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Henry Stewart Darnley Biography

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DARNLEY, Henry Stewart, or Stuart, Lord (1545–67). The second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. The second but eldest surviving son of the Earl of Lennox by Lady Margaret Douglas, niece of Henry VIII, he was born, Dec. 7, 1545, at Temple Newsam, Yorkshire, where he received a private education. He was handsome and of accomplished manners, but destitute of moral and intellectual power. He married Mary on July 29, 1565, but soon disgusted her by intemperance, profligacy, and insolence. As an accessory to the assassination of Rizzio, he intensified Mary's hatred by holding her while the deed was committed in her presence. While recovering from an illness, he met his death in an isolated house which was blown up by the Earl of Bothwell, Feb. 9, 1567. The question of Mary's complicity in the deed will probably always remain one of the problems of history. See Mary Stuart.

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. VI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 505.