Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 72. Mary Stuart - Queen of Scots

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72. Mary Stuart - Queen of Scots · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hi, everybody, and
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Speaker 1: welcome to Hooded. What now the history podcast that's not
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Speaker 1: your history class with me your host Kerry Charlwood, history
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Speaker 1: harlot and reader of books. Welcome back, friends, Romans, countrymen,
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Speaker 1: and to the newbies. Hi, and consider this your disclaimer.
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Speaker 1: I have been told that my language is as colorful
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Speaker 1: this is not the podcast for you. However, if that's
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Speaker 1: not an issue for you, welcome to the Guild of
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Speaker 1: Historical Dissent. And it's my anniversary. Woo woo, woo woo.
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Speaker 1: Who was that? No, And by anniversary, I mean it's
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Speaker 1: the podcast anniversary, our first year with Airwave Media. Twenty
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Speaker 1: of release, it's officially one year with Airwave huzzah. So yeah,
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Speaker 1: bad at trying to celebrate, like the podcast birthday and
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Speaker 1: the dates in line, but I thought, you know what,
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Speaker 1: this gives me the perfect opportunity to talk about someone
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Speaker 1: that I've wanted to discuss for a very long time.
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Speaker 1: But before we get into that, remember it is the
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Speaker 1: me your favorite shade of pink. You can tell me
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Speaker 1: if you could be an astronaut, what planet would you visit.
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Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. It literally does not matter what you
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Speaker 1: in there, it gets bomped up the algorithm. Yes, bomped
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Speaker 1: that is the word I chose. But I know what
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Speaker 1: you're thinking. You're thinking, quit your gibber jabber in fact me,
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Speaker 1: In fact you I will. But first we've got to
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Speaker 1: get our source on. Our sources are Mary, Queen of
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Speaker 1: Scott's by Antonio Frazier, Mary Queen of Scott's by Gordon Donaldson,
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Speaker 1: Mary Queen of Scott's by Jenny Warmold Mary Queen of
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Speaker 1: Scott's by Raytha Warnick. I'm sensing a theme here, Mary
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Speaker 1: Queen of Scott's by Rosalind Marshall. Mary Queen of Scott's
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Speaker 1: A Study in Failure by Jenny Warmold Mary Queen of Scott's.
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Speaker 1: An Illustrated Life by Susan Dorn Rival Queen's The Betrayal
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Speaker 1: of Mary, Queen of Scott's by Kate Williams. And of
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Speaker 1: course we have our old friendshistory dot com and biography
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Speaker 1: dot Com. Now are you saitting comfortably good? Then it's begin.
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Speaker 1: But before we start, this week's episode is dedicated to
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Speaker 1: Maggie in Canada. Hi, Maggie. I thought it's been a
3:26
Speaker 1: while since I had a classic tuor Queen, and with
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Speaker 1: it being an anniversary episode, I was saving Mary for
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Speaker 1: something good and I already promised a specific person to
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Speaker 1: be the hundredth episode, So you'll have to wait and
3:40
Speaker 1: see who that is. But it's somebody who's misrepresented in history,
3:44
Speaker 1: of course it is. But you know me, I love
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Speaker 1: flawed characters. I love flawed women, especially flawed women in
3:54
Speaker 1: power throughout history, because they're so interesting, because there's so
3:58
Speaker 1: much more to understand about them. And Mary Stuart, Mary
4:05
Speaker 1: Mary was she contrary, I mean a wee bit, but oh,
4:10
Speaker 1: she just kept fucking things up. But I suppose we
4:15
Speaker 1: should start from the start obviously. Princess Mary Stuart was
4:19
Speaker 1: born at the Lithical Palace on the eighth of December
4:23
Speaker 1: fifteen forty two, and she is the only surviving and
4:27
Speaker 1: legitimate child between Mary of Gay's and King James the
4:31
Speaker 1: Fifth of Scotland. I do think King James had like
4:34
Speaker 1: nine illegitimate children all in all, so a wee bit
4:37
Speaker 1: of family history here. James the Fifth his mum was
4:41
Speaker 1: Margaret Tudor, who was Henry the eighth sister, thus making
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Speaker 1: Princess Mary the great niece of Henry the eighth and
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Speaker 1: like a second cousin to Elizabeth, Mary and Edward. So
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Speaker 1: because the way monarchies work, Princess Mary she is the
4:58
Speaker 1: heir to the Scottish thrown. She is next in the
5:01
Speaker 1: line of succession, and when it comes to the English throne,
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Speaker 1: she's also got a tenuous link there through her paternal grandmother.
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Speaker 1: This will come in useful later on, let me tell you,
5:13
Speaker 1: but familial connections don't always stop tyrants. So by the
5:17
Speaker 1: time Mary was actually born, Scotland and England were at
5:21
Speaker 1: war with one another. Now, the Scottish counselors had tried
5:25
Speaker 1: to put a pause on this war until Mary of
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Speaker 1: Gay's had given birth because they didn't want to do
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Speaker 1: anything that would, you know, cause her unnecessarily stress. So
5:34
Speaker 1: there had been a few defeats, a few successes. But
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Speaker 1: after this one defeat that King James wasn't even at.
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Speaker 1: He'd gone back to see Mary of Gay's for a
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Speaker 1: wee bit and then he headed off to Falkland. So
5:48
Speaker 1: there he was at two days before Mary's born, the
5:52
Speaker 1: sixth of his zemper, and he takes ill. Now the
5:56
Speaker 1: theory is it's like cholera or dysentery, and it's like
6:00
Speaker 1: generally agreed that he just consumed like contaminated water or
6:03
Speaker 1: something to that effect. So many timeline six of December
6:07
Speaker 1: heads to Falkland, gets ill. Eighth of December. Two days later,
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Speaker 1: Mary is born. He is ill, he's in bed, and
6:17
Speaker 1: he gets informed that you know, she's given birth to
6:20
Speaker 1: a daughter. Who is premature, by the way, and on
6:23
Speaker 1: his deathbed it is noted that he says it came
6:26
Speaker 1: well Lass and little Gang well Lass, meaning that his
6:30
Speaker 1: family line came with a woman, Marjorie Bruce, the daughter
6:33
Speaker 1: of Robert the Bruce, and would leave with a woman.
