Person:Mary I of Scotland (1)

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Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, was Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567.

The only surviving legitimate child of James V of Scotland, Mary was six days old when her father died and she acceded to the throne. During her childhood, Scotland was governed by regents, first by the heir to the throne, James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, and then by her mother, Mary of Guise. In 1548, she was betrothed to Francis, the Dauphin of France, and was sent to be brought up in France, where she would be safe from invading English forces during the Rough Wooing. Mary married Francis in 1558, becoming queen consort of France from his accession in 1559 until his death in December 1560. Widowed, Mary returned to Scotland in August 1561. Following the Scottish Reformation, the tense religious and political climate that Mary encountered on her return to Scotland was further agitated by prominent Scots such as John Knox, who openly questioned whether her subjects had a duty to obey her. The early years of her personal rule were marked by pragmatism, tolerance, and moderation. 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, and William Maitland of Lethington, and governed as the Catholic monarch of a Protestant kingdom.

Mary married her half-cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, in 1565, and in June 1566, they had a son, James. In February 1567, Darnley's residence was destroyed by an explosion, and he was found murdered in the garden. 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. Following an uprising against the couple, Mary was imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle. On 24 July 1567, she was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son. After an unsuccessful attempt to regain the throne, she fled southward seeking the protection of her first cousin once removed, Elizabeth I of England. (Elizabeth was the granddaughter of Henry VII of England, and Mary was his great-granddaughter.)

Mary had once claimed Elizabeth's throne as her own and was considered the legitimate sovereign of England by many English Catholics, including participants in a rebellion known as the Rising of the North. Perceiving Mary as a threat, Elizabeth had her confined in various castles and manor houses in the interior of England. 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. Mary's life, marriages, lineage, alleged involvement in plots against Elizabeth, and subsequent execution established her as a divisive and highly romanticised historical character, depicted in culture for centuries.

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Mary I of Scotland, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
2. ↑ ^2.0 2.1 Mary "Queen of Scots" Stuart, in Find A Grave
   14 Dec 1998.

   Birth: Dec. 8, 1542
   Death: Feb. 8, 1587
   Scottish Monarch. French Monarch. Born the daughter of King James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise at Linlithgow Palace, Scotland. James died within a week of Mary's birth and she was crowned queen of Scots. In 1548, Mary sailed to France after the Scots Parliament agreed to her marriage with Francis, heir to Henry II. In 1558, she married the Dauphin in Notre Dame Cathedral. Later that year, Mary I of England died and Henry II encouraged his daughter-in-law to assume the royal arms of England, a move her cousin Elizabeth I never forgot. In 1559, Henry II died and Mary and Francis were crowned Queen and King of France. In 1560 Francis died. Mary returned to Scotland on in August 1561. Politically naïve, she proceeded with her rule without a real sense of whom she was ruling. She attempted to strengthen the power of the Crown against Scotland's notoriously difficult nobles and made many enemies as a result. In July 1565, she married her cousin Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley who was regarded as weak and vain. They had one son. In 1567 Darnley's house, Kirk o' Field, was destroyed and Darnley strangled. The Earl of Bothwell, one of her contentious nobles, met the queen with 600 men and apparently forced her into marriage three months after Danley's death. With the nobility arrayed against her new husband, Mary was taken to Lochleven Castle and held prisoner. There, she was forced to abdicate in favor of her one-year-old son, James. After ten months of captivity she escaped and set sail for England. She was confined upon her arrival in 1568. Elizabeth considered Mary's designs on the English throne to be a serious threat. Mary would eventually became a liability that Elizabeth could no longer tolerate. Mary was involved in several plots to assassinate Elizabeth, to raise the Catholic North of England in rebellion, and to put herself on the throne. After being involved in the Babington plot, part of which included her giving the go-ahead to assassinate Elizabeth, Mary was tried, found guilty of treason and condemned by a court of 40 noblemen. Mary was executed at Fotheringhay Castle but the execution was badly carried out. She endured at least two strokes with an ax before her head was removed. Her little dog crawled out from under her petticoat where he had been hidden and he could not be coaxed away from her body and had to be carried away. Mary was initially buried at Peterborough Cathedral, but her body was exhumed in 1612 on the orders of her son, James I of England and was reinterred in Westminster Abbey only thirty feet from the grave of her cousin Elizabeth I.

   Mary "Queen of Scots" Stuart
3.   Mary Stewart, Queen of Scotland, in Lundy, Darryl. The Peerage: A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe.