1560 - Out, damned Scot!

I'm looking forward to watching Macbeth
Tonight on TV, with Patrick Stewart...
A Scottish theme pervades, I must confess
The year 1560 and this sonnet
Shakespeare was not yet to be, and so yet
To pen that drama of the northern land
But that year saw Scotland turn Protestant
And the French were shown the door by England
Aided by the death of the Frenchwoman
Mary of Guise, unlucky with the deaths
Of four children, leaving Mary Stuart
(Queen of Scots) sole heiress, but on her own
The Auld Alliance with France worth much less
And Francis the Second in his casket

Mary Queen of Scots' parents had contracted a great marriage with the son and heir of Francis I, the great French rival of Henry VIII (who had died a few years earlier). This seemed likely to keep Scotland independent from England by close union at royal level with France, potentially even leading to a French takeover of Scotland and, ultimately, England. However, after Francis I's death, Francis II - Mary Queen of Scots' young husband - did not live long, and consequently his mother, Catherine de Medicis, became regent until the nine-year-old Charles IX could take over the reins of power in France.