6:36
Speaker 1: So yeah, the only thing he ever said about his
6:40
Speaker 1: daughter was saying that she would end the Stuart line
6:44
Speaker 1: on his deathbed. Now, I don't know about you, but
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Speaker 1: that really seems to me like a perfect trigger for
6:52
Speaker 1: daddy issues. I'm just saying, so, yeah. Six days later,
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Speaker 1: James the fifth dies and Mary is now Queen of Scotland.
7:02
Speaker 1: It's six days old now, when Mary is only a
7:05
Speaker 1: couple days old, but I think before her dad passes away,
7:08
Speaker 1: she gets christened at the Chapel of Saint Michael and
7:12
Speaker 1: words start going around. The rumor mill is churning that
7:17
Speaker 1: the way baby Mary is weak and frail, and a
7:21
Speaker 1: lot of this is due to the fact that she's premature,
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Speaker 1: and some of this is because people just like to
7:27
Speaker 1: stir some shit because they see an opening now because
7:32
Speaker 1: she's an infant without a father and this makes her
7:36
Speaker 1: very very susceptible and people like power and as such,
7:43
Speaker 1: shit starts going down. But these rumors are pretty quickly
7:48
Speaker 1: squashed when an English diplomat comes up to visit just
7:52
Speaker 1: to see what she's like, and he's like, that is
7:55
Speaker 1: one healthy baby. Things are okay. Now. One of the
7:59
Speaker 1: rea the English diplomat is there is because King Henry
8:04
Speaker 1: the Eighth he wants Scotland. Of course he does. He
8:08
Speaker 1: just can't fucking help himself. And so he is trying
8:12
Speaker 1: to broke her an arrangement with Mary of Geese, who
8:16
Speaker 1: he tried to marry at one point, by the way,
8:18
Speaker 1: but we'll talk about that when we talk about her.
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Speaker 1: And he's trying to broke her betroth though between Prince
8:26
Speaker 1: Edward and and Queen Mary. Now he's trying to get
8:30
Speaker 1: them together. And now, before I get into anything else,
8:34
Speaker 1: I should clarify that at this point Scotland is very
8:38
Speaker 1: much still a Catholic country. There is some Protestantism going around,
8:41
Speaker 1: but it's ruled by Catholics. Mary of Geese is a Catholic. Mary,
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Speaker 1: Queen of Scots is a Catholic. Henry the eight can
8:53
Speaker 1: I meet a big dealing up about not being a Catholic? Yeah?
8:57
Speaker 1: And Edward he's he is very very Protestant, m like
9:05
Speaker 1: super into it, like he is raised in such a
9:07
Speaker 1: way where he's just like uber Protestant. But apart from that,
9:13
Speaker 1: Henry thinks, fuck it, why not, let's put a treaty together.
9:18
Speaker 1: And so when Mary is six months old, the Treaty
9:22
Speaker 1: of Greenwich it's put together. I just signed, and it
9:26
Speaker 1: basically promises that when Mary turns ten, she's going to
9:31
Speaker 1: move to England. Mary Edward and Henry's gonna like keep
9:37
Speaker 1: an eye on her upbringing so that she's doing things right.
9:40
Speaker 1: And when they get married, if they don't produce any
9:45
Speaker 1: airs because fucking obsession with procreation, that their marriage can
9:51
Speaker 1: be dissolved. Now, the treaty did also say that Scotland
9:54
Speaker 1: and England would remain separate entities, separate countries. I don't
10:00
Speaker 1: feel like that's how things would have gone if this
10:03
Speaker 1: had continued. I feel like this would have been a slowly,
10:07
Speaker 1: slowly catchy monkey situation. So here's a fun fact about babies,
10:12
Speaker 1: but not too good at the whole diplomacy situation. So
10:15
Speaker 1: Queen Mary, you know, she's an infant, she cannot quite
10:19
Speaker 1: rule a country, and so regents have to be there
10:23
Speaker 1: in her place. They have to roll in her stead.
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Speaker 1: And so there's two man sort of rivals to be
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Speaker 1: her regent, and that is Cardinal Beaton, who's very Catholic
10:33
Speaker 1: obviously because he's a fucking cardinal. And then you have
10:36
Speaker 1: the Earl of Aaron, who's Protestant and he's basically next
10:40
Speaker 1: in line to the Scottish throne after Mary, so it's
10:45
Speaker 1: in his best interest to do that. So Cardinal Beaton
10:50
Speaker 1: he's really pushing like a pro French pro Scottish treaty
10:54
Speaker 1: because he wants to align the Catholic countries and which
10:58
Speaker 1: naturally really Henry. So this Cardinal he's worried for Mary's
11:03
Speaker 1: safety because they're bloody coastal right, and he wants to
11:06
Speaker 1: move inland to Stirling Castle. And you know, Aarn isn't
11:11
Speaker 1: too keen on this for like a bunch of raisins.
11:14
Speaker 1: But then he decides to just let beat and do
11:16
Speaker 1: it because he has a massive army and it's probably
11:19
Speaker 1: safer for him just to agree, and so he does.
11:22
Speaker 1: And then in September fifteen forty three, the infant, not
11:30
Speaker 1: even a year old, is crowned officially crowned Queen of
11:34
Speaker 1: Scotland and in a move that will surprise absolutely fucking
11:38
Speaker 1: no one. King Henry the Eighth is not happy about this,
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Speaker 1: and he just starts impounding goods from Scottish merchants on
11:44
Speaker 1: their way to France because he's like not. Because Henry
11:48
Speaker 1: is further annoyed when he realized that Mary of Geese
11:51
Speaker 1: was just fucking with him, like she was stalling because
11:55
Speaker 1: she didn't want Mary to marry Edward. No, that was
11:59
Speaker 1: not in the card for her at all. So he
12:02
Speaker 1: does what he calls rough wooing, which basically means attack
12:06
Speaker 1: the shit out of Scotland. Because the Treaty of Greenwich
12:09
Speaker 1: is just vetoed completely by the Scottish Parliament. It rejects it,
12:14
Speaker 1: and naturally Henry is angry and he tries to just
12:17
Speaker 1: bully them into submission, into agreeing to a union. And
12:22
Speaker 1: Henry is sending campaigns out to Scotland and France. He's
12:25
Speaker 1: get English forces here, there and everywhere. And when Mary's
12:29
Speaker 1: only a year and a half old, Edinburgh is raided
12:32
Speaker 1: and for her safety, the Scots take her out of there.
