Marsden

Mary of Guelders (c. 1434 – 1 December 1463) was the Queen Consort of Scotland as the wife of King James II of Scotland. She served as Regent of Scotland from 1460 to 1463.

Background
She was the daughter of Arnold, Duke of Guelders, and Catherine of Cleves, a great-aunt of Anne of Cleves. She was a great-niece of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy.

Burgundian court
Philip and his wife Isabella of Portugal at first planned to have Mary betrothed to Charles, Count of Maine, but her father could not pay the dowry. Mary stayed on at the Burgundian court, where Isabella frequently paid for her expenses. Mary attended Isabella’s daughter-in-law Catherine of France, while she herself was attended upon by ten people. The duke and duchess then started negotiations for a Scottish marriage. Philip promised to pay her dowry, while Isabella paid for her trousseau. William Crichton came to the Burgundian court to escort her back to Scotland
Marriage and children
She landed in Scotland in June 1449 and both nobles and the common people came to see her as she made her way to Holyrood Abbey. Mary married James II, King of Scots, at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh on 3 July 1449. A sumptuous banquet was given, while the Scottish king gave her several presents. It had been agreed that any sons they might have would have no right to the duchy of Guelders.
James and Mary had seven children together:
An unnamed son. {Both born and die...

James II of Scotland

James II of Scotland
James II (16 October 1430 – 3 August 1460), who reigned as king of Scots from 1437 on, was the son of James I and Joan Beaufort. Nothing is known of his early life, but by his first birthday his only brother, Alexander, who was also older, had died, thus making James the heir apparent and Duke of Rothesay. Curiously enough, James held no other titles while Duke of Rothesay. On 21 February 1437, James I wasassassinated and the six-year-old Duke of Rothesay immediately succeeded him as James II.
In 1449, nineteen-year-old James married fifteen-year-old Mary of Guelders, daughter of the Duke of Gelderland. She had numerous royal ancestors such as John II of France and John of Bohemia. She bore him seven children, six of whom survived into adulthood. Subsequently, the relations between Flanders and Scotland became better. James’s nickname, Fiery Face, referred to a conspicuous vermilion birthmarkon his face which appears to have been deemed by contemporaries an outward sign of a fiery temper.
James was a politic, and singularly successful king. He was popular with the commoners, with whom, like most of the Stewarts, he socialized often, both in times of peace and war. His legislation has a markedly popular character. He does not appear to have inherited his father’s taste for literature, which was “inherited” by at least two of his sisters; but the foundation of the university of Glasgow during his...

James Hamilton of Cadzow

James Hamilton of Cadzow



Sir James Hamilton of Cadzow, 5th Laird of Cadzow (b. bef. 1397 – d. c. 1440) was a Scottish nobleman and royal hostage.
The son of Sir John Hamilton of Cadzow and his wife, Janet Douglas, James Hamilton is first attested to in 1397. In a writ of that year, his father Sir John Hamilton granted him the lands and privileges of Kinneil, in return for the superiority of all property that had been promised to him through his marriage after his attainment of majority.
Hamilton next comes to notice in a Safe-conduct issued by Henry V of England to travel to Calthorpe Castle in Lincolnshire.
In 1424, Hamilton was one of the Scottish Lords allowed passage to Durham to visit the captive James I of Scotland. In the same year, he was one of many Scots hostages given to the English as security for the payment of the ransom of the newly freed King of Scots. His estate was valued at 500 merks.
Hamilton was confined first at Fotheringay Castle, then at Dover Castle. He appears to have been released by 1426. He was invested as a knight before 1430.
Hamilton died not later than 1441, when his son is described as Lord of Cadzow.
Paternity
He was the son of Janet (or Jacoba) Douglas, daughter of Sir James Douglas, 1st Lord Dalkeith, but his paternity is uncertain. Douglas’s husband was Sir John Hamilton of Cadzow and it was long thought that he was James’s ...

Mary Stewart, Countess of Arran

Princess Mary, Countess of Arran (13 May 1453 – May 1488) was the eldest daughter of King James II of Scotland and Mary of Guelders. Her brother was KingJames III of Scotland. She married twice; firstly to Thomas Boyd, 1st Earl of Arran; secondly to James Hamilton, 1st Lord Hamilton. It was through her children by her second husband that the Hamilton Earls of Arran and Stewart Lennoxes derived their claim to the Kingdom of Scotland.

Mary Stewart, Countess of Arran

James Hamilton, 1st Lord Hamilton
6th Lord of Cadzow (c. 1415 – 6 November 1479) was a Scottish nobleman, scholar and politician.

James Hamilton, 1st Lord Hamilton
Early life
James Hamilton was the son of James Hamilton of Cadzow, 5th Laird of Cadzow. He was born at Cadzow Castle, South Lanarkshire. He first appears on record on a charter of 1426, granting him the rights to the lands of Dalserf, which had been alienated by his father.
Douglas connection
Hamilton was intimately connected with the powerful House of Douglas: his mother was a daughter of the Douglas Lord of Dalkeith, and also through his marriage in 1439/1440 with Lady Euphemia Graham, the youthful widow of Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Douglas and daughter of Euphemia Stewart, Countess of Strathearn. Hamilton became stepfather to the young 6th Earl of Douglas, his brother David, both who would be murdered in November 1440 at the ‘Black Dinner’ at Edinburgh Castle in the presence of James II. Furthermore he was the stepfather of Margaret Douglas, known as the “Fair Maid of Galloway”, who was to marry her cousins William Douglas, 8th Earl of Douglas, and James Douglas, 9th Earl of Douglas.
Laird o’ Cadzow to Lord Hamilton
Prior to 1440 he achieved the status of Knighthood, and circa. 1440/1441 he inherited his father’s estates. In 1445, Hamilton received a charter creating him a Lord of Parliament. This charter raised all his estates into the en...

He was the only son of James Hamilton, 1st Lord Hamilton, and his wife, Mary Stewart, Countess of Arran. Mary was a daughter of King James II of Scotland and his Queen consort Mary of Guelders, and was a sister of King James III of Scotland.
Hamilton succeeded to his father’s lordship and inherited his lands when his father died in 1479.In 1489 his first cousin King James IV made him Sheriff of Lanark, a position his father had previously had, and a Scottish Privy Counsellor.[2] By 28 April 1490 he was married to Elizabeth Home, daughter of Alexander Home, 2nd Lord Home.
Between April and August 1502, he commanded a naval fleet sent to help King Hans of Denmark, James IV’s uncle, defeat a Swedish rebellion. He negotiated James’s marriage to Margaret Tudor and was present at the wedding on 8 August 1503. On the same day Lord Hamilton was created Earl of Arran, with the formal grant three days later, “for his nearness of blood” and his services at the time of the marriage. He was appointed Lieutenant General of Scotland and in May 1504 commanded a naval expedition to suppress an uprising in the Western Isles.
In September 1507, James IV sent Hamilton as his ambassador on a diplomatic mission to the court of Louis XII of France. When returning in early 1508, he was briefly detained in the Kingdom of England by Henry VII, who was suspicious of a renewal of the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France.
When Henry VIII of England joined the War of...