[191], In May 1569, Elizabeth attempted to mediate the restoration of Mary in return for guarantees of the Protestant religion, but a convention held at Perth rejected the deal overwhelmingly. Margaret was Henry VIII's older sister so Mary was Henry VIII's great-niece. As biographer. His death occurred soon after an unsuccessful rebellion in the North of England, led by Catholic earls, which persuaded Elizabeth that Mary was a threat. Mary | Biography & Facts | Britannica Her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I held her. Given her precarious hold on the throne and the subsequent paranoia that plagued her reign, she had little motivation to name a successor who could threaten her own safety. On her way back to Edinburgh on 24 April, Mary was abducted, willingly or not, by Lord Bothwell and his men and taken to Dunbar Castle, where he may have raped her. Instead, worried that Mary wanted to . [218] On 3 February,[219] ten members of the Privy Council of England, having been summoned by Cecil without Elizabeth's knowledge, decided to carry out the sentence at once. [52], When Henry II died on 10 July 1559, from injuries sustained in a joust, fifteen-year-old Francis and sixteen-year-old Mary became king and queen of France. Francis II After spending the night at Dundrennan Abbey, she crossed the Solway Firth into England by fishing boat on 16 May. [156] Mary denied writing them and insisted they were forgeries,[157] arguing that her handwriting was not difficult to imitate. With Angela Bain, Richard Cant, Guy Rhys, Thom Petty. 10 Facts About Mary, Queen of Scots | History Hit [193] Early the following year, Moray was assassinated. He was superficially charming and, unlike most men, taller than the queen. [196] To discredit Mary, the casket letters were published in London. [61] Her mother-in-law, Catherine de' Medici, became regent for the late king's ten-year-old brother Charles IX, who inherited the French throne. [238] Her body was exhumed in 1612 when her son, King James VI and I, ordered that she be reinterred in Westminster Abbey in a chapel opposite the tomb of Elizabeth. Darnley was murdered a few months after they were married, and Mary later married James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell. Not only had Darnleys arrogant behaviour during the early months of the marriage angered many of the Scottish nobles, but it had also incurred the displeasure of Queen Elizabeth I of England, who was angry to see Darnley, as her English subject, marry the Queen of Scots, who was herself in line to the throne of England. Janet Dickinson paints the Scottish queens relationship with Elizabeth in similar terms, arguing that the pairs dynamic was shaped by circumstance rather than choice. [229] Cecil's nephew, who was present at the execution, reported to his uncle that after her death, "Her lips stirred up and down a quarter of an hour after her head was cut off" and that a small dog owned by the queen emerged from hiding among her skirts[230]though eye-witness Emanuel Tomascon does not include those details in his "exhaustive report". Mary Queen of Scots was executed by beheading at the age of 44 on the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I of England. Mary's life and subsequent execution established her in popular culture as a romanticised historical character. Mary, unwilling to cause further bloodshed and understandably terrified, followed his suggestions. [201] Elizabeth also rejected the association because she did not trust Mary to cease plotting against her during the negotiations. [248] There is no concrete proof of her complicity in Darnley's murder or of a conspiracy with Bothwell. Her only condition was the immediate alleviation of the conditions of her captivity. In France, Mary . | READ MORE. [100], Before long, Darnley grew arrogant. At that moment, the auburn tresses in his hand turned out to be a wig and the head fell to the ground, revealing that Mary had very short, grey hair. [190] Her health declined, perhaps through porphyria or lack of exercise. She was thought to be dying. ), Mary was a Catholic queen in a largely Protestant state, but she formed compromises that enabled her to maintain authority without infringing on the practice of either religion. [150] Mary's clothes, sent from Loch Leven Castle, arrived on 20 July. [74] However, she assured Maitland that she knew no one with a better claim than Mary. [105] On the night of 1112 March, Darnley and Mary escaped from the palace. Henry Stuart Lord Darnley - facts about the second husband of Mary [102] By March 1566, Darnley had entered into a secret conspiracy with Protestant lords, including the nobles who had rebelled against Mary in the Chaseabout Raid. [208], Mary was moved to Fotheringhay Castle in a four-day journey ending on 25 September. He was ultimately found with Henry VII. 5. Following her brief period as queen of France, the widowed Mary [Francois died in December 1560] returned to Scotland in 1561, aged 18, and ready to take up the burden of personal sovereignty. [217] On 1 February 1587, Elizabeth signed the death warrant, and entrusted it to William Davison, a privy councillor. [122] In the