12:34
Speaker 1: They get the hell at a dodge and they go
12:36
Speaker 1: to dunk killed. Now you might be thinking, well, surely
12:40
Speaker 1: these attacks are going to stop when Henry eighth dies.
12:43
Speaker 1: Absolutely not not a jot. So nine months after Henry
12:48
Speaker 1: eighth passes away, there are still campaigns and attacks going on,
12:54
Speaker 1: and Mary's guardians they freak the fuck out, and so
13:00
Speaker 1: they sent her off to inch My Home Priory. So
13:03
Speaker 1: she's off to stay with the nuns for a bit,
13:05
Speaker 1: which is only there for a couple of weeks because
13:07
Speaker 1: they just they just don't know what else to do it.
13:09
Speaker 1: They're freaking out, and so they play the only card
13:12
Speaker 1: left in their hand, which is turning to France for help. Now,
13:17
Speaker 1: King Enry the second of Franz, he's thinking, absolutely, I'll
13:20
Speaker 1: help you, but Mary has to marry the Dauphint Prince Francis,
13:28
Speaker 1: so the Earl of Iron, he automatically agrees because he's
13:31
Speaker 1: thinking to himself he could deal with a nice we
13:33
Speaker 1: dukedom in France and beating Well. Beeton didn't have a
13:36
Speaker 1: say in it at this point because he was killed
13:38
Speaker 1: by Protestant lairds a few years earlier. Yeah, so Protestant
13:43
Speaker 1: rule was sort of gaining momentum in Scotland at this point,
13:47
Speaker 1: which caused its own special layer of friction. But there
13:50
Speaker 1: you go, and Mary. Like the worst game of past,
13:53
Speaker 1: the parcel gets moved again, although this time she's gone
13:56
Speaker 1: to Dunbarton Castle. And then French trips are a huzza.
14:01
Speaker 1: They've come to aid the Scots against the English, just
14:04
Speaker 1: as promised. And then near the town of Leith, I
14:07
Speaker 1: thinking away, nunnery it was, the Scottish Parliament meets and
14:11
Speaker 1: then signs a treaty with France to allow Mary to
14:15
Speaker 1: go over there, go into the protection of the French
14:17
Speaker 1: court and make an alliance by marrying Dophin Francis. And
14:23
Speaker 1: at the tender age of five years old, Mary is
14:27
Speaker 1: sent to France. Like not on her own. They didn't
14:30
Speaker 1: just wrap up the kid and chuck her over. No, No,
14:33
Speaker 1: she had like her own little cork go with her,
14:35
Speaker 1: including like two of her illegitimate brothers. And then the
14:38
Speaker 1: four Mary's. There are four girls round her own age,
14:42
Speaker 1: all called Mary. It's a common thing that happened back then.
14:46
Speaker 1: Nobility just kept naming after each other. Now the four Mary's,
14:51
Speaker 1: they are nobles in their own right. Okay, so they
14:54
Speaker 1: are the daughters of Scottish noble families like the big ones,
14:59
Speaker 1: and they're is too well. Surround Mary become her confidence
15:03
Speaker 1: and become her quote unquote friends ish but also to
15:07
Speaker 1: make alliances with rich and powerful noble frenchman. It just
15:14
Speaker 1: is what it is, or you know, any other sort
15:16
Speaker 1: of countrymen that are rich and powerful, preferably also having
15:21
Speaker 1: a title though, because that's just how they wanted it
15:23
Speaker 1: to work. And when Mary gets to France, she is
15:27
Speaker 1: an absolute hit there with everybody apart from her her
15:32
Speaker 1: mother in law Catherine de Medici, who just does not
15:35
Speaker 1: take to this girl at all. But you can't really
15:38
Speaker 1: do anything because she's going to be the next Queen
15:41
Speaker 1: of France and she just kind of has to accept it.
15:44
Speaker 1: So and Mary she does well in French court. She
15:48
Speaker 1: learns everything she's supposed to learn, she does everything she's
15:51
Speaker 1: supposed to do, She learns falconry and needlework, and she
15:55
Speaker 1: learns how to become the Queen Consort of France. And
15:59
Speaker 1: that is something we really need to take it to consideration,
16:01
Speaker 1: because Mary's education in France differs greatly to the education
16:07
Speaker 1: that say Elizabeth and Mary Tudor had because of the
16:11
Speaker 1: women in their life Catherine Parr and of Cleaves, the
16:16
Speaker 1: manner in which they were taught, they were taught to rule,
16:22
Speaker 1: to be self sufficient effectively. Mary of Scott's Mary of Scott's,
16:29
Speaker 1: Mary Queen of Scott's, was never trained like that. She
16:33
Speaker 1: was never conditioned to rule in her own stead because
16:40
Speaker 1: she was expected to be the Queen consort of France.
16:44
Speaker 1: She was supposed to look to her husband to rule,
16:47
Speaker 1: to make the decisions, and that the ruling of France
16:50
Speaker 1: in Scotland would be intertwined. So Mary and Francis are
16:54
Speaker 1: an interesting couple because Mary she's five eleven, and this
16:58
Speaker 1: is in an error where women are not usually that tall.
17:01
Speaker 1: I think Mary of Geeze was like six foot I
17:04
Speaker 1: think all in all, but yeah, Mary has an oval face,
17:09
Speaker 1: auburn hair, hazel eyes, she's five eleven, she's strong. Francis, however,
17:15
Speaker 1: it is shorter than she is and is pretty sickly.
