Mary of Guise

She was queen of Scotland as the second spouse of King James V, the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, and served as regent of Scotland in her daughter's name from 1554 to 1560. A native of Lorraine, she was a member of the powerful House of Guise, which played a prominent role in 16th-century French politics.

In 1537, Mary became the focus of marriage negotiations with James V of Scotland, who had lost his first wife, Madeleine of Valois, and wanted a second French bride to further the interests of the Franco-Scottish alliance against England. According to a 17th-century writer, James V had noticed the attractions of Mary when he went to France to meet Madeleine and Mary of Bourbon, and she was next in his affections.

The recently-widowed Henry VIII of England, in attempts to prevent this union, also asked for Mary's hand. Given Henry's marital history – banishing his first wife and beheading the second – Mary refused the offer. Henry VIII told to the French ambassador in London, that he was big in person and had need of a big wife, and Mary replied, "I may be a big woman, but I have a very little neck." This was apparently a tribute to the famously macabre jest made by Henry's French-educated second wife, Anne Boleyn, who had joked before her death that the executioner would find killing her easy because she had "a little neck."

c. 1537

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more about her: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_of_…