Mary, Queen of Scots
She was Queen of Scotland at six days old, Queen of France at sixteen, and spent nineteen years as Elizabeth I's prisoner, writing in stitches what she couldn't say aloud.
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Quick Facts
- Born
- 8 December 1542, Linlithgow Palace
- Became queen
- 14 December 1542, at six days old, after the death of her father James V
- Queen of France
- 1559–1560, as wife of Francis II
- Scottish reign
- Personal rule 1561–1567; forced to abdicate in July 1567
- Husbands
- Francis II of France, Lord Darnley, and the Earl of Bothwell
- Son
- James VI of Scotland, who also became James I of England in 1603
- Captivity
- About nineteen years in English custody, from 1568
- Died
- 8 February 1587, executed at Fotheringhay Castle
A queen in the cradle
Mary was born at Linlithgow Palace on 8 December 1542, six days before her father James V died on 14 December. He had died about two weeks after the Scottish defeat at Solway Moss. She was queen before her first week was out. A baby monarch made Scotland a prize. Henry VIII wanted her as a bride for his son Edward and tried to force the match through years of brutal raids known as the Rough Wooing. The Scots chose France instead. She was crowned at Stirling Castle in September 1543, aged nine months.
The French girl who came home
At five, Mary sailed to France and grew up at the Valois court. She learned French, Latin, Italian and Spanish, and she was famously tall, often said to be around five foot eleven. In 1558 she married the Dauphin Francis. A year later he became king and she became queen consort of France. Then he died in December 1560, aged sixteen, and the life she'd been groomed for vanished. In August 1561 she returned to a Scotland she barely knew. It was now officially Protestant, and she was a Catholic queen. She also had to deal with John Knox, who preached against her in St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh.
Murder at Holyrood
In 1565 Mary married her cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. It went wrong fast. Darnley was vain, jealous and ambitious, and in March 1566 he joined a group of nobles who dragged her secretary, David Rizzio, from her presence at the Palace of Holyroodhouse and stabbed him to death. Mary was heavily pregnant. In June 1566 she gave birth to a son, the future James VI, in Edinburgh Castle. In February 1567 Darnley was killed at Kirk o' Field in Edinburgh, where the house was blown up and his body was found outside in the garden. The Earl of Bothwell was widely suspected. Mary then married Bothwell in May, which destroyed her support.
Nineteen years in other people's houses
The Scottish lords defeated her at Carberry Hill in June 1567 and imprisoned her in Loch Leven Castle. She was forced to abdicate in favour of her infant son. After escaping in May 1568, she lost the Battle of Langside and fled across the Solway into England, expecting help from her cousin Elizabeth I. Instead she became a guest, and then a prisoner. She was moved between castles and manor houses, including Tutbury, Sheffield and Chartley, under the guard of the Earl of Shrewsbury and later Sir Amias Paulet. She passed the time embroidering, much of it with Bess of Hardwick, wife of Shrewsbury. Some pieces still survive, with emblems that carried messages about her situation and her claim to the English throne.
The letters that sealed her fate
As a Catholic with a strong claim to the English crown, Mary was a magnet for plots. Elizabeth's spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham waited for her to commit herself on paper. In 1586 she did, in letters to Anthony Babington that were smuggled in beer barrels at Chartley and read by Walsingham's agents. They endorsed a plan to assassinate Elizabeth. Mary was tried at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire. Elizabeth hesitated, then signed the death warrant. Mary was beheaded in the castle's great hall on 8 February 1587. Accounts say that it took more than one blow, and that her little dog was found hiding in her skirts.
Where to find her today
The irony is that Mary's son won in the end. When Elizabeth died in 1603, James VI became James I of England, uniting the crowns. Mary was buried at Peterborough Cathedral, but James had her moved to Westminster Abbey in 1612, to a tomb opposite Elizabeth's. In Scotland you can see the roofless shell of Linlithgow Palace where she was born, her rooms at Holyroodhouse, and the tiny birth chamber at Edinburgh Castle. Loch Leven Castle stands on its island, and Stirling Castle is where she was crowned. Some of her needlework survives at Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk.
Notable people
- Mary, Queen of Scots
- Elizabeth I
- James VI and I
- Lord Darnley
- James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell
- David Rizzio
- John Knox
- Sir Francis Walsingham
- Bess of Hardwick
- Anthony Babington
- Francis II of France
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