17:19
Speaker 1: He's not a well child. I think Mary's like two
17:23
Speaker 1: years older than anim as well, so that probably doesn't
17:26
Speaker 1: help much. But like they got along really well. They
17:29
Speaker 1: were really like close, they were confidence and they were
17:32
Speaker 1: very close. And if he wasn't so sick, I think
17:35
Speaker 1: things would have worked out pretty well for them, at
17:39
Speaker 1: least in France, if not anywhere else. On April twenty fourth,
17:43
Speaker 1: fifteen fifty eight, Mary and Francis they get married. So
17:48
Speaker 1: she's sixteen, he's only fourteen, and the French court they
17:54
Speaker 1: marry them in this opulent royal ceremony. It is fancy
18:00
Speaker 1: as fuck. It is just massive. And the plan was
18:06
Speaker 1: that they would start, you know, popping out some else, right,
18:11
Speaker 1: because they're thinking she is in her prime and he
18:15
Speaker 1: is there. So this is April, and in November of
18:19
Speaker 1: that very same year, Mary Tudor succeeds to the English throne. Now,
18:25
Speaker 1: because Mary Tudor didn't have any heirs, many English Catholics
18:30
Speaker 1: saw Mary Stuart as, you know, the next in line
18:34
Speaker 1: to the English throne, because she had a claim through
18:37
Speaker 1: Margaret Tudor. Even though Henry had made an Act of
18:40
Speaker 1: Parliament basically cutting the Stuarts out of the liney succession. Right,
18:44
Speaker 1: he was like, no, not happening, But many Catholics saw
18:49
Speaker 1: her as the rightful heir after Mary Mary Tudor, not
18:53
Speaker 1: Mary Stuart. Too many Mary's anyway, And because Henry the
18:59
Speaker 1: Second of France can't help but be a dick, he
19:02
Speaker 1: decides to proclaim Francis and Mary as the rightful heirs
19:07
Speaker 1: to the English throne, the King and Queen of England,
19:11
Speaker 1: because Mary is the legitimate surviving heir of Henry the
19:18
Speaker 1: seventh of England. He even goes so far is to
19:22
Speaker 1: get like the English coat of arms in the French court,
19:25
Speaker 1: to be quartered with the roses of Francis and Mary like.
19:30
Speaker 1: He goes all out. But the very next year Henry
19:34
Speaker 1: has the terrible misfortune to be gravously injured in its
19:39
Speaker 1: summer jousting match, and he dies on the tenth of
19:43
Speaker 1: July fifteen fifty nine, making Francis and Mary the King
19:48
Speaker 1: and Queen of France. They're teenagers and they are now
19:54
Speaker 1: in charge of a country. Meanwhile, back in Scotland, the
19:58
Speaker 1: shit is really hit in the fans. Well, Mary of Geese,
20:00
Speaker 1: she had brought in these French diplomats to basically maintain
20:05
Speaker 1: the Franco Scott's relations and alliances. But this really annoyed
20:11
Speaker 1: a lot of the Scottish lairds when she should have
20:14
Speaker 1: really hired from within effectively so a lot of Protestant lairds.
20:19
Speaker 1: They had invited English troops up to Scotland just kine
20:24
Speaker 1: to try and gain some more support for the whole
20:27
Speaker 1: Protestant thing, and Mary of Gaye was barely holding onto
20:32
Speaker 1: any control because she had the use of French trips,
20:36
Speaker 1: and France are dealing with her own crap right now,
20:39
Speaker 1: so they send the Geese brothers over to sort of
20:42
Speaker 1: try and negotiate. But then tragedy strikes and Mary's mother dies,
20:48
Speaker 1: so she passes away in June fifteen sixty and by
20:52
Speaker 1: July Mary Stewart's representatives have been sent to Scotland to
20:57
Speaker 1: try and hammer a deal, and so the Treaty of
21:01
Speaker 1: Edinburgh gets put together, and that it's going to remove
21:04
Speaker 1: English and French troops from Scotland, and it's going to
21:09
Speaker 1: have France recognize Elizabeth Tudor as the legitimate heir to
21:13
Speaker 1: the throne of England. Unfortunately, Mary wasn't care on ratifying
21:18
Speaker 1: that trety, partially because she was grieving the death of
21:21
Speaker 1: her mother and partially because she also kind of felt
21:25
Speaker 1: that she had a right to rule England, even though
21:29
Speaker 1: she wasn't even roll in Scotland at this point. But okay,
21:32
Speaker 1: and so Mary, she's seventeen at this point, she's an orphan,
21:36
Speaker 1: She's the Queen of France, she is the Queen of Scotland,
21:39
Speaker 1: she is married, but she has yet to produce an
21:44
Speaker 1: air to the French and or Scottish throne. And at
21:47
Speaker 1: this point as well, there was absolutely no record of
21:51
Speaker 1: a whisper of an indication that Mary had been pregnant
21:55
Speaker 1: at all during this time. Now, there are a few
21:58
Speaker 1: theories as to why this is. One of which it's
22:00
Speaker 1: like they're just so young, like Marie, Antoinette and Louis, like,
22:04
Speaker 1: that's why you know nothing had been Consummary. Yet another
22:08
Speaker 1: was because the dophin Francis, or the King Francis now
22:12
Speaker 1: I should say, either because he was so sickly and
22:16
Speaker 1: so unwell, or because he hadn't developed as quickly as
22:20
Speaker 1: he was expected to, that his testicles had yet to drop,
22:25
Speaker 1: and there go, you know, no puberty, no pregnancy. But
22:29
Speaker 1: things are about to get from bad to worse for Mary.
