Mary Queen of Scots picks up in 1561 with the eponymous queens return to her native country. Aged 22, Mary described her 19-year-old groom as the lustiest and best proportioned long man that she had seen.. Regent Arran resisted the move, but backed down when Beaton's armed supporters gathered at Linlithgow. [50] Henry II of France proclaimed his eldest son and daughter-in-law king and queen of England. 1559 - 1560. Bothwell fled to Denmark, where he died in captivity 11 years later. [96] Mary set out from Edinburgh on 26 August 1565 to confront them. [104] Over the next two days, a disillusioned Darnley switched sides and Mary received Moray at Holyrood. Her Marys returned with her as ladies-in-waiting. [136] Bothwell was given safe passage from the field. As a great-granddaughter of Henry VII of England, Mary had once claimed Elizabeth's throne as her own and was considered the legitimate sovereign of England by many English Catholics, including participants in a rebellion known as the Rising of the North. Mary's husband, Francis II, ruled in France for only a little over a year, dying in December 1560. [220], At Fotheringhay, on the evening of 7 February 1587, Mary was told she was to be executed the next morning. On 9 February 1567, Darnley was found dead outside a dwelling in Kirk oField, Edinburgh, following an explosion. Widowed following the unexpected death of her first husband, France's Francis II, she left. [120] Mary visited him daily, so that it appeared a reconciliation was in progress. Mary, byname Mary, Queen of Scots, original name Mary Stuart or Mary Stewart, (born December 8, 1542, Linlithgow Palace, West Lothian, Scotlanddied February 8, 1587, Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, England), queen of Scotland (1542-67) and queen consort of France (1559-60). When Moray rushed into the room after hearing her cries for help, she shouted, "Thrust your dagger into the villain!" 24 Apr 1558. In 1559, Henry II of France, died at the age of 40. As is often the case, the truth is far more nuanced. [131] On 6 May, Mary and Bothwell returned to Edinburgh. Terms of Use On the promise of French military help and a French dukedom for himself, Arran agreed to the marriage. At the same time, she prevented herself from producing an heir, effectively ending the Tudor dynasty after just three generations. Perceiving Mary as a threat, Elizabeth had her confined in various castles and manor houses in the interior of England. BROWSETHE HISTORY SCOTLAND LIBRARY, Company Registered in England no. [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. Under the terms of the Treaty of Edinburgh, signed by Mary's representatives on 6 July 1560, France and England undertook to withdraw troops from Scotland. 9 Sep 1543. Whereas Mary aged in the relative isolation of house arrest, Elizabeths looks were under constant scrutiny. 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. At the same time, shes quick to point out that the portrayal of Mary and Elizabeth as polar oppositesCatholic versus Protestant, adulterer versus Virgin Queen, beautiful tragic heroine versus smallpox-scarred hagis problematic in and of itself. This time, the victim was Darnley himself. [72] In this, she was acknowledging her lack of effective military power in the face of the Protestant lords, while also following a policy that strengthened her links with England. [23], Shortly before Mary's coronation, Henry arrested Scottish merchants headed for France and impounded their goods. She refused to attend the inquiry at York personally but sent representatives. Mary's numbers were boosted by the release and restoration to favour of Lord Huntly's son and the return of James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, from exile in France. Did you know that Mary Queen of Scots had three husbands? As John Guy writes in Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart (which serves as the source text for Rourkes film), Mary is alternately envisioned as the innocent victim of mens political machinations and a fatally flawed femme fatale who ruled from the heart and not the head. Kristen Post Walton, a professor at Salisbury University and the author of Catholic Queen, Protestant Patriarchy: Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Politics of Gender and Religion, argues that dramatizations of Marys life tend to downplay her agency and treat her life like a soap opera. Meanwhile, Elizabeth is often viewed through a romanticized lens that draws on hindsight to discount the displeasure many of her subjects felt toward their queen, particularly during the later stages of her reign. [121] On the night of 910 February 1567, Mary visited her husband in the early evening and then attended the wedding celebrations of a member of her household, Bastian Pagez. For nineteen years she was kept under lock and key until she was finally executed in 1587 for conspiring against Elizabeth. Regardless of whether sexual attraction, love or faith in Bothwell as her protector against the feuding Scottish lords guided Marys decision, her alignment with him cemented her downfall. 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. [183], Mary was permitted her own domestic staff, which never numbered fewer than 16. [235], Mary's request to be buried in France was refused by Elizabeth. Despite being married three times, there are relatively few portraits of Mary with her husbands. Sketch of Mary, queen of Scots, age 12 or 13, by Clouet. When Mary left for Scotland, she travelled with the children of Scotland's nobility, including the 'Four Maries,' the women who would stay with her throughout her later imprisonment and execution. Marys blood claim was worrying enough, but acknowledging it by naming her as the heir presumptive would leave Elizabeth vulnerable to coups organized by Englands Catholic faction. Mary, Queen of Scots was queen of France and Scotland. 