Madeleine of Valois
Madeleine of France ( born August 10, 1520 in St- Germain -en- Laye, † July 7, 1537 in Edinburgh) was Queen of Scotland.
She was born the fifth child and third daughter of the French king Francis I and his wife Claude of France. In the Treaty of Rouen between Scotland and France was determined that James V., who was in 1513 at the age of 17 months become king of Scotland, was to marry a daughter of Francis I..
1534 Jacob thought initially to marry Margaret Erskine his mistress and mother of his son, James Stewart, Earl of Moray, but its parliament persuaded him to marry a foreign princess. When he then came back to the idea of a French marriage, he chose the 14 -year-old Madeleine, who although at the time of the Treaty of Rouen not yet born, now was the eldest princess, because her older sisters died early. Their father answered, however, she was still too young and offered him three other high- French noblewomen, Marie de Bourbon, Marie de Guise and Isabelle of Navarre. 1536 Jacob traveled to Paris to meet Marie de Bourbon, was not of her but not likely. Instead, he and the now 16 -year-old Madeleine in love. Her father was reluctant to consent to a marriage, he had concerns about the health of the sensitive girl.
On January 1, 1537, the couple was married in Paris Notre- Dame de Paris, remained until the spring at the French court and then traveled to Scotland in May. Upon their arrival in Leith Madeleine took two handful of Scottish earth, as a public gesture that she was now Queen.
Like her father had feared, the young princess fell ill and died already in July in Edinburgh, before she could be crowned. The marriage sprang children. A year after her death, married her husband who also widowed only a year Marie de Guise, who had previously attended with her then-husband the marriage of Jacob and Madeleine.
Madeleine was buried in Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh. Sir David Lindsay wrote an application on the occasion of her death, in which he describes how the joy while preparing for her coronation in sudden sorrow capsized.