In the end, Moray returned to Scotland as regent and Mary remained in custody in England. [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.. [18] Cardinal Beaton rose to power again and began to push a pro-Catholic pro-French agenda, angering Henry, who wanted to break the Scottish alliance with France. Registration now open. [153], As an anointed queen, Mary refused to acknowledge the power of any court to try her. In February of 1567 they had Darnleys house, Kirk o Field, blown up; Darnleys strangled body was found in the garden. [132] Bothwell and his first wife, Jean Gordon, who was the sister of Lord Huntly, had divorced twelve days previously. Mary as queen: 10 July 1559 . In the summer of 1567, the increasingly unpopular queen was imprisoned and forced to abdicate in favor of her son. [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! "[9] His House of Stuart had gained the throne of Scotland in the 14th century via the marriage of Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert the Bruce, to Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland. [64], As a devout Catholic, she was regarded with suspicion by many of her subjects, as well as by the Queen of England. [78] Elizabeth attempted to neutralise Mary by suggesting that she marry English Protestant Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. 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. [31] The English left a trail of devastation behind them once more and seized the strategic town of Haddington. 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. She was known as Bloody Mary for her persecution of Protestants in a vain attempt to restore Roman Catholicism in England. After spending the night at Dundrennan Abbey, she crossed the Solway Firth into England by fishing boat on 16 May. Robbie provides the foil to Ronans Mary, donning a prosthetic nose and clown-like layers of white makeup to resemble a smallpox-scarred Elizabeth. [185] Her chambers were decorated with fine tapestries and carpets, as well as her cloth of state on which she had the French phrase, En ma fin est mon commencement ("In my end lies my beginning"), embroidered. Terms of Use The original letter is in French, this translation is from. In February 1567, Darnley's residence was destroyed by an explosion, and he was found murdered in the garden. [239] In 1867, her tomb was opened in an attempt to ascertain the resting place of her son, James I of 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. [199] After the Throckmorton Plot of 1583, Walsingham (now the queen's principal secretary) introduced the Bond of Association and the Act for the Queen's Safety, which sanctioned the killing of anyone who plotted against Elizabeth and aimed to prevent a putative successor from profiting from her murder. [58] On 11 June 1560, their sister, Mary's mother, died, and so the question of future Franco-Scots relations was a pressing one. Perceiving Mary as a threat, Elizabeth had her confined in various castles and manor houses in the interior of England. Elizabeth had succeeded in maintaining a Protestant government in Scotland, without either condemning or releasing her fellow sovereign. [161] The surviving copies, in French or translated into English, do not form a complete set. He had 600 men with him and asked to escort Mary to his castle at Dunbar; he told her she was in danger if she went to Edinburgh. 14. On 9 February 1567, Darnley was found dead outside a dwelling in Kirk oField, Edinburgh, following an explosion. James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, was a vainglorious, rash and hazardous young man, according to ambassador Nicholas Throckmorton. She became queen at 6 days old. She also had an infant son to consider. [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. Mary Queen of Scots was married three times, to: Francis II of France (1558-1560) Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (1565-1567) [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. [146] On 18 May, local officials took her into protective custody at Carlisle Castle. Darnley was murdered a few months after they were married, and Mary later married James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell. Such accusations rest on assumptions,[249] and Buchanan's biography is today discredited as "almost complete fantasy". She was considered a pretty child and later, as a woman, strikingly attractive. [63] Having lived in France since the age of five, Mary had little direct experience of the dangerous and complex political situation in Scotland. [122] In the early hours of the morning, an explosion devastated Kirk o' Field. 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 . Cookie Settings, Its unsurprising that the tale of these two queens resonates with audiences some 400 years after the main players lived. Dudley was Sir Henry Sidney's brother-in-law and the English queen's own favourite, whom Elizabeth trusted and thought she could control. Mary was misled into thinking her letters were secure, while in reality they were deciphered and read by Walsingham. Elizabeth forbade her attendance anyway. English forces mounted a series of raids on Scottish and French territory. Her only condition was the immediate alleviation of the conditions of her captivity. [231] Items supposedly worn or carried by Mary at her execution are of doubtful provenance;[232] contemporary accounts state that all her clothing, the block, and everything touched by her blood was burnt in the fireplace of the Great Hall to obstruct relic hunters. [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. [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. Some historians argue that they were forgeries concocted in order to discredit Queen Mary and ensure that Queen . The king consort had been murdered and many believed Mary had played a part in his death. James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell was a Scottish nobleman who was accused of Darnleys murder, although he was later acquitted. This is a painting of Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587), and her second husband Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (1545/46-1567). Within two months of the wedding, she became pregnant with future King James I. 