[223], The executioner Bull and his assistant knelt before her and asked forgiveness, as it was typical for the executioner to request the pardon of the one being put to death. 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. | READ MORE. By running to England, Mary hoped Elizabeth I would protect her from harm. The originals, written in French, were possibly destroyed in 1584 by Mary's son. Over 50 dagger wounds were counted on his body. Mary, once the fragile last hope of the Stuart dynasty, was just 23 years old and had fulfilled one of a monarchs greatest duties providing a healthy son and heir. Following the Scottish Reformation, the tense religious and political climate that Mary encountered on her return to Scotland was further agitated by prominent Scots such as John Knox, who openly questioned whether her subjects had a duty to obey her. [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. Men say that, instead of seizing the murderers, you are looking through your fingers while they escape; that you will not seek revenge on those who have done you so much pleasure, as though the deed would never have taken place had not the doers of it been assured of impunity. Mary married Francis in Notre Dame de Paris. Darnley became jealous of Mary's secretary and favourite, David Riccio. A post-mortem revealed internal injuries, thought to have been caused by the explosion. In France, Mary . As a Protestant, she faced threats from Englands Catholic faction, which favored a rival claim to the thronethat of Mary, the Catholic Queen of Scotsover hers. 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". The original letter is in French, this translation is from. The crown had come to his family through a woman, and would be lost from his family through a woman. In December 1566 James was baptized in the Chapel Royal of Stirling Castle. The portraits were made by an unknown artist in around 1565, at the time of their marriage. All were said to have been found in a silver-gilt casket just less than one foot (30cm) long and decorated with the monogram of King Francis II. She also offered to join an offensive league against France. 04 September 2017. Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's associate digital editor, history. Who were the husbands of Mary Queen of Scots? On 24 July 1567, she was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son. Chastelard was tried for treason and beheaded. She was thought to be dying. He was released nineteen months later, after Cecil and Walsingham interceded on his behalf. [82] In early 1563, he was discovered during a security search hidden underneath her bed, apparently planning to surprise her when she was alone and declare his love for her. Regent Arran resisted the move, but backed down when Beaton's armed supporters gathered at Linlithgow. [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. Mary was horrified and banished him from Scotland. [96] Mary set out from Edinburgh on 26 August 1565 to confront them. [21] Mary was crowned in the castle chapel on 9 September 1543,[22][17] with "such solemnity as they do use in this country, which is not very costly", according to the report of Ralph Sadler and Henry Ray. Mary as queen: 10 July 1559 . 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 first blow missed her neck and struck the back of her head. At the same time, she prevented herself from producing an heir, effectively ending the Tudor dynasty after just three generations. They sent him to France ostensibly to extend their condolences, while hoping for a potential match between their son and Mary. [217] On 1 February 1587, Elizabeth signed the death warrant, and entrusted it to William Davison, a privy councillor. [181] Elizabeth considered Mary's designs on the English throne to be a serious threat and so confined her to Shrewsbury's properties, including Tutbury, Sheffield Castle, Sheffield Manor Lodge, Wingfield Manor, and Chatsworth House,[182] all located in the interior of England, halfway between Scotland and London and distant from the sea. | Mary was born on 8 December 1542 at Linlithgow Palace, Scotland, to King James V and his French second wife, Mary of Guise. English forces mounted a series of raids on Scottish and French territory. Here are 10 facts about Mary Queen of Scots. [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. There was never any intention to proceed judicially; the conference was intended as a political exercise. [65] Scotland was torn between Catholic and Protestant factions. [81], In contrast, a French poet at Mary's court, Pierre de Boscosel de Chastelard, was apparently besotted with Mary. [153], As an anointed queen, Mary refused to acknowledge the power of any court to try her. 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. [26] In May 1544, the English Earl of Hertford (later Duke of Somerset) raided Edinburgh, and the Scots took Mary to Dunkeld for safety. Mary, Queen of Scots marries Prince Francis, the future King Francis II France. [118] At the start of the journey, he was afflicted by a feverpossibly smallpox, syphilis or the result of poison. She was considered a pretty child and later, as a woman, strikingly attractive. The murder 25 years later of Henry Lord Darnley, her consort and the father of the infant who would become King James I of England and James VI of Scotland, remains one of history's most notorious unsolved crimes. 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Bothwell fled to Denmark, where he died in captivity 11 years later. 14. She later charged him with treason, but he was acquitted and released. They were Mary Fleming, Mary Seton, Mary Beaton and Mary Livingstone. [80] The proposal came to nothing, not least because the intended bridegroom was unwilling. [11] Rumours spread that she was weak and frail,[12] but an English diplomat, Ralph Sadler, saw the infant at Linlithgow Palace in March 1543, unwrapped by her nurse Jean Sinclair, and wrote, "it is as goodly a child as I have seen of her age, and as like to live. After Riccios death, the nobles kept Mary prisoner at Holyrood Palace. [145] She landed at Workington in Cumberland in the north of England and stayed overnight at Workington Hall. Three months after Darnleys death, Mary wed the man whod been accused ofand acquitted of in a legally suspect trialhis murder. 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. The versions of Mary and Elizabeth created by Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie may reinforce some of the popular misconceptions surrounding the twin queensincluding the oversimplified notion that they either hated or loved each other, and followed a direct path from friendship to arch rivalrybut they promise to present a thoroughly contemporary twist on an all-too-familiar tale of women bombarded by men who believe they know better. 