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Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (1546-67), was an English aristocrat who became the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and was, by all accounts, one of history’s worst fuckboys. Darnley was the very definition of a fuckboy: “a man who doesn’t respect women, but is also dependent on women. And he engages in selfish behavior without caring whether or not he hurts women.” — some 400 years before the word was in common parlance.
First, he depended on a powerful mother (who was a granddaughter of Henry VII) to get started in at the English court — where he gained a reputation as “a great cock chick,” meaning he fucked around with anyone. Darnley’s mother’s ambition, bolstered by their family’s Catholic faith, lead him to the Scottish court as a temptation of recently widowed Queen Mary.
Mary’s first marriage had been arranged when she was practically a baby, but finally, at age 23, she had her own choice. Darnley was young, fair, tall (Mary was almost 6 foot, he was taller), a good dancer, excellent horseman, tangentially related to the English throne, and Catholic. He ticked all the boxes. And when you’re a Catholic queen, you can’t just shag the guy you’re hot for, you have to marry him first. So they tied the knot and did the deed, reportedly spending the first two weeks of their marriage in bed. Mary was soon pregnant, which, again checked off a requirement for royal marriages, but Darnley quickly revealed himself to be a drunken lout. Plus, he demanded the crown matrimonial so he could be king, and he was jealous of anyone his wife spent time with, like her pal and secretary David Rizzio (who had previously been “close” in an undetermined fashion with Darnley).
With a shallow-minded twerp like Darnley, it was easy enough for the scheming Protestant Scottish lords to draw the would-be king into their web, and together they plotted to murder Rizzio and get Darnley the crown. After Rizzio’s death, Mary convinced Darnley to recant because he was just that wishy-washy, so together they retook power and kicked out the plotters. But then while Darnley recovered from smallpox (or maybe it was syphilis), the scheming lords he turned on murdered him and framed Mary. This lead to her abdication and flight to England.
Mary gets all the blame, 19 years of imprisonment, and her head chopped off, all for what, having the hots for a cute dude? So unfair! Just look at him — he could have kicked back with a cushy life, but no, he was greedy and needy. He couldn’t stand that his wife had a more important job than he did. So let’s look at how this royal example of the fragile male ego has appeared on screen.
Richard Neill in Mary Stuart (1913)
Ivan Samson in The Loves of Mary, Queen of Scots (1923)
Douglas Walton in Mary of Scotland (1936)
Axel von Ambesser in Das Herz der Königin aka The Heart of a Queen (1940)
Anthony Kemble-Cooper in “Mary of Scotland,” Pulitzer Prize Playhouse (1951)
Timothy Dalton in Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)
Jan Frostad in Maria Stuart i Skottland (1982)
Paul Nicholls in Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot (2004)
Aneurin Barnard in Mary Queen of Scots (2013)
Will Kemp in Reign (2017)
Harry Jarvis in Reinas, Virgen y Mártir, aka Queens: The Virgin and the Martyr (2017)
Jack Lowden in Mary Queen of Scots (2018)
Samuel Gilbert-Davies in “A Queen Betrayed,” Rise of the Clans (2018)
Liam Driver in The Reformation (2020) & Mary Queen of Scots (upcoming)
Who’s the most accurately awful Lord Darnley onscreen?
Would you say that Darnley was a hobosexual? Yes, i spend WAY too much time on Reddit. :)
Hah, he’s that too!
I do not care if Timothy Dalton’s Darnley is accurate, all I can say is that Dalton’s Darnley is still sexy as a horrible, horrible human being,
Timothy Dalton does make a solid Darnely – you can see the reasons Mary’s attracted to him & his downfall comes easily too. He’s less one-note than most of them.
If we just ignore the despicable human that the role is based on – well the despicable characters too, sure, I’ll agree Timothy Dalton looked damn fine in the clothes and on film. Moving on…can someone please explain to me why – in the final two photos – did someone at some venerable British costume shop think that it was acceptable to use a Southwestern American Navajo belt in silver and turquoise as Darnley’s chain of office? This is clearly not sourced from Cosprop or Angels.
Hah, those last two seem to be cheap docu-dramas just throwing a bunch of crap together!
Douglas Walton for the win, IMHO! (Haven’t seen the movie even though I adore Katharine Hepburn, because I just find Mary Stuart profoundly boring)
Sheer mischief persuades me to hand the palm to Mr Jack Lowden and Ms Saorise Ronan’s slightly-hilarious method acting (ahe even got his leading lady knocked up!).
On a more serious note, I’ve always assumed that the late ‘King Henry’ was too childish to do either his rank or his realm any credit – or, for that matter, survive his many mistakes.
It would be remiss of me if one did not pitch my cherished dream of seeing Henry Stuart’s assassination as a black comedy murder plot in which half the aristocracy of Scotland were watching like groundlings at the Globe whilst he was blown up, then strangled and most of them other half were smart enough to arrange their alibis well in advance (Looking at you, my Lord Moray).
I realize that in the 1923 version Mary is played by Faye Compton, but I am struck by how much she looks like Margret Dumont of Marx Brothers fame. But ,then again, she also looks very much like my great aunt who was an exotic dancer in the same era. There is something about all of them that reflect what was considered attractive at the time. I have fabulous pictures of my great aunt in some of her “artistic” costumes as well as a whole box of nudes. She was very much a part of the artistic world at the time. I wish I had a way to share the costumed pictures with you. I think you would find them very interesting. Thanks of the great article. I look forward to the rest of Snark Week.
Why do people make out Mary, Queen of Scots, as some sort of poor darling who was hard done by. If anyone messed up her life, it was her mother (Mary of Guise), Cardinal Beaton, the French and Mary herself.
What’s with the suggestion she was framed for Darnley’s murder (the little evidence there is suggests she was at least complicit) or that England wanted the marriage to gain more control of Scotland (England strongly disapproved because it strengthened Mary’s claim to the English throne).
Lord, I dislike historically inaccurate movies, especially when the inaccuracies become ‘fact’.
Sorry about the rant, but this is a period I have spent many years studying, because it is so fascinating and because the personalities involved and the choices they made really did change history.