Buchanan, George, 1875 or 1876-

Epithet: Lieutenant R N

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000795.0x00039c

Epithet: of Sloane MS 1816

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000795.0x00039f

A George Buchanan is listed in the roll of graduates of the University of Glasgow by W Innes Addison, published in 1869. He was born in 1841 and originally studied for the ministry of the United Presbyterian Church, graduating BA in 1861 and MA in 1862. He then studied medicine, graduating as MD in 1868. He died in Edinburgh of Typhus on 23 December 1869.

From the guide to the Notes from medical lectures taken by George Buchanan, 1865, (University of Dundee)

Mary was born at Linlithgow Palace on either 7 or 8 December 1542. She was the daughter of James V (1512-1542) and his second wife Mary of Guise (1515-1560). On the death of her father from fever at Falkland Palace on 14 December 1542, after an armed encounter with a body of English Borderers at Solway Moss, Mary became Queen when she was barely a week old. Under the regency of James Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Arran, and with the support of the pro-English and reforming party, she was promised in marriage to Prince Edward of England, son of Henry VIII, and half-brother of Princess Elizabeth.

The promise of betrothal was frustrated by Cardinal Beaton who removed Mary and her mother to Stirling Castle where the infant Queen was crowned on 9 September 1543. With the repudiation of Arran's agreement by the Estates (the Scottish Parliament) now under the control of the Catholic party, war with England followed. The war - the 'Rough Wooing' of Scotland by Henry VIII - led to much devastation in south-eastern Scotland and to a Scottish defeat at Pinkie Cleugh on 10 September 1547. After the battle, Mary was removed to the island priory of Inchmahome on the Lake of Menteith for her security, and then to Dumbarton Castle.

In July 1548, the Estates ratified an agreement for Mary's marriage to Francis, the French Dauphin (son of Henry II and Catharine de' Medici), and she sailed for France from Dumbarton in August 1548, barely six years old. Mary was then educated at the French court in St. Germains-en-Laye acquiring a knowledge of Latin, Greek, Italian, and of course French. Scots and English would come later. Her political and religious instruction was given by the Guises, especially the Cardinal of Lorraine and Antoinette de Bourbon. Meanwhile, in Scotland the Catholic party gained its strength among the nobility and Mary of Guise became Regent in Scotland in 1554.

On 24 April 1558, Mary was married to Francis at Notre-Dame in Paris. Later, in November 1558, came the death in England of Mary Tudor and the subsequent ascension of Elizabeth. In France, Mary, as great-grandaughter of England's Henry VII (his daughter Margaret married Scotland's James IV) laid claim to the English throne and she and Francis assumed the titles of King and Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland. On the death of Henry II on 10 July 1559, Francis and Mary continued to use these titles when they succeeded to the French throne in their late teens.

Barely a year later, on 11 June 1560, Mary of Guise died in Scotland and power there began to pass to the pro-English party again, and Catholicism was proscribed. Then, on 5 December 1560 came the death of Mary's young husband, Francis II. Power in France passed from the Guises to Catharine de' Medici. Mary lost her position in the French court. On 19 August 1561, not yet nineteen years old, she returned to Scotland, landing at Leith.

Almost immediately, Mary gave official recognition to the reformed church but stipulated that she had the liberty to retain the Mass in her private chapel at Holyrood. This took her into conflict with John Knox (c.1513-1572), preacher and key figure in the Scottish Reformation.

In preference to suggestions of re-marriage with either the Kings of Sweden, Denmark, and France, the Archduke Charles of Austria, Don Carlos of Spain, the Dukes of Ferrara, Nemours, and Anjou, or the Earl of Arran and the Earl of Leicester, Mary chose her cousin Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley. They were married on 29 July 1565. Described variously as handsome, weak, needy, insolent, vicious, and worthless, Mary herself was alarmed by his debauchery and arrogance and was soon estranged from him. Alarm turned to disgust when he and other Protestant nobles burst into her apartments on 9 March 1566 and murdered the Italian courtier and musician David Rizzio, her adviser and private foreign secretary. Although Mary was six months pregnant at the time, she survived the shocking ordeal and Prince James was born on 19 June 1566.

Mary's abhorrence and contempt for Darnley was accompanied by a growing affection for James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell (c. 1535-1578) and when her husband was murdered in the destruction of the house of Kirk o' Field just outside the city walls on 10 February 1567 (Darnley was lying sick there with smallpox), there was a suspicion that Mary was not completely ignorant of the plot. On 12 April however, a mock-trial acquitted Bothwell and on 24 April he abducted the Queen, perhaps with her approval and certainly without much resistance from her, and carried her to Dunbar. Bothwell then obtained a divorce from his recently married wife on 7 May, received a public pardon on 12 May from Mary for her seizure and was created Duke of Orkney, and then was married to the Queen on 15 May 1567. It was at this point that Mary was faced with a confederacy of nobles who stood against her and she surrendered at Carberry on 15 June 1567. Imprisoned on an island castle in Loch Leven, Mary was compelled to abdicate in favour of her infant son. She was now aged twenty-four.

After escaping from Loch Leven on 2 May 1568, and in spite of receiving much support and massing an army of six thousand, she was defeated by the Regent, James Stewart, Earl of Moray, at Langside on 13 May 1568. Mary then crossed the Solway into England and sought the help of Elizabeth I only to remain under house arrest - a prisoner - for just over twenty years - variously at Carlisle, Bolton, Tutbury, Wingfield, Coventry, Chatsworth, Sheffield, Buxton, and Chartley. In England she became the focus of plots by English Catholics and foreign agents. Through the efforts of Sir Francis Walsingham (1530-1590) and his state security system, the 1586 Babington Plot against Elizabeth was revealed, implicating Mary who was then housed at Chartley in Staffordshire. She was brought to trial in September 1586, a sentence of death was passed in October 1586, and with the consent of Elizabeth she was executed at Fotheringay Castle on 8 February 1587. She was succeeded by her son, James VI, who would later become King James I of England and Ireland on the death of Elizabeth.

From the guide to the Collection of papers relating to Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587), 16th century-17th century, (Edinburgh University Library)