question: For what reason did King Henry VIII start the "Rough Wooing"? answer: To force the Scots to allow the betrothal of Mary Stuart to his son Edward, to keep Scotland under his control paragraph: Mary, Queen of Scots: The baby was Mary Stuart, who at the age of nine months was crowned Queen of Scots at the Chapel Royal, Stirling. When the news reached London, Henry VIII saw his chance to subdue Scotland again and negotiated a marriage between the infant Mary and his son Edward. The Scots refused, and Henry sent an army rampaging through Scotland on a campaign known as the "Rough Wooing. " The English king ordered his general to "burn Edinburgh town so there may remain forever a perpetual memory of the vengeance of God lightened upon the Scots. " But more was at stake than simply Scotland's independence: there was now a religious schism within Britain. In order to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII had broken with Rome and brought the English church under his own control. England was thus now a Protestant country, caught between Catholic France and the Scots with their new Catholic queen. The Scots themselves were divided, many embracing Protestantism in the spirit of the Reformation while others remained staunchly Catholic. However, fear of the rampaging English army led the Scots again to seek help from their old Ailies in France, and the young queen married the Dauphin François, son of the French king. François II became king of France in 1559 but died soon after. In 1561 the 18-year-old Mary returned to a Scotland in the grip of the Reformation, as Protestant leaders had taken control of the Scottish parliament and abolished the authority of the pope. Her Protestant cousin, Elizabeth Tudor, was on the English throne, but Elizabeth — the "Virgin Queen" — had no heir. Mary was next in line for the English crown, and Elizabeth was suspicious of her intentions. The six years of Mary's reign were turbulent ones. She clashed early on with Edinburgh's famous Protestant reformer, John Knox, who held sway in St. Giles but later adopted an uneasy policy of religious tolerance. In 1565 she married her young cousin Henry, Lord Darnley, much to the chagrin of Elizabeth (Darnley was a grandson of Margaret Tudor and thus also had a claim to the English throne). On 19 June 1566, in the royal apartments in Edinburgh Castle, Mary gave birth to a son, Prince James. Within a year, however, Darnley was murdered, and Mary immediately immersed herself in controversy by marrying the Earl of Bothwell, the chief suspect. 