Why was Mary Queen of Scotts so important in history? Why was she so important a monarch in history?

Answer 1

Mary Stuart was a queen of Scotland and queen of France who was executed by the queen of England.

Mary was born on 8th December 1542 at Linlithgow Palace, Lothian, the only child of James V of Scots, who was on his death bed with pneumonia at the time. When he heard that his child was a girl, he cursed “The devil go with it! It came with a lass and it will pass with a lass”, referring to the house of Stuart, which he now presumed would become extinct. James was entirely wrong. The Stuarts would continue not only as monarchs of Scotland, but of England too. James died six days later, leaving Mary as Queen of Scots.

Mary’s mother, the domineering Mary of Guise, then ruled Scotland as Regent, while the young queen was packed off to France, where she received an extensive education in languages, music and dancing, and, at the age of 16, married Francis, eldest son of the King of France. This was a political match, aimed at bringing about a union of France and Scotland, which would hopefully restrain and even dominate England. On the death of the French king, Francis and Mary took the throne of France, but alas the young king died suddenly, leaving Mary a widow at the age of 18.

On her return to Scotland in 1561, Mary rapidly discovered that her formal and delicate education at the French Court had ill equipped her for the brutal reality of Scottish politics. Moreover, to her chagrin, Scotland had undergone a Protestant Reformation, leaving the young Catholic queen isolated in a Calvinist environment. Mary enlisted the help of her half brother, James earl of Moray, one of the illegitimate sons of her father James V, to run the kingdom on her behalf.

Affairs ran smoothly until, Mary was introduced to her cousin, Henry Stuart, earl of Darnley, with whom she immediately fell in love and married hastily. Darnley was vain and arrogant and did nothing to reconcile the feuding Scottish nobles. He was jealous of Mary, fearing that she was having an affair with her secretary, Rizzio. In a fit of rage, Darnley had Rizzio murdered before Mary’s own eyes. The birth of a son James did nothing to reconcile the couple, and Mary now looked for an end to the marriage.

The events of the next year are disputed by historians. What is certain is that Mary became involved with James Hepburn, earl of Boswell. No one can be certain if this was an adulterous liaison, but there is evidence that Mary was seeking to divorce Darnley. There is also evidence that Darnley was seeking to proclaim himself king and dispose of Mary. On February 9th 1567, the house where Darnley was staying was wrecked by a massive explosion and all inside were killed. Some say that Mary had the gunpowder planted to kill Darnley. Some say that dissident nobles plotted to kill Darnley. Other say that Darnley was attempting to set a trap for Mary and blew himself up in the process.

Suspicion fell on Mary when, three months later, she married Bothwell, who proved to be even more vain and dismissive to the nobles than Darnley had been. The nobles had had enough and imprisoned Mary on an island in Loch Levan and formally deposed her, placing her one year old son James VI of Scots on the throne with Moray as Regent. Mary did have some supporters, who sprung her from jail and tried to regain the throne, but were decisively defeated at the Battle of Langside. Mary fled to England to seek help from her cousin, Elizabeth I.

Elizabeth gave a cautious welcome to her cousin but, fearing that Mary would plot against her, had her confined in a secure but quite congenial prison, Fotheringhay Castle. Mary was in prison for nearly twenty years. At first, she continually pleaded with Elizabeth to release her. Then she took to plotting against her. Mary continually sent out secret coded messages, which Elizabeth’s spies had managed to decode. In 1586, there was a plot against Elizabeth’s life, and although Mary could not be directly implicated, Elizabeth had to have her executed.

Mary met her death by beheading on 8th February 1587, in Fotheringhay Castle. It took three stokes of the axe for her head to be severed. When Mary’s son James VI of Scots came to the throne of England as James I, he had his mother reburied in Westminster Abbey under a superb monument. James had Fotheringhay Castle demolished, but the stone stairway down which Mary walked to her execution was taken and re-erected in a nearby inn [The Talbot Hotel, New Street, Oundle, Near Peterborough, PE8 4EA]. It is said that the hotel is haunted by Mary’s ghost, which walks down the stairway at dead of night.

Answer 2

She wasn't all that important a monarch. In fact, as a monarch she was pretty pathetic. And really, she is not that important in history. Her story is a sad, and in places, romantic one, but that's about all. The one really important thing about her is her son, and the fact that he inherited the English throne on the death of the childless Elizabeth I. This united the crowns of England and Scotland, leading the the full union of the two countries a century later.

