Many nobles were implicated in the murder of Lord Darnley, most particularly James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell. Mary, Queen of Scots - Family, Reign & Death - Biography [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. [159] The chair of the commission of inquiry, the Duke of Norfolk, described them as horrible letters and diverse fond ballads. BROWSETHE HISTORY SCOTLAND LIBRARY, Company Registered in England no. 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. "[13], As Mary was a six-day-old infant when she inherited the throne, Scotland was ruled by regents until she became an adult. Vivacious, beautiful, and clever (according to contemporary accounts), Mary had a promising childhood. Mary's great uncle Henry VIII of England wanted to trap her in a marriage with his Protestant heir Edward, the future Edward VI. He had a violent temper and, despite his differences from Darnley, shared the deceased kings proclivity for power. The untimely death of Francis in 5 December 1560 changed Marys future and meant she would return to Scotland to claim her throne, leaving Franciss ten-year-old brother Charles to inherit his brothers title of king. The fact that she married her third husband, the Earl of Bothwell, shortly after the murder, did little to help her cause. Her first husband was Francis II of France, who she married when she was just fifteen years old. On 24 April 1567, Bothwell, with a force of 800 men, kidnapped Mary whilst she was riding between Linlithgow and Edinburgh. The daughter of King Henry VIII and the Spanish princess Catherine . As Mary donned dual crowns, the new English queen, her cousin Elizabeth Tudor, consolidated power on the other side of the Channel. He was the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and was the father of James VI of Scotland, who succeeded Elizabeth I of England as James I. Jenn Scott of the Stewart Society tells the story . Did you know that Mary Queen of Scots had three husbands? [98] Unable to muster sufficient support, Moray left Scotland in October for asylum in England. 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. Marys mother Marie de Guise had arranged the marriage when Mary and Francis were infants, and so Mary was brought up knowing she would one day be queen of France and Scotland. [197] Plots centred on Mary continued. He remained ill for some weeks. 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. Even the one significant later addition to the council, Lord Ruthven in December 1563, was another Protestant whom Mary personally disliked. [120] Mary visited him daily, so that it appeared a reconciliation was in progress. [Marys] failures are dictated more by her situation than by her as a ruler, she says, and I think if she had been a man, she would've been able to be much more successful and would never have lost the throne.. Robbie provides the foil to Ronans Mary, donning a prosthetic nose and clown-like layers of white makeup to resemble a smallpox-scarred Elizabeth. The second blow severed the neck, except for a small bit of sinew, which the executioner cut through using the axe. [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. [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. 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 . After Riccios death, the nobles kept Mary prisoner at Holyrood Palace. He was jealous of her friendship with her Catholic private secretary, David Rizzio, who was rumoured to be the father of her child. [124][125] Bothwell, Moray, Secretary Maitland, the Earl of Morton and Mary herself were among those who came under suspicion. [58] On 11 June 1560, their sister, Mary's mother, died, and so the question of future Franco-Scots relations was a pressing one. Rejoice don't weep These words of comfort were spoken by Mary to one of her servants as she faced execution. Francis II [195], In 1571, Cecil and Walsingham (at that time England's ambassador to France) uncovered the Ridolfi Plot, a plan to replace Elizabeth with Mary with the help of Spanish troops and the Duke of Norfolk. This fear-driven logic even extended to the queens potential offspring: As she once told Marys advisor William Maitland, Princes cannot like their own children. Portrait of Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley c. 1565 | The British Meilan Solly Edinburgh Castle. [129] A week later, Bothwell managed to convince more than two dozen lords and bishops to sign the Ainslie Tavern Bond, in which they agreed to support his aim to marry the queen. [85] Both Mary and Darnley were grandchildren of Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII of England, and patrilineal descendants of the High Stewards of Scotland. 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. [128] Lennox, Darnley's father, demanded that Bothwell be tried before the Estates of Parliament, to which Mary agreed, but Lennox's request for a delay to gather evidence was denied. [132] Bothwell and his first wife, Jean Gordon, who was the sister of Lord Huntly, had divorced twelve days previously. [198], Mary sent letters in cipher to the French ambassador, Michel de Castelnau, scores of which were discovered and decrypted in 20222023. According to most contemporaries, they were close and affectionate with one another even as children. [190] Her health declined, perhaps through porphyria or lack of exercise. Explore the story of Mary's three husbands. Mary Queen of Scots, 1543 - 1567, d. 1587. A royal residence, a vital stronghold and an iconic structure, Edinburgh Castle is one of the most famous castles in the world. [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. "[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. [151] A commission of inquiry, or conference, as it was known, was held in York and later Westminster between October 1568 and January 1569. [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. Who was Mary, Queen of Scots? - National Museums Scotland In the eyes of the Catholic Church, Elizabeth was the illegitimate product of an unlawful marriage, while Mary, the paternal granddaughter of Henry VIIIs older sister Margaret, was the rightful English heir. 