In December he was sent by the queen dowager to secure Stirling, and in 1560 was despatched on a mission to France, visiting Denmark on the way, where he either married or seduced Anne, daughter of Christopher Thorssen, whom he afterwards deserted, and who came to Scotland in 1563 to obtain redress.
The queen dowager and her daughter were carefully watched at Linlithgow, but on the 23rd of July 1543 they escaped, with the help of Cardinal Beton, to the safer walls of Stirling castle.
On the 7th of February, 1386, he was treacherously attacked in the queen-dowager's own apartments, at her instigation, and died of his injuries a few days later.
Educated as a Catholic by his mother, he was on the death of Stephen Bathory elected king of Poland (August 19, 1587) chiefly through the efforts of the Polish chancellor, Jan Zamoyski, and of his own aunt, Anne, queen-dowager of Poland, who lent the chancellor 10o,000 gulden to raise troops in defence of her nephew's cause.
Civil strife broke out in Scotland between John Knox and the queen-dowager - between the selfstyled "congregation of the Lord" and the adherents of the regent, whose French troops repelled the combined forces of the Scotch and their English allies from the beleaguered walls of Leith, little more than a month before the death of their mistress in the castle of Edinburgh, on the 10th of June 1560.
