The Crown Matrimonial is a legal concept used to describe a person's right to co-reign equally with his or her spouse.
The Crown Matrimonial was offered to King Francis II of France, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, by the Parliament of Scotland and Mary's mother, Mary of Guise, who was regent of Scotland. It would make Francis legal co-sovereign of Scotland with Queen Mary, and would also grant Francis the right to keep the Scottish throne if he outlived her. By the terms of the offer, he would be able to pass the Scottish crown to his descendants by a wife other than Mary. The Crown of Scotland was to be sent to France, where it was supposed to be kept at the Abbey of Saint Denis. However, the offer was never realised, as the Hamilton family who were close to the throne, joined the Protestants and opposed it.
Mary's second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, demanded the Crown Matrimonial. The Protestant peers promised to make him sovereign by the consent of Parliament. They agreed that Henry, as the new sovereign, would pardon all the exiled Protestants and allow them to return to Scotland. However, the plan was never realised.
Famous quotes containing the words crown and/or matrimonial:
“There might you have beheld one joy crown another, so and in such manner that it seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their joy waded in tears.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“That nameless and infinitely delicate aroma of inexpressible tenderness and attentiveness which, in every refined and honorable attachment, is contemporary with the courtship, and precedes the final banns and the rite; but which, like the bouquet of the costliest German wines, too often evaporates upon pouring love out to drink, in the disenchanting glasses of the matrimonial days and nights.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)