22:33
Speaker 1: So in the winter of fifteen sixty, Francis gets an
22:37
Speaker 1: ear infection, but being Francis, this is not just any
22:42
Speaker 1: ear infection, because this led to a deadly absess of
22:46
Speaker 1: the brain, and on the fifth of December fifteen sixty,
22:51
Speaker 1: King Francis dies, leaving the eighteen year old Mary as
22:56
Speaker 1: a widow and a childless widow. At that and after
22:59
Speaker 1: her customary forty days of mourning, she starts receiving visitors,
23:05
Speaker 1: one of which is one of which is Henry Stuart,
23:09
Speaker 1: son of the Earl of Lenox, who was very much
23:12
Speaker 1: trying to get in the Queen's favor. So Mary is
23:15
Speaker 1: a childless widow, she doesn't have any heirs to the
23:18
Speaker 1: French throne, she has no claim on the French throne,
23:21
Speaker 1: so there isn't really a reason for her to be
23:24
Speaker 1: staying around there, you know. And after she finishes her
23:29
Speaker 1: customary forty days of mourning, she starts getting visitors from Scotland,
23:34
Speaker 1: one of which being Henry Stuart, the son of the
23:38
Speaker 1: Earl of Lennox, and he's trying to get into her
23:42
Speaker 1: Majesty's good crisis. But she has envoys and diplomats and
23:47
Speaker 1: everyone coming to visit her because because she's still young
23:51
Speaker 1: enough to produce an air, she's still of good marrying age,
23:53
Speaker 1: and she is of quote unquote good stock. And Katherine
23:58
Speaker 1: Demodic doesn't really need her around anymore because she's acting
24:01
Speaker 1: regent for you know, we King Charles, and so she's
24:05
Speaker 1: planning to just send Mary back, but she's going to
24:08
Speaker 1: make sure that Mary isn't pregnant, so they have to
24:12
Speaker 1: wait just to be sure. And then nine months after
24:16
Speaker 1: the death of Francis, she gets carted off back to Scotland,
24:21
Speaker 1: a place that's basically a foreign country to her because
24:24
Speaker 1: she was raised in France in the French Court. So
24:28
Speaker 1: she's arriving at a place that she just doesn't know
24:31
Speaker 1: and that's in political turmoil and that she doesn't really
24:36
Speaker 1: have knowledge or proper interest in. So when she arrives
24:41
Speaker 1: in Leith in fifteen sixty one, she has no idea
24:45
Speaker 1: what she's getting herself into. And when she lands there,
24:49
Speaker 1: people are well suspicious over so, like the Earl of Moray,
24:53
Speaker 1: who is her illegitimate half brother by the way, is
24:56
Speaker 1: really suspicious over, as are quite a lot of Protestant
24:59
Speaker 1: Lairds because she's a devout Catholic. She was raised Catholic
25:04
Speaker 1: in a Catholic country and she's very much on the
25:07
Speaker 1: side of Catholicism. And it's not just the Protestant Lairds
25:10
Speaker 1: that are suspicious over Elizabeth. Tudor is also watching her
25:15
Speaker 1: because she's she's very suspicious and she kind of had
25:20
Speaker 1: a reason to be so, Like they would write to
25:22
Speaker 1: each other an awful lot, and they would call each
25:24
Speaker 1: other like sister, like, trying to have a connection. But
25:28
Speaker 1: a lot of Mary's supporters, or at least people who
25:31
Speaker 1: just didn't like Elizabeth, saw Mary as such an appropriate
25:35
Speaker 1: sort of queen because of the fact that she was
25:38
Speaker 1: Catholic and because she had a direct line to the
25:40
Speaker 1: throne and they wanted to put her there instead of Elizabeth.
25:45
Speaker 1: And Mary she was a wee bit ambitious herself. She
25:49
Speaker 1: wouldn't mind adding Queen of England onto her list of
25:53
Speaker 1: titles that she's garnered over the years. So the Catholics
25:56
Speaker 1: they liked Mary, or at least they tolerated Mary. The
26:00
Speaker 1: Protestants they weren't too keen, Like the Earl of Moray
26:05
Speaker 1: would like chastise her for dancing and wearing elaborate clothing. Okay, cool,
26:13
Speaker 1: what I mean, that's just that's just silly. I don't care.
26:17
Speaker 1: That's silly. But she like charges him with treason and
26:20
Speaker 1: then he gets acquitted anyway, so it doesn't really matter
26:22
Speaker 1: because she's like, I'm gonna charge you with Treason's that's great,
26:26
Speaker 1: one of one of the most powerful men in the
26:27
Speaker 1: country and you want to just charge him with treason.
26:31
Speaker 1: When you're not even established here properly not the best
26:36
Speaker 1: move Mary not being said, even though the Protestants aren't
26:40
Speaker 1: too keen on you know, Mary's whole you know existence,
26:44
Speaker 1: she is surprisingly tolerant of theirs, like to the point
26:50
Speaker 1: that the Catholic Party is really bloody shocked. So because
26:53
Speaker 1: of the Protestant Reformation, which happened like between fifty nine
26:58
Speaker 1: and sixty when sort of that English and French troops
27:01
Speaker 1: were being removed from Scotland and the ascension of Protistism
27:06
Speaker 1: took hold, and lots of the Lairds were Protestant at
27:09
Speaker 1: this point, and because Mary was so focused on gaining
27:15
Speaker 1: support for the English throne, because she was so focused
27:19
Speaker 1: on that, she completely had her blinkers on when it
27:21
Speaker 1: came to Scotland. Like whether it was because she didn't
27:24
Speaker 1: understand or didn't care, she was so focused on grabbing
27:31
Speaker 1: this power that she was ignoring what she already had.
27:35
Speaker 1: So yeah, the Catholics are just super shocked that she's
27:38
Speaker 1: so accepting of these Protestant Lairds, and like her Privy Council,
27:43
Speaker 1: the majority of them are men who already held office anyway,
27:46
Speaker 1: which is not the most silly of moves, but so
27:51
Speaker 1: many of them were Protestant leaders from the Reformation, and
27:56
Speaker 1: only four I think were Catholic and all so you
28:00
Speaker 1: had Maury, Glen Cairn, Argyle, they were leaders of the Reformation.
28:08
Speaker 1: There was more, but I just don't remember their names.
28:11
Speaker 1: But yes, Elizabeth is currently Queen of England, but she's
28:15
Speaker 1: not married, she has no heirs, and so she needs
28:18
Speaker 1: to name one for the whole line of succession situation,
28:23
Speaker 1: and Mary sends an ambassador to England to like basically
28:26
Speaker 1: fight her case and to put her in sort of
28:29
Speaker 1: in the line, but Elizabeth really doesn't want to do
28:33
Speaker 1: that because she feels like by naming her it will
28:37
Speaker 1: lead sort of a wave of whispers in the Catholic
28:40
Speaker 1: camp against her, leading to more people wanting to get
28:44
Speaker 1: rid of her and replace her with a Catholic queen. Again.