early hours of the morning, an explosion devastated Kirk o' Field. However, the murder of Rizzio led to the breakdown of her marriage. A Huguenot uprising in France, the Tumult of Amboise, made it impossible for the French to send further support. On 9 February 1567, Darnley was found dead outside a dwelling in Kirk oField, Edinburgh, following an explosion. In doing so, the English queen avoided falling under a mans dominionand maintained the possibility of a marriage treaty as a bargaining chip. The True Story of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I [163], Mary's biographers, such as Antonia Fraser, Alison Weir, and John Guy, have come to the conclusion that either the documents were complete forgeries,[164] or incriminating passages were inserted into genuine letters,[165] or the letters were written to Bothwell by a different person or written by Mary to a different person. Coronation of Mary, Queen of Scots in Stirling Castle . [97] In what became known as the Chaseabout Raid, Mary with her forces and Moray with the rebellious lords roamed around Scotland without ever engaging in direct combat. [66] The Protestant reformer John Knox preached against Mary, condemning her for hearing Mass, dancing, and dressing too elaborately. Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 - 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart [3] or Mary I of Scotland, [4] was Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567. The council was dominated by the Protestant leaders from the reformation crisis of 15591560: the Earls of Argyll, Glencairn, and Moray. Mary, Queen of Scots became Queen of Scotland at six days old. Facts about the execution of Mary Queen of Scots Mary was accompanied by her own court including two illegitimate half-brothers, and the "four Marys" (four girls her own age, all named Mary), who were the daughters of some of the noblest families in Scotland: Beaton, Seton, Fleming, and Livingston. [205], On 11 August 1586, after being implicated in the Babington Plot, Mary was arrested while out riding and taken to Tixall Hall in Staffordshire. [171] At least some of Mary's contemporaries who saw the letters had no doubt that they were genuine. As she settled into her new rolealthough crowned queen of Scotland in infancy, she spent much of her early reign in France, leaving first her mother, Mary of Guise, and then her half-brother James, Earl of Moray, to act as regent on her behalfshe sought to strengthen relations with her southern neighbor, Elizabeth. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. All too frequently, representations of Mary and Elizabeth reduce the queens to oversimplified stereotypes. [134] The marriage was tempestuous, and Mary became despondent. [137] The following night, she was imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle on an island in the middle of Loch Leven. She was considered a pretty child and later, as a woman, strikingly attractive. Elizabeth refused to name a potential heir, fearing that would invite conspiracy to displace her with the nominated successor. Perceiving Mary as a threat, Elizabeth had her confined in various castles and manor houses in the interior of England. [130], Between 21 and 23 April 1567, Mary visited her son at Stirling for the last time. Mary, aged 22, described her 19-year-old groom as the lustiest and best proportioned long man that she had seen but her infatuation was to be her downfall, and her initial happiness didnt last. Despite the fact that Mary was also queen of Scotland, she knew little of the land of her birth. [133], Originally, Mary believed that many nobles supported her marriage, but relations quickly soured between the newly elevated Bothwell (created Duke of Orkney) and his former peers and the marriage proved to be deeply unpopular. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine [212] She told her triers, "Look to your consciences and remember that the theatre of the whole world is wider than the kingdom of England. [126] Elizabeth wrote to Mary of the rumours: .mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, I should ill fulfil the office of a faithful cousin or an affectionate friend if I did not tell you what all the world is thinking. [240], Assessments of Mary in the 16th century divided between Protestant reformers such as George Buchanan and John Knox, who vilified her mercilessly, and Catholic apologists such as Adam Blackwood, who praised, defended and eulogised her. It was reached by two or three steps, and furnished with the block, a cushion for her to kneel on, and three stools for her and the earls of Shrewsbury and Kent, who were there to witness the execution. Mary, Queen of Scots, also known as Mary Stuart, was born into conflict. By the 1580s, she had severe rheumatism in her limbs, rendering her lame. [246], Historian Jenny Wormald concluded that Mary was a tragic failure, who was unable to cope with the demands placed on her,[247] but hers was a rare dissenting view in a post-Fraser tradition that Mary was a pawn in the hands of scheming noblemen. Historian Jenny Wormald believes this reluctance on the part of the Scots to produce the letters and their