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. [243] Differing interpretations persisted into the 18th century: William Robertson and David Hume argued that the casket letters were genuine and that Mary was guilty of adultery and murder, while William Tytler argued the reverse. On 7 July 1548, a Scottish Parliament held at a nunnery near the town agreed to the French marriage treaty. [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. In February of 1567 they had Darnleys house, Kirk o Field, blown up; Darnleys strangled body was found in the garden. [56] In early 1560, the Protestant Lords invited English troops into Scotland in an attempt to secure Protestantism. Visitors can still see the small room where this monarch was born. English troops then intervened in the Scottish civil war, consolidating the power of the anti-Marian forces. 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. Get the latest History stories in your inbox? [64], As a devout Catholic, she was regarded with suspicion by many of her subjects, as well as by the Queen of England. But Darnleys decision to help Mary escape infuriated them. [58] On 11 June 1560, their sister, Mary's mother, died, and so the question of future Franco-Scots relations was a pressing one. Mary married Francis in 1558, becoming queen consort of France from his accession in 1559 until his death in December 1560. James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell was a Scottish nobleman who was accused of Darnleys murder, although he was later acquitted. The council was dominated by the Protestant leaders from the reformation crisis of 15591560: the Earls of Argyll, Glencairn, and Moray. [139] On 24 July, she was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son James. Terms of Use [31] The English left a trail of devastation behind them once more and seized the strategic town of Haddington. On the promise of French military help and a French dukedom for himself, Arran agreed to the marriage. Under the Third Succession Act, passed in 1543 by the Parliament of England, Elizabeth was recognised as her sister's heir, and Henry VIII's last will and testament had excluded the Stuarts from succeeding to the English throne. Her first husband was Francis II of France, who she married when she was just fifteen years old. [53] Two of the Queen's uncles, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine, were now dominant in French politics,[54] enjoying an ascendancy called by some historians la tyrannie Guisienne. Her husband, Francois II, King of France had died unexpectedly, and . According to Janet Dickinson of Oxford University, any in-person encounter between the Scottish and English queens wouldve raised the question of precedence, forcing Elizabeth to declare whether Mary was her heir or not. 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. [67] She summoned him to her presence to remonstrate with him but was unsuccessful. In doing so, the English queen avoided falling under a mans dominionand maintained the possibility of a marriage treaty as a bargaining chip. Days after this final meeting, Mary fled Scotland to seek refuge in England, hoping for the protection of Elizabeth I of England. 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. [210][211] Spirited in her defence, Mary denied the charges. Marys second husband was Henry Stuart Lord Darnley, her cousin. [101] Mary refused his request and their marriage grew strained, although they conceived by October 1565. Mary's contemporary supporters, including Adam Blackwood, dismissed them as complete forgeries or letters written by the Queen's servant Mary Beaton. [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. A queer historian assesses the historical accuracy of the gay stuff in the Mary Queen of Scots movie. But the two never actually met in person, a fact some historians have drawn on in their critique of the upcoming film, which depicts Mary and Elizabeth conducting a clandestine conversation in a barn. [202], In February 1585, William Parry was convicted of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth, without Mary's knowledge, although her agent Thomas Morgan was implicated. Now, they were angry that Bothwell would be all-powerful and they decided to wage war against him. Privacy Statement [120] Mary visited him daily, so that it appeared a reconciliation was in progress. . How Mary dealt with this incident sealed her fate. In May 1567 they wed at Holyrood and Mary wrote to the foreign courts that it was the right decision for her country. Mary was misled into thinking her letters were secure, while in reality they were deciphered and read by Walsingham. Who were the husbands of Mary Queen of Scots? 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. [29], King Henry II of France proposed to unite France and Scotland by marrying the young queen to his three-year-old son, the Dauphin Francis. A Huguenot uprising in France, the Tumult of Amboise, made it impossible for the French to send further support. Mary's father, James V, King of Scotland died on 14 December 1542 following the Battle of Solway Moss. [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. As Mary donned dual crowns, the new English queen, her cousin Elizabeth Tudor, consolidated power on the other side of the Channel. After an unsuccessful attempt to regain the throne, she fled southward seeking the protection of her first cousin once removed, Elizabeth I of England. Expert webinar 9 May, 6.30pm. [78] Elizabeth attempted to neutralise Mary by suggesting that she marry English Protestant Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. Meanwhile Mary. [71], Modern historian Jenny Wormald found this remarkable and suggested that Mary's failure to appoint a council sympathetic to Catholic and French interests was an indication of her focus on the English throne, over the internal problems of Scotland. Sketch of Mary, queen of Scots, age 12 or 13, by Clouet. [186] Her bedlinen was changed daily,[187] and her own chefs prepared meals with a choice of 32 dishes served on silver plates. Mary Stuart's (Saoirse Ronan's) attempt to overthrow her cousin Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie), Queen of England, finds her condemned to years of imprisonment before facing execution. As biographer Antonia Fraser explains, Marys story is one of murder, sex, pathos, religion and unsuitable lovers. Add in the Scottish queens rivalry with Elizabeth, as well as her untimely end, and she transforms into the archetypal tragic heroine. Darnley was found dead in the garden, apparently smothered. [156] Mary denied writing them and insisted they were forgeries,[157] arguing that her handwriting was not difficult to imitate. [124][125] Bothwell, Moray, Secretary Maitland, the Earl of Morton and Mary herself were among those who came under suspicion. In July of 1565, she wed a cousin named Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, a weak, vain, and unstable young man; like Mary, he was also a grandchild of Henry VIIIs sisterMargaret.