28:49
Speaker 1: Elizabeth is one suspicious lady. And it's the early fifteen sixties,
28:54
Speaker 1: and of course Mary starts playing royal Tinder and she
28:58
Speaker 1: is swiping through trying to find the right match. So
29:02
Speaker 1: things don't go well for her, basically like anyone else
29:07
Speaker 1: using Tinder. So she's trying to find a new royal husband.
29:12
Speaker 1: So her advisers. They're trying to get her to marry
29:15
Speaker 1: the Archduke Charles of Austria, and she's like, fuck this
29:19
Speaker 1: for a game of soldiers and chucks them back to Vienna.
29:23
Speaker 1: And for some completely unfathomable reason, she tries to woo
29:28
Speaker 1: the incredibly unstable Don Carlos of Spain, who is the
29:33
Speaker 1: heir apparent to King Philip the Second, and she is
29:37
Speaker 1: trying to get this match going, but Philip just completely
29:42
Speaker 1: says no, absolutely not. The proposal is denied by Spain.
29:48
Speaker 1: At this point, even Elizabeth gets involved in this weird
29:52
Speaker 1: matchmaking process and she offers, of all people, Robert Dudley.
29:59
Speaker 1: That's right, the Robert Dudley. So she's offering him, and
30:04
Speaker 1: she says to Mary that if you know, if you
30:06
Speaker 1: marry a Protestant English subject, I will name you as
30:12
Speaker 1: a successor to the throne. However, this would also require
30:16
Speaker 1: Mary to come live in the English court with Elizabeth
30:20
Speaker 1: and Dudley, all three of them together. It's not weird,
30:24
Speaker 1: you're making it weird. Oh no, it's weird. Unfortunately for
30:29
Speaker 1: both Elizabeth and Mary, Robert Dudley straight up refused. He
30:34
Speaker 1: just was not into Mary. To the point that he
30:38
Speaker 1: was just absolutely trying to do anything else. He was
30:41
Speaker 1: trying to leave the country to go to like Havana,
30:44
Speaker 1: because he was like, I don't want to do this.
30:47
Speaker 1: Can you imagine being the queen of a country and
30:50
Speaker 1: having a lesser noble reject you, Like that's gonna suck.
30:56
Speaker 1: But that's not to say people weren't interested in her,
30:59
Speaker 1: because Mary even had her own fucking stalker. That's right.
31:03
Speaker 1: There was this French poet Pierre de Pascoe Dela whose
31:08
Speaker 1: name I have completely butchered. You're welcome, and he was
31:13
Speaker 1: fucking obsessed with Mary. Like they found him was at
31:17
Speaker 1: fifteen sixty three. They find him physically hiding under her bed,
31:23
Speaker 1: like that's where the chamber pots are, right, that's that's
31:27
Speaker 1: not a place anyone should want to be. But yeah,
31:29
Speaker 1: there he is under the bed because he is ready
31:32
Speaker 1: to surprise her and proclaim his love for her, which
31:36
Speaker 1: is really fucking creepy. But they do like a security
31:40
Speaker 1: sweep of the room like every night, and they find
31:42
Speaker 1: him and she's like absolutely not, get him out of here,
31:47
Speaker 1: banishes him from Scotland. But this doesn't stop him. Two
31:51
Speaker 1: days later, he sneaks in again, waiting for her to
31:55
Speaker 1: get undressed, and she is absolutely fuman at this point
32:00
Speaker 1: that she just gets him Protrayson and then he's beheaded.
32:04
Speaker 1: And yes, Queen Mary, she is out there looking for love.
32:09
Speaker 1: And how does she meet again, but Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley,
32:15
Speaker 1: Who's I think they're cousins of some kind, because of
32:18
Speaker 1: course they are, they're nobles. And so they meet and
32:23
Speaker 1: he is incredibly charming. He's also known as the long lad.
32:28
Speaker 1: Take a moment, Okay, So this is because of his height.
32:33
Speaker 1: So he was over six foot tall and Mary is
32:36
Speaker 1: five eleven, so this is actually a pretty good, pretty
32:39
Speaker 1: good height Matt and this young fella, he knows what
32:42
Speaker 1: he's doing. He knows how to wool a lady. He's charming,
32:46
Speaker 1: he's witty, he can dance, and he has everything that
32:51
Speaker 1: she is looking for. So they met, what was it
32:54
Speaker 1: in February in fifteen sixty five, and then by July
32:59
Speaker 1: of that year they got married. So this is a
33:03
Speaker 1: bit wild as well because Elizabeth was involved in arranging
33:08
Speaker 1: this match, like she had promoted it, but then when
33:11
Speaker 1: it happened, she was like threatened by it, and a
33:15
Speaker 1: lot of Mary's political advisors they were completely against this.
33:18
Speaker 1: Like himself, he had to get like a special like
33:22
Speaker 1: travel pass to actually go from England to Scotland. But
33:27
Speaker 1: he gets it again because originally Elizabeth is behind this.
33:31
Speaker 1: But yeah, Mary's political advisors are not keen on this.
33:36
Speaker 1: They're not happy about this. But she was smitten as
33:40
Speaker 1: a kitten. She was ready for this. I mean, she's
33:43
Speaker 1: in her early twenties. She's probably feeling some desire and stuff.
33:47
Speaker 1: And we don't know if her marriage was ever consummated
33:51
Speaker 1: with Francis, Like, we don't know if that was a possibility.
33:55
Speaker 1: And yes, in a whirlwind romance, they get married at
34:00
Speaker 1: Holyrood Palace in July fifteen sixty five. And here's the thing.