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". [233] Elizabeth's vacillation and deliberately vague instructions gave her plausible deniability to attempt to avoid the direct stain of Mary's blood. Francis and Mary knew each since before they married Mary grew up in the French royal court after her father, King James V of Scotland died when she was only 5 days old. . [139] On 24 July, she was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son James. She announced that she was ready to stay in England, to renounce the Pope's bull of excommunication, and to retire, abandoning her pretensions to the English Crown. Mary was aged just fifteen when she was married to Francis, although the pair had been betrothed ten years earlier. He was released nineteen months later, after Cecil and Walsingham interceded on his behalf. [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. Although she was famously dubbed the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth only embraced this chaste persona during the later years of her reign. They next met on Saturday 17 February 1565 at Wemyss Castle in Scotland. She later charged him with treason, but he was acquitted and released. In 1548, she was betrothed to Francis, the Dauphin of France, and was sent to be brought up in France, where she would be safe from invading English forces during the Rough Wooing. [214], She was convicted on 25 October and sentenced to death with only one commissioner, Lord Zouche, expressing any form of dissent. With Angela Bain, Richard Cant, Guy Rhys, Thom Petty. 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. Francis and his new wife became king and queen of France less than a year after their wedding ceremony at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. "[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. [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. After spending the night at Dundrennan Abbey, she crossed the Solway Firth into England by fishing boat on 16 May. [110], Immediately after her return to Jedburgh, she suffered a serious illness that included frequent vomiting, loss of sight, loss of speech, convulsions and periods of unconsciousness. On 1 July 1543, when Mary was six months old, the Treaty of Greenwich was signed, which promised that, at the age of ten, Mary would marry Edward and move to England, where Henry could oversee her upbringing. [46] Twenty days later, she married the Dauphin at Notre Dame de Paris, and he became king consort of Scotland. They sent him to France ostensibly to extend their condolences, while hoping for a potential match between their son and Mary. Why Mary wed Darnley remains a mystery. A post-mortem revealed internal injuries, thought to have been caused by the explosion. She was known as Bloody Mary for her persecution of Protestants in a vain attempt to restore Roman Catholicism in England. [55], In Scotland, the power of the Protestant Lords of the Congregation was rising at the expense of Mary's mother, who maintained effective control only through the use of French troops. Mary's guardians, fearful for her safety, sent her to Inchmahome Priory for no more than three weeks, and turned to the French for help. On 7 July 1548, a Scottish Parliament held at a nunnery near the town agreed to the French marriage treaty. The French fleet sent by Henry II, commanded by Nicolas de Villegagnon, sailed with Mary from Dumbarton on 7 August 1548 and arrived a week or more later at Roscoff or Saint-Pol-de-Lon in Brittany.[33]. A Protestant husband for Mary seemed the best chance for stability. Although each of these marriages was short-lived, every one of these unions made an impact on Scottish history. Around 8 a.m. on February 8, 1587, the 44-year-old Scottish queen knelt in the great hall of Fotheringhay Castle and thanked the headsman for making an end of all my troubles. Three axe blows later, she was dead, her severed head lofted high as a warning to all who defied Elizabeth Tudor. Within two months of the wedding, Mary was pregnant with the future King James VI. 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. Henry Stuart, styled as Lord Darnley until 1565, was the son of Matthew Stuart, 4th Earl of Lennox, and his wife, Margaret Douglas. Elizabeth refused to name a potential heir, fearing that would invite conspiracy to displace her with the nominated successor. [173], The majority of the commissioners accepted the casket letters as genuine after a study of their contents and comparison of the penmanship with examples of Mary's handwriting. At the same time, Post Walton says, the fact that the cousins never stood face-to-face precludes the possibility of the intensely personal dynamic often projected onto them; after all, its difficult to maintain strong feelings about someone known only through letters and intermediaries. Moray refused, as Chastelard was already under restraint. [226] As she disrobed Mary smiled and said she "never had such grooms before nor ever put off her clothes before such a company". The daughter of King Henry VIII and the Spanish princess Catherine . [210][211] Spirited in her defence, Mary denied the charges. She was considered a pretty child and later, as a woman, strikingly attractive. Meilan Solly The early years of her personal rule were marked by pragmatism, tolerance, and moderation. [75] In late 1561 and early 1562, arrangements were made for the two queens to meet in England at York or Nottingham in August or September 1562. She was said to have been born prematurely and was the only legitimate child of James to survive him. The Tudor queen pressured Mary to ratify the 1560 Treaty of Edinburgh, which wouldve prevented her from making any claim to the English throne, but she refused, instead appealing to Elizabeth as queens in one isle, of one language, the nearest kinswomen that each other had., To Elizabeth, such familial ties were of little value.