Mary, Queen of Scots: A Life in Five Chapters

Chapter 1 · A Queen at Six Days

A Scottish crown and a French upbringing

1542 – 1561 · Linlithgow · Paris · Fontainebleau

Mary was born at Linlithgow Palace on 8 December 1542. Six days later her father, James V, died, and she became Queen of Scots. Scotland was governed by regents, and its future was fought over by England and France.

Henry VIII wanted Mary to marry his son Edward and unite the two crowns. When the Scots refused, English armies burned southern Scotland in a campaign later called the 'Rough Wooing'. Instead Mary's French mother, Mary of Guise, turned to France. In 1548, at five years old, Mary was sent to the French court, promised to the Dauphin Francis, heir to the French throne.

She grew up as part of the royal family of Henri II, speaking French as her first language, educated in music, languages and poetry, and close to her powerful Guise uncles. In April 1558 she married Francis in Notre-Dame. That November Elizabeth became Queen of England, and Henri II had Mary use the English royal arms, because Catholics who saw Elizabeth as illegitimate considered Mary the rightful Queen of England through her grandmother Margaret Tudor. Elizabeth never forgot it.

In 1559 Henri died and Francis became king, making Mary Queen of France at sixteen. Francis was sickly, and in December 1560 he died. With no child and no role, a widowed queen of eighteen faced a choice: stay in France as a dowager, or go back to a kingdom she barely remembered, where a Protestant revolution had just taken place. She chose to go home.

Why this matters

Mary's French upbringing and her claim to the English throne shaped every relationship she had with Elizabeth.

A child queen raised at a foreign court with a claim to a third crown. What would you ask her?

Ask Mary

• “Why did your family display the English royal arms in 1558?”
• “What did growing up at the French court teach you about being a queen?”
• “How strong was your claim to the English throne through Margaret Tudor?”
• “Why did you return to Scotland after Francis died rather than stay in France?”
• “How did the Rough Wooing shape Scottish feeling towards England?”

Chapter 2 · Holyrood

A Catholic queen in a Protestant kingdom

1561 – 1566 · Edinburgh · Holyrood Palace

Mary landed at Leith in August 1561. Scotland's Parliament had broken with Rome the year before, and the reformer John Knox preached against the Mass from the pulpit of St Giles. Mary made a careful bargain: she would not overturn the Protestant settlement, and in return she would hear Mass privately in her own chapel. For four years this toleration largely worked. She governed with her half-brother, James Stewart, Earl of Moray, travelled her kingdom and argued with Knox face to face.

The question everyone asked was whom she would marry. In July 1565 she chose her cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, who also had a claim to the English throne. The marriage alarmed Elizabeth, and Moray rebelled and was driven into England. Darnley quickly proved vain, jealous and unfit to rule, and Mary refused to give him the crown matrimonial, which would have made him king in his own right.

On 9 March 1566 Darnley and a group of Protestant lords burst into Mary's supper room at Holyrood and dragged out her Italian secretary, David Rizzio, whom they suspected of too much influence. They stabbed him to death. Mary was six months pregnant. Within days she had won Darnley back to her side and escaped the conspirators.

On 19 June 1566 she gave birth to a son, James, in Edinburgh Castle. It was the high point of her reign: she had an heir with a strong claim to both crowns. But her marriage was broken, and the lords who had killed Rizzio had not forgiven her.

Why this matters

Mary's early reign shows a policy of religious toleration, while the Darnley marriage and Rizzio's murder set up the disaster that followed.

A private Mass, a disastrous marriage and a murder at supper. What would you ask her?

Ask Mary

• “Why did you agree not to overturn Scotland's Protestant settlement?”
• “What did you and John Knox argue about when you met?”
• “Why did you choose Lord Darnley as your husband?”
• “Why did the lords murder David Rizzio in front of you?”
• “Why did you refuse Darnley the crown matrimonial?”

Chapter 3 · Kirk o' Field

A murder, a marriage and a lost kingdom

1567 – 1568 · Kirk o' Field · Carberry Hill · Lochleven · Langside

In the early hours of 10 February 1567 a huge explosion destroyed the house at Kirk o' Field, just outside Edinburgh, where Darnley was recovering from illness. His body was found in the garden. He had been strangled or smothered, not killed by the blast.

Suspicion fell at once on James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, a powerful Protestant noble close to Mary. He was tried in April and acquitted in a trial that many thought rigged. Days later he took Mary, by force or by arrangement, to Dunbar Castle, and on 15 May they were married by Protestant rites.

Whether Mary knew of the plan to kill Darnley is one of the most disputed questions in British history. Her enemies said she was Bothwell's lover and accomplice. Her defenders say she was a victim, abducted and forced into the marriage, and that her real enemies were the lords who wanted both Darnley and her out of the way. The evidence does not settle it either way.

What is clear is the effect. Marrying the chief suspect destroyed her support. The lords raised an army; Mary faced them at Carberry Hill on 15 June, Bothwell fled, and she surrendered. She was taken to an island castle in Lochleven and on 24 July forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son.

In May 1568 she escaped, raised an army and was defeated at Langside. Against her advisers' pleading, she crossed the Solway Firth into England on 16 May, trusting that her cousin Elizabeth would help her regain her throne.

