Darnley, Henry Stewart, Lord 1545-67
Scottish nobleman

Born in Temple Newsome, England, the eldest son and heir of Matthew, 4th Earl of Lennox, he was proposed as a husband for his cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, upon the death of her first husband, Francis II of France. In 1565 he married Mary at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh in the presence of just seven witnesses, having been proclaimed Henry, King of Scots, the previous day. A son was born (the future James VI and I), but the marriage was disastrous. Darnley's participation in the plot to murder David Rizzio, the queen's Italian secretary, finally estranged him from her. He was himself murdered in Edinburgh when Kirk O'Field, the house in which he was sleeping, was blown up at the instigation of his wife's new suitor, the Earl of Bothwell, who subsequently married the queen.