From the service of the Constable Montmorency, Chastelard, then a page, passed to the household of Marshal Damville, whom he accompanied in his journey to Scotland in escort of Mary (1561).
He returned to Paris in the marshal's train, but left for Scotland again shortly afterwards, bearing letters of recommendation to Mary from his old protector, Montmorency, and the Regrets addressed to the Queen Dowager of France by Pierre de Ronsard, his master in the art of song.
[1] He met his fate valiantly and consistently, reading, on his way to the scaffold, his master's noble Hymne de la mort, and turning at the instant of doom towards the palace of Holyrood, to address to his unseen mistress the famous farewell "Adieu, toi si belle et si cruelle, qui me tues et que je ne puis cesser d’aimer" ("farewell to you, so beautiful and so cruel, who kill me and whom I cannot cease to love").
When he arrived in Scotland in November 1561, Mary showed him her favour by letting him ride a horse that was a present from her half-brother Lord Robert Stewart.
On 14 February 1563, St Valentine's day, Chastelard was discovered in the Queen's chamber under her Great Bed at Rossend Castle at Burntisland.