The Scottish Connection
Mary, Queen of
Scots (1542-1587) was worlds apart in personal behavior and political
savvy from her cousin Elizabeth.
She was crowned
queen of Scotland at the age of nine months, after the death of her father
James V, but her mother, Mary of Guise, ruled for many years in her stead.
Educated in France
and married off at sixteen to Francis II, she was widowed at eighteen
and returned to Scotland in 1561 to take over her kingdom.
A second marriage
to Henry, lord Darnley, produced a son, James, who was educated by Scots
Presbyterians. After Darnley's murder in 1567 she married the man who
had been implicated, James Hepburn, earl of Bothwell. But she was forced
to abdicate later that year and spent most of the rest of her twenty years
under house arrest in England.
Elizabeth, who
believed that one sovereign should not raise hand against another, refused
to have her executed until Mary was directly tied to plots against her,
when Catholics attempted to re-take the English throne.
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©
Mary,
Queen of Scots
from Thomas Trevelyon's Commonplace Book
©
Elizabeth
I Autograph letter, signed,
to James VI of Scotland
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