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". With the Scottish nobles divided over the union, a stand-off between the two sides took place at Carberry Hill on 15 June 1567, from which Bothwell fled, never to see his wife again. The early years of her personal rule were marked by pragmatism, tolerance, and moderation. James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, was a vainglorious, rash and hazardous young man, according to ambassador Nicholas Throckmorton. 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. [244] In the latter half of the 20th century, the work of Antonia Fraser was acclaimed as "more objective free from the excesses of adulation or attack" that had characterised older biographies,[245] and her contemporaries Gordon Donaldson and Ian B. Cowan also produced more balanced works. The Salacious Letters That Helped Bring Down Mary, Queen of Scots 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 had refused the proposal then, preferring to marry Darnley, but now she knew herself to be powerless. Bothwell fled to Denmark, where he died in captivity 11 years later. For the list of documents see, for example. Privacy Statement Only four of the councillors were Catholic: the Earls of Atholl, Erroll, Montrose, and Huntly, who was Lord Chancellor. [105] On the night of 1112 March, Darnley and Mary escaped from the palace. She was accused of plotting to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and . The originals, written in French, were possibly destroyed in 1584 by Mary's son. 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. Barely a month after the marriage, rebel nobles and their forces met Marys troops at Carberry Hill, 8 miles south-east of Edinburgh. Some historians argue that they were forgeries concocted in order to discredit Queen Mary and ensure that Queen . [174] Elizabeth, as she had wished, concluded the inquiry with a verdict that nothing was proven against either the confederate lords or Mary. 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 crown had come to his family through a woman, and would be lost from his family through a woman. The nobles demanded that Mary abandon Bothwell, whom they had earlier ordered her to wed. She refused and reminded them of their earlier order. Kristen Post Walton outlines a middle ground between these extremes, noting that Marys Catholic faith and gender worked against her throughout her reign. [118] At the start of the journey, he was afflicted by a feverpossibly smallpox, syphilis or the result of poison. [162] Other documents scrutinised included Bothwell's divorce from Jean Gordon. She later charged him with treason, but he was acquitted and released. But Mary had more agency than history gives her credit for: beneath the soft exterior lay a steely determination to rule, as was her God-given right. However, the murder of Rizzio led to the breakdown of her marriage. The frail infant, named Mary Stuart, was the. She was known as Bloody Mary for her persecution of Protestants in a vain attempt to restore Roman Catholicism in England. [130], Between 21 and 23 April 1567, Mary visited her son at Stirling for the last time. 04 September 2017. Not content with his position as king consort, he demanded the Crown Matrimonial, which would have made him a co-sovereign of Scotland with the right to keep the Scottish throne for himself, if he outlived his wife. Although each of these marriages was short-lived, every one of these unions made an impact on Scottish history. From the outset, there were two claims to the regency: one from the Catholic Cardinal Beaton, and the other from the Protestant Earl of Arran, who was next in line to the throne. [16][17] The treaty provided that the two countries would remain legally separate and, if the couple should fail to have children, the temporary union would dissolve. At the end of that month, July 1567, James was crowned king and James Stewart, the Earl of Moray, Marys half-brother, became Regent. A post-mortem revealed internal injuries, thought to have been caused by the explosion. Entering the later stages of her pregnancy, she was desperate to escape and somehow won over Darnley and they escaped together. [65] Scotland was torn between Catholic and Protestant factions. [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. He recuperated from his illness in a house belonging to the brother of Sir James Balfour at the former abbey of Kirk o' Field, just within the city wall. . [10], Mary was christened at the nearby Church of St Michael shortly after she was born. English troops then intervened in the Scottish civil war, consolidating the power of the anti-Marian forces. Mary, Queen of Scots - Wikipedia [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. [143] Managing to raise an army of 6,000 men, she met Moray's smaller forces at the Battle of Langside on 13 May. Darnley shared a more recent Stewart lineage with the Hamilton family as a descendant of Mary Stewart, Countess of Arran, a daughter of James II of Scotland. 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. Did Mary, Queen of Scots' Husband Have a Gay Affair? - People Advertising Notice [127], By the end of February, Bothwell was generally believed to be guilty of Darnley's assassination. By running to England, Mary hoped Elizabeth I would protect her from harm. [139] On 24 July, she was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son James. [103] On 9 March, a group of the conspirators accompanied by Darnley murdered Rizzio in front of the pregnant Mary at a dinner party in Holyrood Palace. France recognised Elizabeth's right to rule England, but the seventeen-year-old Mary, still in France and grieving for her mother, refused to ratify the treaty. Just 6 days . 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. When her uncle, the Cardinal of Lorraine, began negotiations with Archduke Charles of Austria without her consent, she angrily objected and the negotiations foundered. [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. Bothwell died a prisoner at DragsholmCastle in Denmark in 1578. 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. [227] She was blindfolded by Kennedy with a white veil embroidered in gold, knelt down on the cushion in front of the block on which she positioned her head, and stretched out her arms. 