Mary Stuart

Mary, Queen of Scots

 orig. Mary Stuart

(born Dec. 8, 1542, Linlithgow Palace, West Lothian, Scot.—died Feb. 8, 1587, Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, Eng.) Queen of Scotland (1542–67). She became queen when her father, James V (1512–42), died six days after her birth. She was sent by her mother, Mary of Guise, to be raised at the court of the French king Henry II and was married in 1558 to his son Francis II. After Francis's brief rule as king (1559–60) ended with his premature death, Mary returned to Scotland (1561), where she was distrusted because of her Catholic upbringing. In 1565 the red-haired queen married her ambitious cousin Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, and became a victim of intrigues among the Scottish nobles. Darnley conspired with them to murder her confidant David Riccio. After the birth of her son James (later James I of England) in 1566, Mary was estranged from Darnley, who was murdered in 1567. Ignoring objections by the jealous Scottish nobility, she married James Hepburn, earl of Bothwell (1535?–78), a suspect in Darnley's murder. The rebellious nobles deserted her army at Carberry Hill and forced her to abdicate in favour of her son (1567). After failed attempts to win back the throne, she sought refuge in England with her cousin Elizabeth I, who arranged to keep her in captivity. Several uprisings by English Catholics in Mary's favour convinced Elizabeth to have Mary tried and condemned; she was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in 1587.

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Mary Stuart 

Born Dec. 7 or 8, 1542, in Linlithgow, Scotland; died Feb. 8, 1587, in the castle at Fotheringhay, England. Scottish queen from 1542 (in actuality from 1561) to 1567.

Mary lived in France from 1548 to 1561. In 1558 she became the wife of the French dauphin (who became King Francis II in 1559). After being widowed, she returned to Scotland in 1561. She also declared her claims to the English throne (as great-granddaughter of the English king Henry VII). Her attempts to consolidate her authority in Scotland, relying for support on the Catholic aristocracy, aroused the dissatisfaction of the Scottish Calvinists; this became apparent in an uprising in 1567. Accused of participation in the murder of her second husband, Lord Darnley, she was forced in 1567 to renounce the throne in favor of her son (Scottish king James VI; English king James I from 1603) and, in 1568, to flee to England. By order of the English queen Elizabeth I, she was imprisoned. In England she became in effect the center of attention for the most reactionary forces of the English feudal aristocracy in their struggle with Elizabeth’s government. After the exposure of a whole series of Catholic conspiracies against Elizabeth in which Mary was involved, she was tried and executed. Her execution marked a serious defeat for the European Catholic reaction. Mary’s life, full of dramatic events, served many writers (F. Schiller, S. Zweig, et al.) as a theme for literary works, in which she is, as a rule, highly idealized.

REFERENCES

Henderson, T. F. Mary Queen of Scots, vols. 1-2. London, 1905.
Philippson, M. Histoire du regne de Maria Stuart, vols. 1-3. Paris, 1891-92.