A queer historian assesses the historical accuracy of the gay stuff in the Mary Queen of Scots movie. [248] There is no concrete proof of her complicity in Darnley's murder or of a conspiracy with Bothwell. Not only were the two absolute rulers in a patriarchal society, but they were also women whose lives, while seemingly inextricable, amounted to more than their either their relationships with men or their rivalry with each other. Despite these concerns, Elizabeth certainly considered the possibility of naming Mary her heir. Mary, Queen of Scots, may have been the monarch who got her head chopped off, but she eventually proved triumphant in a roundabout way: After Elizabeth died childless in 1603, it was Marys son, James VI of Scotland and I of England, who ascended to the throne as the first to rule a united British kingdom. She had been queen for all but the first six days of her life, John Guy writes in Queen of Scots, [but] apart from a few short but intoxicating weeks in the following year, the rest of her life would be spent in captivity.. [214], She was convicted on 25 October and sentenced to death with only one commissioner, Lord Zouche, expressing any form of dissent. James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, was generally believed to have orchestrated Darnley's death, but he was acquitted of the charge in April 1567, and the following month, he married Mary. Marys promiscuous reputation was largely invented by her adversaries, while Elizabeths reign was filled with rumors of her purported romances. [230], When the news of the execution reached Elizabeth, she became indignant and asserted that Davison had disobeyed her instructions not to part with the warrant and that the Privy Council had acted without her authority. GB 638 3492 15, Copyright 2023 Warners Group Publications Plc. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. [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. Her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I held her. [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.. After Francis death, she married Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Queen of Scots Mary Biography - life, children, death, wife, mother 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. [92] Mary's insistence on the marriage seems to have stemmed from passion rather than calculation; the English ambassador Nicholas Throckmorton stated "the saying is that surely she [Queen Mary] is bewitched",[93] adding that the marriage could only be averted "by violence". Despite being married three times, there are relatively few portraits of Mary with her husbands. English forces mounted a series of raids on Scottish and French territory. [228], Mary was not beheaded with a single strike. He was superficially charming and, unlike most men, taller than the queen. The king consort had been murdered and many believed Mary had played a part in his death. [104] Over the next two days, a disillusioned Darnley switched sides and Mary received Moray at Holyrood. [168], The casket letters did not appear publicly until the Conference of 1568, although the Scottish privy council had seen them by December 1567. Within two months of the wedding, she became pregnant with future King James I. [52], When Henry II died on 10 July 1559, from injuries sustained in a joust, fifteen-year-old Francis and sixteen-year-old Mary became king and queen of France. Not only had Darnleys arrogant behaviour during the early months of the marriage angered many of the Scottish nobles, but it had also incurred the displeasure of Queen Elizabeth I of England, who was angry to see Darnley, as her English subject, marry the Queen of Scots, who was herself in line to the throne of England. [196] To discredit Mary, the casket letters were published in London. 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. Meilan Solly Instead, worried that Mary wanted to . Potential diagnoses include physical exhaustion and mental stress,[112] haemorrhage of a gastric ulcer,[113] and porphyria. Get the latest History stories in your inbox? [47][48], In November 1558, Henry VIII's elder daughter, Mary I of England, was succeeded by her only surviving sibling, Elizabeth I. [30] In February 1548, Mary was moved, again for her safety, to Dumbarton Castle. [80] The proposal came to nothing, not least because the intended bridegroom was unwilling. The Husbands of Mary Queen of Scots - English History 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. Janet Dickinson paints the Scottish queens relationship with Elizabeth in similar terms, arguing that the pairs dynamic was shaped by circumstance rather than choice. 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. Mary Queen of Scots was executed by beheading at the age of 44 on the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I of England. [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. [83] Maitland claimed that Chastelard's ardour was feigned and that he was part of a Huguenot plot to discredit Mary by tarnishing her reputation.