On This Day In Royal History . 24 April 1558 . Mary, Queen of Scots married Francis, the Dauphin of France . . ◼ The French king, Henry II, proposed to unite France & Scotland by marrying the young queen to his three-year-old son, the Dauphin Francis. . ◼ With her marriage agreement in place, five-year-old Mary was sent to France to spend the next thirteen years at the French court. . ◼ Mary was eloquent & especially tall by sixteenth-century standards (she attained an adult height of 5 feet 11 inches or 1.80 m), while Henry II’s son & heir, Francis, stuttered & was abnormally short. Henry commented that “from the very first day they met, my son & she got on as well together as if they had known each other for a long time”. . ◼ On 4 April 1558, Mary signed a secret agreement bequeathing Scotland & her claim to England to the French crown if she died without issue. Twenty days later, she married the Dauphin at Notre Dame de Paris, & he became king consort of Scotland. . ◼ When Henry II died on 10 July 1559 from injuries sustained in a joust, fifteen-year-old Francis & sixteen-year-old Mary became king & queen of France. . ◼ King Francis II died on 5 December 1560, of a middle ear infection that led to an abscess in his brain. Mary was grief-stricken. Her mother-in-law, Catherine de’ Medici, became regent for the late king’s ten-year-old brother Charles IX, who inherited the French throne. Mary returned to Scotland nine months later, arriving in Leith on 19 August 1561. . Both portraits on first picture were painted by François Clouet. . . #onthisdayinhistory #thisdayinhistory #theyear1558 #d24apr #RoyalWedding #MaryQueenofScots #QueenofScots #HouseofStuart #FrancisIIofFrance #History #Britishmonarchy #Royalhistory #Historicart #Artwork #Portraitpainting #Stuarts #theking #Historyfacts #kingoffrance #Dauphin #France #Scotland #Thequeen #Onthisday #FrançoisClouet (at Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris) https://www.instagram.com/p/B_X_G11DRM-/?igshid=1oq2zs550b4gq