Answer 3

Mary, Queen of Scots was cousin to Elizabeth I and the two Queens were rivals, Mary was vying for the English throne and Elizabeth was well aware of that and so they had a very frosty relationship.

Mary was also the mother of King James VI of Scotland who was to become King James I of England although she didn't live to see it.

Answer 4

i think she has something to do with why King James I became king of britain. that's a protracted ordeal. yet possibly if somebody else replaced into king/queen religous freedom could have been even slightly extra tolerated, and those pilgrims on the mayflower does no longer have got here around.

Answer 5

She gave birth to James VI of Scotland who after the death of Elizabeth I became James I of England.
She had many lovers ,plotted against Elizabeth and was beheaded accordingly.

Answer 6

1.How many female monarchs do You know of?
2.How many male monarchs had the life and death as she did?
3.Do You know she gave her son to Elisabeth I to be future King of England and Scotland? (personal union).

Answer 7

She wasn't - but her life was a real soap opera, which makes it vaguely interesting to 12 year olds. I know, because I teach them.

Answer 8

Mary isn't as important for what she did than for her family tree. She was the only surviving child of James V of Scotland, and was the great-granddaughter of Henry VII of England. When Mary I of England died in 1558, there was a great hullabaloo over who should succeed her. Elizabeth, Mary's half-sister, was considered illegitimate by Catholic Europe because she was born while Henry VIII's first wife, Katherine of Aragon, was still alive, and thus Henry was still married to her. This made his marriage with Anne Boleyn, in the eyes of Catholics anyway, null and void. The illegitimate offpsring of monarchs were generally not eligible to inherit the throne, so as far as the Catholics in Europe were concerned, Elizabeth should not be queen. The next closest relative of Henry's was Mary Stuart. In 1558 she was in France, married to the Dauphin. Her father-in-law, Henry II of France, styled her and his son Francis the king and queen of England and Scotland. Mary's claim to the English throne was thrown into jeopardy because, according to English law, the new monarch had to be born in England (Mary was born in Scotland). Even after Francis died and Mary returned to Scotland as a young widow, she continued her quest for the English throne. She refused to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh which stated that she would not press her claim on the English throne, thus damaging her relationship with Elizabeth. Throughout her reign in Scotland, Mary pressed Elizabeth to make her her heir (at least for the time being. Most people expected Elizabeth to marry sometime). Relations between Elizabeth and Mary were actually cordial for a time.

Then came Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Darnley had what some believed to be an even stronger claim to the throne than Mary. He too was a great-grandson of Henry VII. Both he and Mary were descended from Margaret Tudor by different husbands. (This sort of intermarriage was common in Mary's time) When they married, Darnley was in hot water with Elizabeth because he, as an English subject, was supposed to get her permission before marrying. Together, Darnley and Mary, both Catholics, were capable of crystallizing Catholic support in Europe against Elizabeth. Understandably, Elizabeth would have been very worried about this. Scotland was a back door into England, and she was probably afraid of a possible invasion.

Darnley was murdered in 1567. Some people believe Mary was responsible for his murder. In her book "Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley", Alison Weir argues very convicingly that she did not directly have anything to do with her husband's murder. Be that as it may, he left behind an infant son, who would become James VI, and Mary, who was incapable of controlling her nobles, led by her half-brother, James, the Earl of Moray. She married James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell later in the spring of 1567. Some believe they were lovers and planned Darnley's murder and their eventual marriage together, but again, all this is shrouded in mystery. The Scottish nobles revolted and Bothwell was forced to flee, eventually being imprisoned in Denmark until his death. Mary was forced to abdicate in favor of her young son. She then escaped to England where she asked Elizabeth for aid.

Elizabeth was reluctant to help her cousin. Not only was Mary still aiming for the English throne, many people thought she was responsible for murdering Darnley. Elizabeth called for a hearing that would decide Mary's involvement with Darnley's murder. The verdict of this hearing was a foregone conclusion before it even began, and it was not in Mary's favor. Afterward, Mary was kept under house arrest in England for another twenty years. She was involved in two plots to escape and overthrow Elizabeth, the Ridolfi and Babbington plots. She implicated herself enough in the latter that Elizabeth ordered her execution. Catholics considered her a martyr, and Mary did go to the scaffold wearing a dress of scarlet, the color of martyrs.

After Elizabeth's death in 1603, James VI of Scotland was the only real candidate for the throne, becoming James I of England. Thus he did what many English monarchs had tried in vain to do for hundreds of years: united Scotland and England as one (at least politically) country.