She was the great-niece of King Henry VIII of England, as her paternal grandmother, Margaret Tudor, was Henry VIII's sister. On 14 December, six days after her birth, she became Queen of Scotland when her father died.
Scotland was ruled by regents until she became an adult. From the outset, there were two different claims to the Regency: one from the Protestant Earl of Arran, who was next in line to the throne, and the other from Catholic Cardinal Beaton. Beaton's claim was based on a version of the late King's will that his opponents dismissed as a forgery. Arran, with the support of his friends and relations, became the regent until 1554 when Mary's mother managed to remove and succeed him.
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| Young Mary, Queen of Scots(around the age of 12-14) |
As her mother was regent she sent her daughter to France in 1548. She had married the future King of France - Francis II. She was fifteen and he was fourteen. Her father-in-law, was Henry II, King of France Mary lived in luxury travelling from one palace to another. She developed a love of animals - especially dogs - and spent a lot of time learning. She could speak French, Latin, Spanish and some Ancient Greek. Mary could also play the lute with some skill. Her religious teacher was a monk from the priory at Inchmahome in Scotland and she developed very strong views on religion.
Francis had always been a sickly youth and his death aged sixteen in 1560 surprised no-one but it left Mary a widow at the age of seventeen.
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| Mary, Queen of Scots, aged 17 |
She returned to Scotland as Queen of the Scots aged eighteen in 1561.
In 1565, she married her cousin, Lord Darnley, when she was 22. He was very unpopular with the people of Scotland as he was a violent, bad-tempered drunkard. During a party Darnley stabbed to death Mary's private secretary an Italian called David Rizzio. Mary was horrified.
In June 1566, Mary gave birth to a son, called James. He would later become King James VI of Scotland and after the death of his cousin Elizabeth I of England he would become King James I of England. (James was the first monarch to rule both Scotland and England)
On February 9th 1567, Mary and Lord Darnley were at a house called Kirk O'Field. Late in the evening she remembered that she had to see some friends and rode off. Scotland was a very dangerous country in the Sixteenth Century and it would have needed a very brave person to venture out at night without being fully guarded. That night, Kirk O'Field was blown up. Darnley's body was found in the garden of the house. The explosion had not killed him - he had been strangled. Just three months later, Mary married the Earl of Bothwell. He was as disliked as Darnley by the Scots lords and they rose up against Mary.The Earl of Bothwell escaped to Europe where he died an alcoholic and all but insane. Mary was arrested and held prisoner at Loch Leven Castle.
She was made to give up the throne for James, her son. Mary later escaped from her prison and she fled to England where she hoped her cousin, Elizabeth, would look after her. Mary's logic was twofold. First, Mary was a Queen and so was Elizabeth. Mary expected a Queen to help a Queen. Secondly, Mary assumed that their family ties would prove strong. She could not have been more wrong.
Simply by being in England, Mary represented a threat to Elizabeth. Elizabeth had a belief that if someone was a Catholic and practiced their beliefs privately and represented no threat to the Queen, then she was willing to tolerate their religion. If the Catholics were respectful to the Queen and obedient, then Elizabeth could see no reason why they should not be tolerated. The nation greatly benefited from religious stability. Mary, Queen of Scots, threatened this stability. As a Catholic, she might become a focus for all the Catholics who existed in England and a leader for them. In this sense, Mary was a very real threat to Elizabeth.
Another major reason is as follows: there were some who believed that the marriage between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn had been illegal. Catholics certainly did not recognise Henry's divorce from the Catholic Catherine of Aragon and there were rumours that Henry had married Anne before his divorce had actually come through. Therefore, if the marriage was illegal, Elizabeth was illegitimate and had no right to the throne. If Elizabeth had no right to the throne, the nearest legal heir to the English throne was.........Mary, Queen of Scots. This could have acted as an incentive for the Catholics in England to rebel against Elizabeth and put Mary onto the throne. It may also have been a reason for Elizabeth's advisors to decide that England was better off with Mary dead - though they would need proof to convince a court of law about her guilt.
