Scotland/Scots > History of Mary Queen of Scots

58 Mary Queen of Scots. [1558.
Commissioners from Scotland. Preliminaries.
Mary was, in some sense, her rival, and she
could not bear to have her become the wife of
her son.
King Henry, finding all these opposing influ¬
ences at work, thought that the safest plan
would be to have the marriage carried into ef¬
fect at the earliest possible period. When,
therefore, Mary was about fifteen years of age,
which was in 1557, he sent to Scotland, asking
the government there to appoint some commis¬
sioners to come to France to assent to the mar¬
riage contracts, and to witness the ceremonies
of the betrothment and the wedding. The mar¬
riage contracts, in the case of the union of a
queen of one country with a prince of another,
are documents of very high importance. It is
considered necessary not only to make very
formal provision for the personal welfare and
comfort of the wife during her married life,
and during her widowhood in case of the death
of her husband, but also to settle beforehand
the questions of succession which might arise
out of the marriage, and to define precisely the
rights and powers both of the husband and the
wife, in the two countries to which they re¬
spectively belong.
The Parliament of Scotland appointed a num-