34:07
Speaker 1: Because they're first cousins and because they're Catholic as fuck,
34:12
Speaker 1: they are supposed to get a special dispensation from the
34:15
Speaker 1: Pope from the Vatican in order for them to get married,
34:20
Speaker 1: but they just decide to do it anyway. And like,
34:25
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why our advisors were so against
34:28
Speaker 1: the match is because many of them knew what Darnley
34:31
Speaker 1: was really like, because he acted, you know, he had
34:35
Speaker 1: a lot of charm on him, but like behind closed doors,
34:39
Speaker 1: he was an absolute prick. Like, he was violent and aggressive,
34:44
Speaker 1: and he was effectively think alpha male, think that kind
34:49
Speaker 1: of idea. Like, he was just aggressive in every sense
34:54
Speaker 1: of the word. And he grew up being conditioned to
34:58
Speaker 1: believe that he deserved the throne because he had I
35:03
Speaker 1: think a link on both maternal and paternal side to
35:08
Speaker 1: a link to the English throne, which kind of makes
35:11
Speaker 1: sense why Elizabeth was really unhappy about it, even though
35:14
Speaker 1: initially she'd kind of tap them in the right direction.
35:18
Speaker 1: But yeah, do you remember her half brother, that the
35:21
Speaker 1: Earl of More. Yeah, so he wasn't super happy that
35:25
Speaker 1: there was two Catholics on the throne in Scotland, you know,
35:28
Speaker 1: being a Protestant and being the advisor to the queen,
35:32
Speaker 1: and so he instigated a rebellion against her. Like you
35:36
Speaker 1: know how sometimes when all of your friends and family
35:39
Speaker 1: don't like your new partner, like they just do not
35:42
Speaker 1: pass the vibe check, like this is this is the
35:46
Speaker 1: medieval version or Renaissance version, or one of the versions.
35:50
Speaker 1: So remember a minute ago when I said that Darnley
35:53
Speaker 1: was an absolute prick, Well, yes, see, here's the thing.
35:59
Speaker 1: He was vain and arrogant and had a bit of
36:03
Speaker 1: a drinking problem, which would then make him violent, although
36:06
Speaker 1: sometimes he was violent without it, and it was quite
36:10
Speaker 1: possible or probable. It was basically believed he had syphilis, right,
36:14
Speaker 1: he already had syphilis. But like when they wed, like
36:18
Speaker 1: she called him like the lustiest man she'd ever known.
36:22
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's not surprising because her first husband was
36:25
Speaker 1: like a frail, sickly boy. Like it's of course he's
36:29
Speaker 1: going to be lustier than that, one would hope the
36:32
Speaker 1: very least. But yeah, soon enough, he was getting a
36:37
Speaker 1: bit pissy because she was the Queen of Scotland and
36:42
Speaker 1: he might have been a king or there's no such
36:44
Speaker 1: thing as a king consort technically, but he didn't have
36:48
Speaker 1: any power because she was a woman and he was
36:51
Speaker 1: a man. He was her husband. He was supposed to
36:54
Speaker 1: rule her like blah blah, and he was will mad
36:59
Speaker 1: and he was trying to force her to give him power.
37:04
Speaker 1: So he wanted what was known as the Crown matrimonial,
37:07
Speaker 1: and this was an edict that would basically let him
37:10
Speaker 1: become the King of Scotland once she died. Which here's
37:15
Speaker 1: a thing. Don't put stuff like that in place when
37:18
Speaker 1: your husband is a crazy, angry man like, let's not
37:21
Speaker 1: let's not do that. Needless to say, when this happened,
37:26
Speaker 1: he was none too happy, and being a consort really
37:30
Speaker 1: pissed him off because he was brought up to believe
37:35
Speaker 1: that he had power, that he deserved, power, that he
37:40
Speaker 1: deserved a fucking crown, and when he didn't have all
37:44
Speaker 1: of the power that he wanted, he decided he was
37:47
Speaker 1: gonna fuck around and get it. So their marriage is strained,
37:52
Speaker 1: to say the least, but not so strained that they
37:55
Speaker 1: do not conceive a child. So they are still at
37:58
Speaker 1: the very least knocking some doing the horizontal tangle or
38:02
Speaker 1: whatever position they preferred. I don't know. I wasn't in
38:06
Speaker 1: the bedroom, and like, I don't know if they were
38:09
Speaker 1: just lusty young people or whether it was more of
38:13
Speaker 1: a hey, we need to get some airs coming out
38:15
Speaker 1: here so that we have, you know, more leverage for
38:20
Speaker 1: gaining crowns and thrones and titles. But she's pregnant and
38:26
Speaker 1: he still doesn't have that extra power, and he's starting
38:30
Speaker 1: to get extra pissed off. And so because they've got
38:35
Speaker 1: tensions going on, she's spending more time with her her secretary,
38:39
Speaker 1: David Rizzio, who is Catholic and this pissed off everybody.
38:45
Speaker 1: So he gets involved in this Protestant conspiracy, well say
38:50
Speaker 1: Protestant conspiracy, a conspiracy with Protestant lairds. And this is
38:56
Speaker 1: including some of the lairds who had previously just rebelled
39:02
Speaker 1: against Mary when she married him in the first place.
39:06
Speaker 1: So that's happening. And on the ninth of March fifteen
39:11
Speaker 1: sixty six, he walks into rooms. She's eating her dinner.
39:16
Speaker 1: She's sitting there having a wee chat with David Ritzio.
39:19
Speaker 1: He comes in wraps his arms around her waist while
39:23
Speaker 1: the Lairds drag Ritzio from the room, I say from
39:27
Speaker 1: the room. She still sees them physically stab him in
39:31
Speaker 1: front of her, all the while her lovely husband has
39:36
Speaker 1: a dagger pressed against her. So her husband and a
39:40
Speaker 1: group of lairds stab her private secretary fifty six times
39:45
Speaker 1: in front of the very pregnant Mary, which to Darley
39:49
Speaker 1: seemed like a really good idea at the time, but
39:51
Speaker 1: for some reason, like two days later, he decides that no,
39:56
Speaker 1: this isn't a good plan anyway, and he and Mary
40:00
Speaker 1: escape to Hollywood. So, after attacking and murdering his wife's
40:04
Speaker 1: closest friend. He then switches asides and flees with said
40:09
Speaker 1: wife to Edinburgh, and there on the nineteenth of June
40:13
Speaker 1: fifteen sixty six, James the sixth of Scotland is born,
40:19
Speaker 1: although I suppose he's just James Stewart at this point.