Why this matters

The events of 1567 cost Mary her throne and brought her to England, where her presence became Elizabeth's greatest political problem.

An explosion, a marriage, a surrender and a crossing into England. What would you ask her?

Ask Mary

• “What did you know about the plan to kill Darnley at Kirk o' Field?”
• “Why did you marry Bothwell when so many believed he killed your husband?”
• “Were you abducted to Dunbar, or did you go willingly?”
• “Was your abdication at Lochleven valid if it was forced?”
• “Why did you cross into England rather than sail to France?”

Chapter 4 · Nineteen Years

A guest who became a prisoner

1568 – 1585 · Tutbury · Sheffield · York · Westminster

Elizabeth had a problem with no good answer. To restore Mary by force would mean fighting the Protestant Scottish lords, England's allies. To send her to France would hand a claimant to England's enemies. To set her free in England would give Catholics a leader. So Elizabeth held her.

An inquiry at York and Westminster in 1568–69 examined the 'casket letters', which Moray produced and said showed Mary's guilt in Darnley's murder. Mary's supporters said they were forged or altered. The inquiry gave no verdict, which left Mary neither condemned nor freed.

For most of the next fifteen years she was kept by the Earl of Shrewsbury and his wife Bess of Hardwick, at Tutbury, Sheffield Castle and elsewhere. She lived with a household of servants, embroidered, wrote endless letters and suffered more and more from illness.

She also became the centre of every Catholic hope. The Northern Rising of 1569 aimed in part to free her and marry her to the Duke of Norfolk. The Ridolfi Plot of 1571 and the Throckmorton Plot of 1583 planned foreign invasions to put her on the English throne. How far she directed these plots and how far others used her name is still argued. She always maintained that a queen held without trial had the right to seek her freedom.

In 1585 she was moved to the strict keeping of Sir Amias Paulet and, in December, to Chartley. Her letters were now being read.

Why this matters

Mary's captivity explains why every Catholic plot of the period centred on her and why Elizabeth's ministers came to see her death as necessary.

A queen held without trial, sewing and writing to plotters. What would you ask her?

Ask Mary

• “Were the casket letters genuine, forged or altered?”
• “Did you direct the Ridolfi and Throckmorton plots, or did others use your name?”
• “Why did you never accept that Elizabeth had the right to hold you?”
• “Why did the York and Westminster inquiry end without a verdict on you?”
• “How did your keepers the Earl of Shrewsbury and Bess of Hardwick treat you?”

Chapter 5 · Fotheringhay

A trial she refused to recognise

1586 – 1587 · Chartley · Fotheringhay

At Chartley, Mary believed she had found a secret way to send and receive letters, hidden in beer barrels. In fact every letter passed through the hands of Walsingham's decipherer, Thomas Phelippes. In July 1586 Anthony Babington wrote to her about a plan for invasion, rescue and the killing of Elizabeth. On 17 July she replied, approving the plan. Phelippes added a forged postscript asking for the names of the six gentlemen who would kill the Queen.

The plotters were arrested and executed. In October 1586 Mary was tried at Fotheringhay Castle by a commission of English nobles and councillors. She protested that as a sovereign queen she could not be tried by the subjects of another monarch, and that she had been denied lawyers and her own papers. She denied plotting Elizabeth's death, while not denying that she had sought her freedom. She was found guilty.

Elizabeth hesitated for more than three months. On 1 February 1587 she signed the warrant, and her council sent it without telling her. On the morning of 8 February Mary was led into the great hall at Fotheringhay. She prayed, forgave the executioner, and was beheaded. Accounts say the axe had to strike more than once. Her son James, now King of Scotland, protested but did not break with England.

Catholic Europe called her a martyr, and her death helped push Philip II towards the Armada of 1588. Sixteen years later, her son became King of England.

Why this matters

Mary's execution removed the Catholic alternative to Elizabeth and was one of the causes of Spain's decision to launch the Armada.

A trial she did not recognise and a death warrant sent in secret. What would you ask her?

Ask Mary

• “Why did you reply to Babington when you knew how dangerous it was?”
• “Why did you deny that an English court could try you?”
• “Did the forged postscript make your trial unjust?”
• “Did you expect Elizabeth to sign your death warrant?”
• “Why did you want to be seen as dying for your faith?”

What Mary changed

Mary's claim made her the focus of Catholic hopes in England for nineteen years, and her execution in 1587 removed that alternative and helped bring on the Armada. Her son James united the crowns of Scotland and England in 1603, so the dynasty she was executed for threatening came to the English throne anyway.

A debate that continues

Historians still disagree about whether Mary knew of the plan to murder Darnley, whether the casket letters were genuine, and how far Walsingham entrapped her in 1586.

Keep exploring — ask Mary

• “Was Mary more dangerous to Elizabeth alive or dead?”
• “Can a monarch be lawfully tried by another monarch's courts?”
• “How should historians judge a person when the key evidence is disputed?”

Related lives

• Elizabeth I — Queen of England · The Virgin Queen
• Francis Walsingham — Principal Secretary · Spymaster
• William Cecil — Secretary · Lord Treasurer · The Queen's Spirit

Related themes

Mary, Queen of Scots · The Babington Plot · Catholic plots against Elizabeth · The Scottish Reformation