Darnley
HENRY STUART, LORD, son of the Earl of Lennox and Lady Margaret Douglas, a niece of Henry VIII., and by her first marriage queen of James IV.; born 1541. In 1565 he was married to Mary Queen of Scots.
It was an unfortunate match. Dislike developed open hatred, which the murder of Rizzio, to which Darnley was a party, served to increase. After Mary gave birth to a son, subsequently James VI, Darnley was seized at Glasgow with smallpox, from which he had barely recovered when Mary visited him, and had him conveyed to an isolated house called Kirk of Field, close to the Edinburgh city walls. This dwelling, which belonged to a retainer of Bothwell's, the rapidly rising favorite, was blown into the air with gunpowder, Feb. 10, 1567. The dead bodies of the king and his page were found in a field at a distance of 80 yards from the house, quite free from any mark which such an explosion would cause.
Strong circumstantial evidence points to Bothwell as the murderer, and to Mary as an accomplice in the crime.