When Knox took the liberty of discussing it with her she burst out: "What have you to do with my marriage?
Or what are you within this commonwealth ?" "A subject born within the same," superbly retorted the East Lothian peasant, "and though neither earl, lord nor baron, God has made me a profitable member." [Sidenote: Marriage with Darnley, July 1565] Determined, quite excusably, to please herself rather than her advisers in the choice of a husband, Mary selected her cousin Henry Stuart Lord Darnley; a "long lad" not yet twenty.

The marriage was celebrated in July, 1565; the necessary papal dispensation therefor was actually drawn up on September 25 but was thoughtfully provided with a false date as of four months earlier.

Almost from the first the marriage was wretchedly unhappy.

The petulant boy insisted on being treated as king, whereas Mary allowed him only "his due." Darnley was jealous, probably with good cause, of his wife's Italian secretary, David Riccio, and murdered him in Mary's presence; [Sidenote: March 9, 1566] "an action worthy of all praise," pontificated Knox.
With this crime begins in earnest that sickening tale of court intrigue and blackest villainy that has commonly passed as the then history of Scotland.

To revenge her beloved secretary Mary plotted with a new paramour, the Earl of Bothwell, an able soldier, a {367} nominal Protestant and an evil liver.