histeriacomic:

Aww yissss. WE ARE WHERE I WANTED TO BE IN JUNE, WHEN THIS ALL BEGAN.

Okay. Ahhh, sorry—I’m so excited, I’m just bouncing around everywhere okay composure I have it I swear. The beautiful lady you see up there with Scotland is none other than the amazing Mary of Guise, herself! Widow to King James V, and mother of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. This lady’s pretty cool, but that’s evident. Here’s the info you need:

1. Mary Stuart is born. (Dec. 7 (disputed), 1542)
2. James V dies. (Dec. 14, 1542)
3. Mary Stuart is crowned Queen of Scotland at … 9 months old. (1543)
4. Treaty of Greenwich: Basically, Henry VIII asks that she marry his son Edward when she’s old enough. (1543)
5. Back-and-Forth talks; this dude Arran thinks the proposal is beneficial to Scotland, but the people are like, “LOL FUCK YOU. (╯° ワ°)╯ ┻━┻” (1543)
6. Henry again proves himself to be a crybaby, and thus begins the War of the Rough Wooing to force the Scots to agree to the treaty. It lasts from (December) 1543 to 1550. (You’d think a guy with six wives would be better at this wooing thing.) When Henry dies, his son Edward continues until 1550.

(Side note: It wasn’t initially called the Rough Wooing. Instead, it was ‘coined’ in a way by George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly in Jean de Beaugué’s Histoire de la guerre d’Écosse pendant les campagnes 1548 et 1549 [History of Scottish War in 1548 and 1549], translated by Mr. Patrick Abercromby in 1707: “We lik’d not the manner of Wooing, and we could not stoop to be Bully’d into Love.”)

As the title of the comic gives away, this is based on the Siege of Haddington, in 1548. Before the English took over the area, this is what happened. (Yes, this is English.)

Now, I couldn’t understand all of it, but this is what I got from the middle and following paragraphs:

   ”On Monday, before going on to Edinburgh, the Queen (Mary of Guise) came around from behind the church to see the town. From the town came [firepower/cannon fire] and killed and injured many of those around her, likely 16 men, of one estimation. The queen was greatly upset, crying. Pedro Strozzi was shot through the thigh, his bone shattering.
   ”The Queen went soon after to Dumbarton to see the young Queen off.”

It is this attack, that Mary of Guise experiences first-hand, that confirms what she needs to do to protect her daughter; a mother will do anything to protect her child, and in this case, my friends, that is to get the wee queen Mary Stuart out of Scotland…

…And on her way to France. 

LINKS:

Bit of a different approach on the Rough Wooing. Henry VIII is scary. :(
Hamilton Papers: 1543-1590; page 603 (this is where the passage above is from)
Mary, Queen of Scots, biography, by Antonia Fraser
A picture of the siege. /o/
The quote by Gordon, page 52.