoiselle de
Bouillon, daughter of Diane de Poitiers and Henry II, Claude and Louise de
Rieux, who married Ren, Marquis of Elbeuf, and Jeane de Savoie. Nothing
came of any of these marriage plans.

Queen Elizabeth
In 1558, with the support of John Knox and John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, he
became a pawn in his fathers aspirations who tried to negotiate his marriage
to Elizabeth I to seal an Anglo-Scottish alliance. Although Bishop Jewel
remained in favour of the marriage as late as June 1560, and Elizabeths own
opinion is not known, the Earls friends Ralph Sadler and Thomas Randolph
could not mask their growing awareness of his unstable character in their
official correspondence.
Lady Catherine Grey
In September 1560 Sarlabous, the French Captain of Dunbar Castle, tried to
spread a rumour that Elizabeths council proposed an alternative marriage
plan for Arran, with the English royal heiress Lady Catherine Grey, daughter of
the Duchess of Suffolk. Arran was found to be enjoying the company of an
Edinburgh merchants daughter, Alison Craig, described by Randolph as a
good handsome wench in December 1561, and the interference of the Earl of
Bothwell, Lord John Stewart, Prior of Coldingham, and Ren, Marquis of Elbeuf
led to an armed stand-off.
Mary again
Following the death of Marys husband Francis II of France in 1560, and the
apparent failure of the English marriage plan, his father tried to arrange for
his marriage to the Queen of Scots, first suggested in their infancy. George
Buchanan, who was unsympathetic to Mary, suggested she had exploited his
real affection for her in November 1561 by spreading a rumour that he
planned to abduct her from Holyroodhouse to his house at Kinneil, and used
this to justify strengthening the armed royal guard. Though Arrans father
disputed the rumour, and Thomas Randolphs findings confirm Buchanans
view, physical security was tightened at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.