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This article is about the Historical figure Mary Fleming. You may be looking for the Reign character Lola Narcisse.


Mary Fleming was a Scottish noblewoman and childhood companion of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. She and three other ladies-in-waiting: Mary Livingston, Mary Beaton, and Mary Seton were collectively known as "The Four Marys". A granddaughter of James IV of Scotland, she married the queen's renowned secretary, Sir William Maitland of Lethington.

Biography

Married Life and Rumors

Later in life, Mary Fleming married the queen's royal secretary, Sir William Maitland of Lethington, who was many years her senior. The following evidence compellingly suggests that the marriage was successful, despite rumors that they were unhappy and that Mary wished to murder her husband:

1.The wedding occurred after a three-year courtship that weathered ambivalent relations between Maitland and Mary, Queen of Scots, to whom Mary Fleming was a lady-in-waiting and had been since the age of five.

2.Maitland was so infatuated with Mary Fleming that he wrote to William Cecil about it.

3.The courtship was the talk of both the Scottish and English courts.

4.It appears that Mary Fleming was captured with her husband at Edinburgh Castle by the English, and then surrendered to Regent Morton. While her sister-in-law was permitted to keep her property and plate, Mary Fleming was forced to give up her possessions including jewelry given her by the Queen of Scots. Her much-older husband was carried out of the castle on a litter, because he was unable to stand or walk. He died awaiting trial and execution. Suicide was suspected. After the death of William Maitland, Mary Fleming wrote to Cecil to prevent his dead body from being hanged, drawn and quartered. As a result, Queen Elizabeth asked Morton to spare the body, which he did. Not long after William's death Mary soon remarried and chose George Meldrum of Fyvie for her second husband.

Later Life and Children

Mary Fleming did not receive the restoration of Lethington's estate and properties until 1581-82, by grant of King James VI, there is some dispute about this.

She had two children, a boy James, who later became a Catholic and lived in France and Belgium in self-imposed exile, and a daughter Margaret, who married Robert Ker, 1st Earl of Roxburghe. In 1581, Mary, Queen of Scots asked Elizabeth I to grant Fleming safe conduct so she could visit the imprisoned Queen of Scots. There is no evidence that Mary Fleming Maitland actually went. The last documents attributed to her are her letter to Cecil and a letter to her sister discussing some bad feelings that existed between Fleming and her brother-in-law Coldingham.

Gallery

References

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