[84]. [107], Mary's son by Darnley, James, was born on 19 June 1566 in Edinburgh Castle. The only surviving legitimate child of James V of Scotland, Mary was six days old when her father died and she inherited the throne. Her recovery from 25 October onwards was credited to the skill of her French physicians. [70] Her privy council of 16 men, appointed on 6 September 1561, retained those who already held the offices of state. He was ultimately found with Henry VII. [78] Elizabeth attempted to neutralise Mary by suggesting that she marry English Protestant Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. 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. [41], Portraits of Mary show that she had a small, oval-shaped head, a long, graceful neck, bright auburn hair, hazel-brown eyes, under heavy lowered eyelids and finely arched brows, smooth pale skin, a high forehead, and regular, firm features. She issued a proclamation accepting the religious settlement in Scotland as she had found it upon her return, retained advisers such as James Stewart, Earl of Moray (her illegitimate paternal half-brother), and William Maitland of Lethington, and governed as the Catholic monarch of a Protestant kingdom. 04 July 2022 | The story of the three husbands of Mary Queen of Scots: Francis II of France, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley and James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell. As she settled into her new rolealthough crowned queen of Scotland in infancy, she spent much of her early reign in France, leaving first her mother, Mary of Guise, and then her half-brother James, Earl of Moray, to act as regent on her behalfshe sought to strengthen relations with her southern neighbor, Elizabeth. Darnley was murdered a few months after they were married, and Mary later married James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell. [192] Norfolk continued to scheme for a marriage with Mary, and Elizabeth imprisoned him in the Tower of London between October 1569 and August 1570. [25] The rejection of the marriage treaty and the renewal of the alliance between France and Scotland prompted Henry's "Rough Wooing", a military campaign designed to impose the marriage of Mary to his son. [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. Beaton's claim was based on a version of the king's will that his opponents dismissed as a forgery. Mary Queen of Scots timeline - History Scotland Regent Arran resisted the move, but backed down when Beaton's armed supporters gathered at Linlithgow. In France the royal arms of England were quartered with those of Francis and Mary. Mary married Francis in 1558, becoming queen consort of France from his accession in 1559 until his death in December 1560. After eighteen and a half years in captivity, Mary was found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth in 1586 and was beheaded the following year at Fotheringhay Castle. Days after this final meeting, Mary fled Scotland to seek refuge in England, hoping for the protection of Elizabeth I of England. [114], At Craigmillar Castle, near Edinburgh, at the end of November 1566, Mary and leading nobles held a meeting to discuss the "problem of Darnley". [105] On the night of 1112 March, Darnley and Mary escaped from the palace. 1559 - 1560. [86] Mary fell in love with the "long lad", as Queen Elizabeth called him since he was over six feet tall. 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. At the centre of the Scottish court, 1561-68. [170] In contrast, Weir thinks it demonstrates that the lords required time to fabricate them. If you use any of the content on this page in your own work, please use the code below to cite this page as the source of the content. It is impossible now to prove either way. [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. LOVE SCOTLAND'S HISTORY? But the nobles were still not to be trusted. Facts about the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. "[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. In February 1567, Darnley's residence was destroyed by an explosion, and he was found murdered in the garden. On 15 May, at either Holyrood Palace or Holyrood Abbey, they were married according to Protestant rites. 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. 9 Sep 1543. [20] The Earl of Lennox escorted Mary and her mother to Stirling on 27 July 1543 with 3,500 armed men. ), Mary was a Catholic queen in a largely Protestant state, but she formed compromises that enabled her to maintain authority without infringing on the practice of either religion. [65] Scotland was torn between Catholic and Protestant factions. In June, the much awaited French help arrived at Leith to besiege and ultimately take Haddington. Who was Mary, Queen of Scots? - National Museums Scotland [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. Robbie provides the foil to Ronans Mary, donning a prosthetic nose and clown-like layers of white makeup to resemble a smallpox-scarred Elizabeth.