Henry Stuart Darnley, lord, the second husband of Mary queen of Scots, born in England in 1546, killed near Edinburgh, Feb. 9, 1567. He was the son of the exiled earl of Lennox by Margaret Douglas, daughter of the earl of Angus by Queen Margaret, widow of James IV. and sister of Henry VIII, and was therefore cousin german of Queen Mary, and a cousin of Queen Elizabeth. On his father's side he was descended from the royal line of Scotland. When Mary announced her intention of contracting a second marriage, Darnley, who possessed a handsome person and was skilled in many of the accomplishments of the age, went to Scotland to urge his suit, and was accepted. He was created earl of Ross and Albany, and renounced his allegiance to Elizabeth. His marriage with Mary took place at Holyrood house, July 29, 1565, on which occasion she proclaimed him king, and promised to induce the Scottish parliament to grant him a crown matrimonial. He was conceited, arrogant, and according to Randolph, the English ambassador, "an intolerable fool." He repaid Mary's kindness by petulance and insolence, and open profligacy and infidelity; and finally alienated her affections by his participation in the murder of her secretary, the Italian Rizzio, March 9, 1566. She threatened revenge, and said to him, "I shall never rest till I give you as sorrowful a heart as I have at this present." Shortly afterward he denounced his confederates in this act, and aided Mary in driving them from the kingdom.

Even then they might have become reconciled, but his vices and follies continually widened the breach. On June 19, 1566, their son James, afterward James I. of England, was born. In January, 1567, at Glasgow, Darnley was taken ill with smallpox, and during his convalescence was removed to a solitary house called the Kirk of Field, near Edinburgh, from an apprehension that if taken to Holyrood he might communicate his disease to the young prince. The queen visited him here several times, and seemed to manifest some tenderness for him. On the night of Feb. 9 the house was blown up with gunpowder, and the dead bodies of Darnley and his servant were found near the ruins. The earl of Bothwell, the queen's lover, was the chief actor in this tragedy, and three months later the queen became his wife.