In the Absence of an Adult Monarch: Ceremonial Representations of Authority by Marie de Guise 1543–1558

When Mary, queen of Scots, returned from her relatively sheltered Catholic upbringing in the extravagant Renaissance court of the French king Henri II, the ‘welcome’ offered to her upon her entry into Edinburgh in 1561 featured the burning of an effigy of a Catholic priest, Protestant preachers denouncing the Pope, and the gifting of an English bible and psalm book. This aptly named ‘ambiguous triumph’ – the first and perhaps only royal entry that reverts from a rhetoric of acclamation to one of rejection – openly and mercilessly attacked Catholicism and laid down the gauntlet of challenge to the returning queen’s royal authority. Mary’s short but explosive adult reign includes other ceremonial examples of the challenges faced by a quintessentially French Catholic woman in the role of ruling monarch of the newly Reformed Scottish realm. Yet, this period from 1561 to 1567 made up less than a quarter of her reign, and the challenges to her royal authority began long before she returned to Scotland in 1561. This essay will analyse ceremonies orchestrated by Mary’s mother, Marie de Guise, between 1543 and 1560 to examine how such challenges were faced in the absence of an adult monarch.