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. It condemned Buchanan's work as an invention,[242] and "emphasized Mary's evil fortunes rather than her evil character". The True Story of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I The History Press | The diabolical death of Henry, Lord Darnley Mary was taken to Lochleven Castle and held prisoner in that island fortress; fearing for her own life, she became desperately ill. She was forced to sign a document abdicating the crown in favor of her year-old son. [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. Queen of Scotland (r. 15421567) and Dowager Queen of France, Consorts to debatable or disputed rulers are in, Sadler to Henry VIII, 23 March 1543, quoted in, Sadler to Henry VIII, 11 September 1543, quoted in, A dispensation, backdated to 25 May, was granted in Rome on 25 September (, Confession of James Ormiston, one of Bothwell's men, 13 December 1573, quoted (from. This legendary statement came true much later not through Mary, but through her great-great-granddaughter Anne, Queen of Great Britain. | [239] In 1867, her tomb was opened in an attempt to ascertain the resting place of her son, James I of England. [215] Nevertheless, Elizabeth hesitated to order her execution, even in the face of pressure from the English Parliament to carry out the sentence. Mary Queen of Scots: Directed by Josie Rourke. [156] Mary denied writing them and insisted they were forgeries,[157] arguing that her handwriting was not difficult to imitate. 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. Mary Queen of Scots was executed by beheading at the age of 44 on the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I of England. She became queen at 6 days old. So she consented to wed Bothwell, hoping that this would finally stabilize the country. 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. Now, they were angry that Bothwell would be all-powerful and they decided to wage war against him. [77] Her own attempt to negotiate a marriage to Don Carlos, the mentally unstable heir apparent of King Philip II of Spain, was rebuffed by Philip. [201] Elizabeth also rejected the association because she did not trust Mary to cease plotting against her during the negotiations. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. 5. [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. Mary's father, James V, King of Scotland died on 14 December 1542 following the Battle of Solway Moss. 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. Her husband, Francois II, King of France had died unexpectedly, and . From the beginning, her life was mired in struggle as she grappled with the demands of the Scottish throne and the deaths of several husbands. [101] Mary refused his request and their marriage grew strained, although they conceived by October 1565. The lords took Mary to Edinburgh, where crowds of spectators denounced her as an adulteress and murderer. [188] She was occasionally allowed outside under strict supervision,[189] spent seven summers at the spa town of Buxton, and spent much of her time doing embroidery. Mary married Francis in Notre Dame de Paris. Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart, Catholic Queen, Protestant Patriarchy: Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Politics of Gender and Religion, Five Places Where You Can Still Find Gold in the United States, Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Otherand the Birds Loved It, The True Story of the Koh-i-Noor Diamondand Why the British Won't Give It Back. [204] At Christmas, she was moved to a moated manor house at Chartley. [248] There is no concrete proof of her complicity in Darnley's murder or of a conspiracy with Bothwell. [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. [175] For overriding political reasons, Elizabeth wished neither to convict nor to acquit Mary of murder. [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. Moray refused, as Chastelard was already under restraint. [63] Having lived in France since the age of five, Mary had little direct experience of the dangerous and complex political situation in Scotland. In 1559, Henry II of France, died at the age of 40. 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. Mary, Queen of Scots, towered over her contemporaries in more ways than one. In the summer of 1567, the increasingly unpopular queen was imprisoned and forced to abdicate in favor of her son. [220], At Fotheringhay, on the evening of 7 February 1587, Mary was told she was to be executed the next morning. The Gay Stuff in "Mary Queen of Scots" Is Actually Pretty - Out Widowed, Mary returned to Scotland in August 1561. James Feder. Mary replied, "I forgive you with all my heart, for now, I hope, you shall make an end of all my troubles. The diabolical death of Henry, Lord Darnley It's 450 years on 10 February 2017 that the second husband of Mary Queen of Scots, Henry, Lord Darnley, was murdered smack-bang (literally) in the middle of Edinburgh. Queen of Scots Mary Biography - life, children, death, wife, mother The only surviving legitimate child of James V of Scotland, Mary was six days old when her father died and she inherited the throne. 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. Widowed following the unexpected death of her first husband, Frances Francis II, she left her home of 13 years for the unknown entity of Scotland, which had been plagued by factionalism and religious discontent in her absence. [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. BBC - Scotland's History - Mary Queen of Scots The sensational life of Mary Stuart is on the . As biographer. [100], Before long, Darnley grew arrogant. 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. When Moray rushed into the room after hearing her cries for help, she shouted, "Thrust your dagger into the villain!" After spending the night at Dundrennan Abbey, she crossed the Solway Firth into England by fishing boat on 16 May. Mary, Queen of Scots: what happened to her ladies-in-waiting?
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