Elizabeth now hit a problem. Her cousin quite clearly posed problems for her. If Mary was sent back to Scotland, from where she had escaped, she may well have been killed and Elizabeth would not accept that a Queen (and family) should be treated in such a way. But by being in England, Mary might act as a spur for Catholics to rebel.
Elizabeth's solution was to keep Mary, Queen of Scots, in prison. For the next 19 years, Mary was kept in safe custody in various castles and manor houses. In all this time, Mary never met Elizabeth.
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| Mary the prisoner |
Mary, Queen of Scots, did not help herself. She made it clear to anybody who would listen, that she felt that she should be the queen of England. In 1570, she received the backing of the pope. This meant that there was no reason why a Catholic should not assassinate Elizabeth because it would not be a sin as the pope had said that Mary should be queen of England. Mary was clearly becoming a major problem for Elizabeth and her advisor's.
It took many years for the government to build up a case against Mary - even if such a case actually existed! This work was carried out by Sir Francis Walsingham. His spy network kept a close eye on Mary.In 1586, a man called Anthony Babington devised a plot to kill Elizabeth, rescue Mary and then see her as the next Queen of England. Babington wrote in code to Mary to explain what he was doing. Mary wrote back, stating that she agreed with what he was doing. Walsingham's spies intercepted both letters. Babington was arrested and charged with treason. In September 1586, Babington was executed. Now the government had a case against Mary.On 11 August 1586, Mary was arrested after being implicated in the Babington Plot. She was moved to Fotheringay Castle in a four-day journey ending on 25 September, and in October was put on trial for treason under the Act for the Queen's Safety before a court of 36 noblemen.
Mary denied the charges and was spirited in her defence. She drew attention to the fact that she was denied the opportunity to review the evidence or her papers that 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.
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| An innocent Queen |
Mary was convicted on 25 October and sentenced to death with only one commissioner, Lord Zouche, expressing any form of dissent. Despite this, Elizabeth hesitated to order her execution, even in the face of pressure from the English Parliament to carry out the sentence. She was concerned that the killing of a Queen set a discreditable precedent, and was fearful of the consequences, especially if, in retaliation, Mary's son James formed an alliance with the Catholic powers and invaded England. On 1 February 1587, Elizabeth signed the death warrant.
At Fotheringhay on the evening of 7 February 1587, Mary was told that she was to be executed the next morning. She spent the last hours of her life in prayer, distributing her belongings to her household, and writing her will and a letter to the King of France.The scaffold that was erected in the Great Hall was two feet high and draped in black. 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. The executioners (one named Bull and his assistant) knelt before her and asked forgiveness. She replied, "I forgive you with all my heart, for now, I hope, you shall make an end of all my troubles." Her servants, Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curle, and the executioners helped Mary to remove her outer garments, revealing a velvet petticoat, satin bodice and a pair of sleeves all in dark red, the liturgical colour of martyrdom in the Catholic Church.As she disrobed she smiled and said that she "never had such grooms before ... nor ever put off her clothes before such a company". She was blindfolded by Kennedy with a white veil embroidered in gold, and knelt down on the cushion in front of the block. She positioned her head on the block and stretched out her arms. Her last words were, In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum ("Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit").
It took two strikes to kill Mary: the first blow missed her neck and struck the back of her head. The second blow severed the neck, except for a small bit of tendon that the executioner cut through by using the axe as a saw. Afterward, the executioner held her head aloft and declared, "God save the Queen." 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 had very short, grey hair.
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| Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1587) |
Mary's request to be buried in France was refused by Elizabeth. Her body was embalmed and left unburied in a secure lead coffin until her burial, in a Protestant service, at Peterborough Cathedral in late July 1587. Her entrails, removed as part of the embalming process, were buried secretly within Fotheringay Castle. Her body was exhumed in 1612 when her son, King James VI and I, ordered she be reinterred in Westminster Abbey, in a chapel opposite the tomb of Elizabeth I.
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| Tomb effigy of Mary, Queen of Scots in Westminster Abbey |
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