destruction in 1584, whatever their content, constitute proof that they contained real evidence against Mary. [215] Nevertheless, Elizabeth hesitated to order her execution, even in the face of pressure from the English Parliament to carry out the sentence. "[117] Darnley feared for his safety, and after the baptism of his son at Stirling and shortly before Christmas, he went to Glasgow to stay on his father's estates. This decision proved to be disastrous, since Mary was soon a prisoner of the queen and would spend the next nineteen years as Elizabeths prisoner, before she was executed for plotting against the queen on 8 February 1587 at Fotheringay Castle. For the list of documents see, for example. Mary was born on 8 December 1542 at Linlithgow Palace, Scotland, to King James V and his French second wife, Mary of Guise. They traveled from one royal palace to another Fontainebleau to Meudon, or to Chambord or Saint-Germain. She had been queen for all but the first six days of her life, John Guy writes in Queen of Scots, [but] apart from a few short but intoxicating weeks in the following year, the rest of her life would be spent in captivity.. [27], In May 1546, Beaton was murdered by Protestant lairds,[28] and on 10 September 1547, nine months after the death of Henry VIII, the Scots suffered a heavy defeat at the Battle of Pinkie. The castle was the site of the birth of King James VI, also James I of England from 1603, to Mary Queen of Scots in 1566. James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell was a Scottish nobleman who was accused of Darnleys murder, although he was later acquitted. Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley - Wikipedia Darnley was a weak man and soon became a drunkard as Mary ruled entirely alone and gave him no real authority in the country. George Lasry, Norbert Biermann, Satoshi Tomokiyo, Two of the commissioners were Catholics (, Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland, abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son James, Cultural depictions of Mary, Queen of Scots, "National Records of Scotland; Hall of Fame A-Z - Mary Queen of Scots", "Elizabeth and Mary, Royal Cousins, Rival Queens: Curators' Picks". And though Marys father, James V, reportedly made a deathbed prediction that the Stuart dynasty, which came with a lassMarjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert the Brucewould also pass with a lass, the woman who fulfilled this prophecy was not the infant James left his throne to, but her descendant Queen Anne, whose 1714 death marked the official end of the dynastic line. [46] Twenty days later, she married the Dauphin at Notre Dame de Paris, and he became king consort of Scotland. On 15 May, at either Holyrood Palace or Holyrood Abbey, they were married according to Protestant rites. [174] Elizabeth, as she had wished, concluded the inquiry with a verdict that nothing was proven against either the confederate lords or Mary. [176] In Fraser's opinion, it was one of the strangest "trials" in legal history, ending with no finding of guilt against either party, one of whom was allowed to return home to Scotland while the other remained in custody. He sent copies to Elizabeth, saying that if they were genuine, they might prove Mary's guilt. Aged five Mary Queen of Scots was sent to France by her mother Marie of Guise because she was contracted to marry Francis (Francois), the eldest son of King Henri II of France and Catherine de Medici. Darnley's parents, the Earl and Countess of Lennox, were Scottish aristocrats as well as English landowners. Henry commented: "from the very first day they met, my son and she got on as well together as if they had known each other for a long time". Yet, in the eyes of many Catholics, Elizabeth was illegitimate and Mary Stuart was the rightful queen of England, as the senior surviving legitimate descendant of Henry VII through her grandmother, Margaret Tudor. Her Marys returned with her as ladies-in-waiting. [106] The former rebels Lords Moray, Argyll and Glencairn were restored to the council. Here are 10 facts about Mary Queen of Scots. [8], A popular tale, first recorded by John Knox, states that James, upon hearing on his deathbed that his wife had given birth to a daughter, ruefully exclaimed, "It cam wi' a lass and it will gang wi' a lass! Mary was aged just fifteen when she was married to Francis, although the pair had been betrothed ten years earlier. Both queens were surprisingly fluid in their religious inclinations. [108] In October 1566, while staying at Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders, Mary made a journey on horseback of at least four hours each way to visit the Earl of Bothwell at Hermitage Castle, where he lay ill from wounds sustained in a skirmish with border reivers. She became queen at 6 days old. They took temporary refuge in Dunbar Castle before returning to Edinburgh on 18 March. The pair exchanged regular correspondence, trading warm sentiments and discussing the possibility of meeting face-to-face. But he never seemed to care for Mary and sought far more power than she was willing to give him. Today, assessments of Mary Stuart range from