WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
Mary Queen of Scots
Mary Stuart — Queen of Scotland, former Queen of France, and great-granddaughter of Henry VII — arrived in England in 1568 seeking refuge from her own rebellious subjects. She stayed for nineteen years as Elizabeth's prisoner. Her presence was a constant political headache: Catholic plotters made her the centrepiece of every conspiracy against Elizabeth; Protestant advisors begged Elizabeth to execute her; Elizabeth refused until the Babington Plot left her no choice. Mary's execution in 1587 was one of the most dramatic events of the reign — and it contributed directly to the Spanish Armada the following year.
Mary's background: a queen twice over
Mary Stuart had already led one of the most eventful lives in sixteenth-century Europe before she arrived in England. Born in 1542 (just days before her father James V of Scotland died), she became Queen of Scotland as an infant. She was sent to France as a child and raised at the French court, marrying the French Dauphin Francis in 1558. When he became King Francis II in 1559, she was briefly Queen of France. He died in 1560, and she returned to Scotland.
Scotland was a problem. The country had undergone a Protestant Reformation; Mary was a devout Catholic. She was intelligent and politically capable, but her second marriage — to her cousin Lord Darnley — was a disaster. Darnley was murdered in 1567 in circumstances that strongly implicated Mary's new favourite, the Earl of Bothwell, whom she then married with indecent speed. Scottish Protestant nobles rebelled; Mary was imprisoned and forced to abdicate in favour of her infant son James (later James VI of Scotland and James I of England). She escaped, raised an army, lost a battle, and fled south to England.
The dynastic claim
Why Mary was such a threat
Mary was the granddaughter of Margaret Tudor (Henry VIII's sister), making her Elizabeth's first cousin once removed. More importantly for Catholics, who did not recognise the validity of Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was illegitimate — which made Mary the rightful Queen of England. The Pope endorsed this view. Spain and France both kept it in mind. This made Mary not just a rival claimant but the focus of every Catholic plot against Elizabeth. As long as Mary lived and was potentially accessible to conspirators, she was a threat — regardless of her own wishes, which were not always to risk her life in dangerous conspiracies.
Nineteen years of captivity
Elizabeth faced an immediate dilemma when Mary arrived. She could not let her go back to Scotland — James's Protestant government was hostile to her. She could not return her to France — that would put a Catholic with a claim to England in the hands of England's greatest rival. She could not release her in England — she would immediately become the focus of conspiracy. And she could not execute her without evidence of a specific crime.
Elizabeth's solution — keeping Mary in comfortable but close confinement, moving her between various northern English castles under the supervision of loyal Protestant nobles — satisfied none of her ministers and left the problem unresolved for nineteen years.
During this period:
- Mary corresponded secretly with supporters in Scotland, France, and Spain
- Three serious plots (Ridolfi, Throckmorton, Babington) aimed at replacing Elizabeth with Mary
- Elizabeth's council repeatedly petitioned her to execute Mary as the source of the danger
- Elizabeth repeatedly refused, not wanting to set the precedent of executing an anointed queen
The Babington Plot and Mary's trial
The Babington Plot of 1586 finally gave Elizabeth's spymaster Walsingham what he needed. Walsingham had inserted a double agent into Mary's household and arranged for her secret correspondence to pass through a channel he controlled — a beer barrel stopper, in one version of the story. He then waited.
Anthony Babington's letters to Mary described the plan clearly: assassinate Elizabeth, invade with foreign forces, release Mary, restore Catholicism. Mary's reply, intercepted and decoded by Walsingham's cryptographers, approved the plan — including, apparently, the assassination of Elizabeth.
Babington and his co-conspirators were arrested, tried, and executed. Mary was tried at Fotheringhay Castle in October 1586. She denied authorising assassination and disputed the authenticity of the letters, but was found guilty of treason.
Source and debate
Was Mary guilty?
Historians have debated whether the letters used to convict Mary were genuine, forged, or altered. Walsingham's network was capable of forgery, and he had strong motives to produce evidence against Mary. The balance of current historical opinion is that the letters were substantially genuine — Mary knew of and approved the broad plan, if not every detail. But the evidence was controlled by her accusers, the trial was not conducted by independent judges, and the outcome was never in doubt. For the exam: you do not need to resolve this debate, but you should be aware that the fairness of Mary's trial is historically contested.
The execution, 8 February 1587
Elizabeth signed the death warrant and then immediately regretted it — or, more accurately, delayed making it clear that she wanted it delayed. Her council, fearing she would reverse course, sent the warrant to Fotheringhay without telling her. Elizabeth was furious, but the execution went ahead.
At Fotheringhay on 8 February 1587, Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded. She was 44 years old. By some accounts she was dressed in crimson (the Catholic colour of martyrdom); by others in black. She prayed in Latin. The executioner took two strikes. Witnesses reported that her little dog had been hiding under her skirts and refused to leave her body.
Elizabeth sent her secretary to prison (briefly) for dispatching the warrant without explicit permission. She protested to James VI that she had not intended for it to happen. Most historians regard these protests as largely performative.
Why this matters for the exam
Consequences of Mary's execution
AQA often asks about the consequences of Mary's execution. The most important was that it removed a Catholic alternative to Elizabeth — but it enraged Philip II of Spain, who had already been moving towards war with England. Philip used Mary's death as a further justification for the Armada he was already preparing. In this sense, Mary's execution contributed directly to the crisis of 1588. It also ended the most sustained political problem of Elizabeth's reign: the nineteen-year threat of Catholic conspiracy centred on a captive queen with a plausible claim to the throne.
Revision checklist
Before moving on, make sure you can answer:
- Who was Mary Queen of Scots? What had happened to her before she arrived in England in 1568?
- Why was Mary's presence in England such a political problem for Elizabeth?
- What was Mary's dynastic claim to the English throne?
- How did Elizabeth deal with Mary between 1568 and 1587?
- How did Walsingham use the Babington Plot to produce evidence against Mary?
- Was Mary's trial fair? What are the arguments on both sides?
- What happened on 8 February 1587?
- What were the consequences of Mary's execution?
What's New snippet
Article slug: gcse-history-elizabethan-england-mary-queen-of-scots
Title: The prisoner who was also a threat — Mary Queen of Scots and nineteen years of crisis
Mary Queen of Scots arrived in England in 1568 seeking refuge, and became Elizabeth's most dangerous problem: a Catholic claimant to the English throne around whom every plot against Elizabeth coalesced. For nineteen years, Elizabeth refused to execute her — and for nineteen years, conspiracies multiplied. The Babington Plot finally forced her hand.