When Dudley received his earldom, the Scots ambassador had made diplomatic noises about his qualities as a man and a royal servant, but Elizabeth, in response, had been sceptical. ‘You like better of yonder long lad’, she said, pointing to the young Henry, Lord Darnley, who was attending on the new earl.29 As so often, the queen’s caustic quip was even sharper than it seemed. Darnley – a tall, pretty eighteen-year-old – was the son of Margaret Douglas, daughter of Henry VIII’s sister Margaret by her second, non-royal marriage. He was therefore first cousin to Mary of Scotland, with a claim to the English throne to parallel hers. And in 1565 it was Darnley, not Dudley, whom Mary decided to marry.
Darnley, it turned out, was weak, immature and spoilt, a narcissistic drunk whose vainglorious ambitions made him both a destabilizing force and an easy mark amid the religious and political faction-fighting of the Scots court.