historian Jenny Wormalds biting characterization of the queen as a study in failure to John Guys more sympathetic reading, which deems Mary the unluckiest ruler in British history, a glittering and charismatic queen who faced stacked odds from the beginning. The authenticity of the letters, now known only by copies, continues to be debated. To avoid the bloodshed of battle, she turned herself over and the rebels took her to Edinburgh while Bothwell struggled to rally troops of his own. He was jealous of her friendship with her Catholic private secretary, David Rizzio, who was rumoured to be the father of her child. [216], Elizabeth asked Paulet, Mary's final custodian, if he would contrive a clandestine way to "shorten the life" of Mary, which he refused to do on the grounds that he would not make "a shipwreck of my conscience, or leave so great a blot on my poor posterity". Abduction: 24 April 1567 In October, she was put on trial for treason under the Act for the Queen's Safety before a court of 36 noblemen,[209] including Cecil, Shrewsbury, and Walsingham. Cookie Policy Terms of Use Robbie provides the foil to Ronans Mary, donning a prosthetic nose and clown-like layers of white makeup to resemble a smallpox-scarred Elizabeth. [166] Guy points out that the letters are disjointed and that the French language and grammar employed in the sonnets are too poor for a writer with Mary's education[167] but certain phrases in the letters, including verses in the style of Ronsard, and some characteristics of style are compatible with known writings by Mary. So she consented to wed Bothwell, hoping that this would finally stabilize the country. Despite being married three times, there are relatively few portraits of Mary with her husbands. [90] Although her advisors had brought the couple together, Elizabeth felt threatened by the marriage because as descendants of her aunt, both Mary and Darnley were claimants to the English throne. He ignored the edict. In the end, Moray returned to Scotland as regent and Mary remained in custody in England. The denouement of Mary and Elizabeths decades-long power struggle is easily recalled by even the most casual of observers: On February 8, 1587, the deposed Scottish queen knelt at an execution block, uttered a string of final prayers, and stretched out her arms to assent to the fall of the headsmans axe. Mary, Queen of Scots is born, daughter of James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise . [95], Mary's marriage to a leading Catholic precipitated Mary's half-brother, the Earl of Moray, to join with other Protestant lords, including Lords Argyll and Glencairn, in open rebellion. Now, they were angry that Bothwell would be all-powerful and they decided to wage war against him. Francis and Mary were well known to each other at the time of their nuptials, since Mary had been brought up in the French royal court, following the death of her father King James V of Scotland when she was just five days old. "[213] She protested that she had been denied the opportunity to review the evidence, that her papers had been removed from her, that she was denied access to legal counsel and that as a foreign anointed queen she had never been an English subject and thus could not be convicted of treason. One of the most shocking scenes in the upcoming Mary Queen of Scots movie comes when Mary Stuart, played by Saoirse Ronan, walks in on her husband Henry . The lords took Mary to Edinburgh, where crowds of spectators denounced her as an adulteress and murderer. Relations between Mary and Elizabeth had soured following the Scottish queens union with Darnley, which the English queen viewed as a threat to her throne. [109] The ride was later used as evidence by Mary's enemies that the two were lovers, though no suspicions were voiced at the time and Mary had been accompanied by her councillors and guards. The Gay Stuff in "Mary Queen of Scots" Is Actually Pretty - Out But it is unlikely that, had he been successful, Darnley would have long survived his wife. 14. [149] In mid-July 1568, English authorities moved Mary to Bolton Castle, because it was farther from the Scottish border but not too close to London. Even the one significant later addition to the council, Lord Ruthven in December 1563, was another Protestant whom Mary personally disliked. December 14 2018 5:26 PM EST. After eighteen and a half years in captivity, Mary was found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth in 1586 and was beheaded the following year at Fotheringhay Castle. The daughter of King Henry VIII and the Spanish princess Catherine . Edinburgh Castle. [67] She summoned him to her presence to remonstrate with him but was unsuccessful. In February 1567, Darnley's residence was destroyed by an explosion, and he was found murdered in the garden. "[224] Her servants, Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curle, and the executioners helped Mary remove her outer garments, revealing a velvet petticoat and a pair of sleeves in crimson brown, the liturgical colour of martyrdom in the Catholic Church,[225] with a black satin bodice and black trimmings.
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