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. 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. [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. [32], With her marriage agreement in place, five-year-old Mary was sent to France to spend the next thirteen years at the French court. In the immediate aftermath of Darnleys murder, he met with Mary about six miles outside of Edinburgh. 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. Many of her other descendants, including Elizabeth of Bohemia, Prince Rupert of the Rhine and the children of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, were interred in her vault. Expert webinar 9 May, 6.30pm. 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. Above: Replica of the tomb of Mary, Queen of Scots. This legendary statement came true much later not through Mary, but through her great-great-granddaughter Anne, Queen of Great Britain. Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (1546 - 10 February 1567), was an English nobleman who was the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the father of James VI of Scotland and I of England. Her first husband was Francis II of France, who she married when she was just fifteen years old. [23], Shortly before Mary's coronation, Henry arrested Scottish merchants headed for France and impounded their goods. [206] In a successful attempt to entrap her, Walsingham had deliberately arranged for Mary's letters to be smuggled out of Chartley. [98] Unable to muster sufficient support, Moray left Scotland in October for asylum in England. But it is unlikely that, had he been successful, Darnley would have long survived his wife. 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. [194] Elizabeth's principal secretary William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and Sir Francis Walsingham watched Mary carefully with the aid of spies placed in her household. Which is precisely what happened. 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. [15], King Henry VIII of England took the opportunity of the regency to propose marriage between Mary and his own son and heir, Edward, hoping for a union of Scotland and England. Who were the husbands of Mary Queen of Scots? The marriage of Mary Queen of Scots: 24 April 1558. Just 6 days . Now, first-time director Josie Rourke hopes to offer a modern twist on the tale with her new Mary Queen of Scots biopic, which finds Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie stepping into the shoes of the legendary queens. 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. [6] She was the great-granddaughter of King Henry VII of England through her paternal grandmother, Margaret Tudor. [3] [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. Mary, Queen of Scots' pampered childhood That same year, another ginger-haired princess was born on December 8 at Linlithgow Palace in Scotland. 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. A Protestant husband for Mary seemed the best chance for stability. The second blow severed the neck, except for a small bit of sinew, which the executioner cut through using the axe. Defeated once and for all, the deposed queen fled to England, expecting her sister queen to offer a warm welcome and perhaps even help her regain the Scottish throne. She refused to attend the inquiry at York personally but sent representatives. She also offered to join an offensive league against France. [197] Plots centred on Mary continued. Mary was grief-stricken. By running to England, Mary hoped Elizabeth I would protect her from harm. 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. Kristen Post Walton outlines a middle ground between these extremes, noting that Marys Catholic faith and gender worked against her throughout her reign. (Francis younger brother, Charles IX, became king of France at just 10 years old with his mother, Catherine de Medici, acting as regent. Both Protestants and Catholics were shocked that Mary should marry the man accused of murdering her husband. 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. [73], Mary sent William Maitland of Lethington as an ambassador to the English court to put the case for Mary as the heir presumptive to the English throne. [57] Instead, the Guise brothers sent ambassadors to negotiate a settlement. Link will appear as Hanson, Marilee. [234] Davison was arrested, thrown into the Tower of London, and found guilty of misprision. Mary, Queen of Scots is born, daughter of James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise . The first blow missed her neck and struck the back of her head. "[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. Entering the later stages of her pregnancy, she was desperate to escape and somehow won over Darnley and they escaped together. She reacted with fury and fear. On 7 July 1548, a Scottish Parliament held at a nunnery near the town agreed to the French marriage treaty. [67] She summoned him to her presence to remonstrate with him but was unsuccessful. 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]. [138] Between 20 and 23 July, Mary miscarried twins. [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. At the centre of the Scottish court, 1561-68. Mary would go back to claim her throne in Scotland, leaving Charles Franciss younger brother who was only 10 years old at the time-to inherit his brothers title and position as king. And just six months later, her young husband also died of an ear infection on December 5th 1560. [210][211] Spirited in her defence, Mary denied the charges. Think you that I could love my own winding-sheet?. [100], Before long, Darnley grew arrogant. [68], To the surprise and dismay of the Catholic party, Mary tolerated the newly established Protestant ascendancy,[69] and kept her half-brother Moray as her chief advisor. He was ultimately found with Henry VII. Mary married Francis in Notre Dame de Paris. Moray had sent a messenger in September to Dunbar to get a copy of the proceedings from the town's registers.
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