John Stewart, Duke of Albany - Later Years

Later Years

Albany also lived in Rome as a diplomat working for France and Scotland. The Spanish ambassador Miçer Mai mentions meeting him at the Papal Palace and then holding negotiations at the Imperial Embassy in August 1531. Albany was delegated to negotiate with Pope Clement VI for a marriage between James V and Catherine de'Medici, the young Duchess of Urbino in 1530. This was perhaps a diplomatic manoeuvre to force Francis I of France to honour a clause in the 1517 Treaty of Rouen which promised the Scottish King a royal French bride. In May 1531, Albany was instructed that this marriage was off, and it was planned that James V would be engaged to Christina of Denmark.

Francis I of France met John Stewart at Riom in the Auvergne on 10 July 1533. They received Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Sir Anthony Browne, Keeper of the Jewels of Henry VIII of England, described the reception of the French king at nearby towns organised by Albany in his letter to Thomas Cromwell. Charles, Duke of Vendôme also attended the meeting at Riom. In June, Francis had written to James V of Scotland from Lyon that he would offer him a bride from a noble French family, "as if she were his proper daughter." Two years later, James V of Scotland commissioned Albany to contract his marriage to Charles of Vendôme's daughter, Mary of Bourbon. James V subsequently travelled to France to meet Mary of Bourbon, but married the Princess Madeleine of Valois instead.

Albany and the Duchess of Vendôme were at Cambrai on 16 August 1535 when the Queen of France and met the Queen of Hungary. The daughters of the Francis I were there too. In 1533, Catherine, one of his closest surviving relatives, who held him as an uncle and sort of guardian, came from Italy to marry Henry, Duke of Orleans, second son of king Francis I. In 1536, young Henry became Dauphin of France and Catherine was destined to become queen.

When Albany, the penultimate unquestionably legitimate agnate of the Royal House of Stewart, died on 2 June 1536 at Mirefleur Castle in Auvergne, the position of next heir of Scotland went for the first time to a descendant from the female line, who at the time was James Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Arran (c. 1516-75), son of another grandson of king James II.