History Spotlight, 3/9

David Rizzio, the Italian secretary of Mary, Queen of Scots is murdered by Mary's husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley in Holyrood Castle in Edinburg, Scotland on this day in Edinburgh, Scotland. Rizzio was born in Turin in 1533. His father was a music teacher and he had always wanted to rise in status. This led Rizzio to courts of various low-rent nobles in Europe: the Duke of Savoy in Nice, then the Count de Morret. In 1561, while in the service of de Morret that Rizzio found himself in Scotland, as the Count was there on diplomatic business.

Rizzio tried to move another notch by getting himself into the Mary's court. They weren't hiring (it probably didn't help that he was thought to be extremely ugly), so he got in good with the Queen's musicians who had just thrown out a member needed someone to sing bass. It was a Pete Best/Ringo Starr situation.

This was the entry Rizzio needed into the Scottish court. Because of his upbringing, he was already a skilled musician and singer and his affable Continental manner soon brought him to the notice of the Queen. Queen Mary may have been born in Scotland, but she had been raised in France since she was five years old and the loud, brash ways of the Scots frequently aggravated her. Mary and Rizzio soon became good friends and she made him her secretary in 1564.

All the things that made him such an attractive companion only served to annoy the Scottish nobles: he was a climber, he was lowly born, he was Catholic and he was a foreigner. Rizzio didn't think much of the Scots, either and the private little giggles that he and the Queen would share only annoyed them all the more. It didn't help that one of these nobles, Lord Darnley who she had married in 1565, was a certified nutjob, alcoholic and abusive. If he were alive today, you'd see him on an episode of Cops.

Darnely didn't like Rizzio at all. He didn't like all the time Mary was spending with Rizzio and, most of all, he didn't like the way Mary treated him like he wasn't good enough for her. Darnley started spending his time drinking and thinking about what his wife, who wouldn't touch him, was doing with that Italian guy all those hours behind closed door. Darnley's buddies laid it on thick too. One can imagine them out on a day's hunt, getting well stewed, and his pals going, "I can't believe you're putting up with that, man! You're, like, her boss!"

On March 9, 1566 it all came to a head. Darnley and his cronies burst into the Queen's private dining room and demanded that Rizzio be turned over to them. The Queen refused and Rizzio hid behind her. Everybody's screaming - Darnley, his pals, the Queen. Rizzio is praying loudly in Italian. People outside of the castle (Holyrood is in town) were understandably concerned and several hundered of them soon showed up with makeshift weapons to offer assistance. Darnley jammed a pistol in his wife's back and made her dismiss the crowd.

Rizzio was then stabbed 56 times, thrown down a flight of stairs, stripped of his valuables and quickly buried. Mary had him dug up and interred in the sepulcher of the Kings of Scotland, which really annoyed the nobles even more.