40:22
Speaker 1: So when James is being baptized, right when he's having
40:26
Speaker 1: his christening, she is not keen on this like weird ritual.
40:32
Speaker 1: So there's this custom that the Archbishop of Saint Andrew's
40:36
Speaker 1: is supposed to spit in the baby's mouth at the christening.
40:41
Speaker 1: And she's like absolutely not no, and she calls the
40:45
Speaker 1: archbishop a pocky priest, and she like removes James from him.
40:50
Speaker 1: In October of that year, Mary rides off to Jidbrah
40:54
Speaker 1: to see the Earl of Bothwell, who is severely injured.
40:57
Speaker 1: So she goes, she visits them. She brings like a
41:00
Speaker 1: bunch of like counselors and guards and whatnot. Now, after
41:03
Speaker 1: this week trip, Mary gets violently ill. So she gets
41:08
Speaker 1: the sickness which basically causes her to constantly vomit. She's
41:15
Speaker 1: having convulsions and she's going a bit blind in it,
41:19
Speaker 1: like it's it's horrific, and there's like a couple of
41:23
Speaker 1: theories as to what's wrong with her, you know, mental stress,
41:27
Speaker 1: emotional distress, physical exhaustion, gastric ulcer or porphyria like that
41:36
Speaker 1: sort of pops up every now and again. But by
41:40
Speaker 1: fifteen sixty six, the end of fifteen sixty six, Mary
41:44
Speaker 1: is still very much married to Darnley, and he is
41:48
Speaker 1: proclaiming he has no idea what happened to David Ritzil,
41:52
Speaker 1: even though he was literally right there in the room
41:56
Speaker 1: like when it happened, like he was there, because like Adam,
42:00
Speaker 1: I wasn't there. I mean, there's being a liar and
42:04
Speaker 1: then there's just being a bad liar. But yeah, she
42:08
Speaker 1: ends up having a meeting with her nobles to deal
42:12
Speaker 1: with the problem of Darnley, and so they're planning to
42:16
Speaker 1: like get rid of him, like divorce him, pay him off.
42:21
Speaker 1: But they're trying to make it so that he asks
42:24
Speaker 1: for a divorce off of her and not the other
42:26
Speaker 1: way around. They want it to seem like he is
42:28
Speaker 1: the one who's leaving because they don't want Mary to
42:32
Speaker 1: look like a tyrant because it's so easy to twist,
42:35
Speaker 1: you know, a female ruler. Even though Mary granted a
42:39
Speaker 1: pretty shitty ruler like, she's not doing great here anyway,
42:43
Speaker 1: So Darnley he starts getting a wee bit worried, right,
42:47
Speaker 1: and he decides he's gonna he's gonna go away for
42:49
Speaker 1: a wee bit, and so he goes to stay with
42:52
Speaker 1: his dad, or not his dad, but on his father's
42:55
Speaker 1: lands near Glasgow, right, and he gets ill like some
43:01
Speaker 1: people suggest that it's smallpox, others say that it's syphilis,
43:07
Speaker 1: and of course there's always the good old reliable poison theory.
43:11
Speaker 1: So anyway, he ends up staying in Cirkerfield in Edinburgh
43:14
Speaker 1: because the Queen requests that he return, and so he
43:19
Speaker 1: heads back and Mary is out at a wedding celebration
43:25
Speaker 1: and what do you know, there's an explosion and Lord
43:28
Speaker 1: Darnley dies in incredibly mysterious as circumstances which will be
43:35
Speaker 1: which we are going to be discussing in detail in
43:37
Speaker 1: this week's Bittysode because it is one of my favorite
43:40
Speaker 1: things to talk about. Ever. So it's January fifteen sixty
43:44
Speaker 1: seven and Mary is a widow twice over. Now, naturally
43:50
Speaker 1: this caused some unrest because you know, the consort to
43:54
Speaker 1: the Queen, the highest ranking man in the country, has
44:00
Speaker 1: died under mysterious circumstances. Some would even go far to
44:04
Speaker 1: say that there was pul play involved. And as such,
44:08
Speaker 1: people are looking at Mary and you know, her enemies
44:13
Speaker 1: are going to use this to her advantage, and they're
44:16
Speaker 1: looking at her dear friend, the Earl of Bothwell. And
44:21
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, it's not the worst idea. I mean,
44:25
Speaker 1: he wasn't the only one who people were suspicious of.
44:27
Speaker 1: They had Maitland, Morey Morton Bothwell and of course Mary herself.
44:33
Speaker 1: They were all sort of looked upon with suspicion. And
44:36
Speaker 1: she even writes to Like Elizabeth about it. Although, like
44:40
Speaker 1: all of the letters back and forth, one of my
44:42
Speaker 1: favorite things is when she explains to like Elizabeth what
44:47
Speaker 1: Dudley had done and she was like Elizabeth's response was,
44:51
Speaker 1: I would have grabbed that knife off him, that dagger,
44:53
Speaker 1: and I would have stabbed him with it myself. Like vicious,
44:58
Speaker 1: but funny as fuck. Yeah, here is an idea though,
45:04
Speaker 1: like when when you want to marry someone, when you
45:07
Speaker 1: want to remarry, maybe don't marry the chief suspect in
45:13
Speaker 1: your husband's murder. It's just an idea. I just want
45:16
Speaker 1: to throw that out there, giving people some advice because
45:21
Speaker 1: obviously I can't give it to Mary because she's been
45:23
Speaker 1: dead for several centuries. But to the new people maybe
45:27
Speaker 1: going to know d that just a wee bit. So
45:30
Speaker 1: the Earl of Lennox, who was Lord Danley's father, he
45:36
Speaker 1: was you who was just foaming at the mouth. He
45:38
Speaker 1: was like, this man needs to be arrested and tried.
45:42
Speaker 1: And so they did. They tried him, and in a
45:45
Speaker 1: trial that lasted like seven hours, he was acquitted. They
45:49
Speaker 1: were like, not enough evidence met, don't believe it. And
45:53
Speaker 1: then a bunch of people supported him, you know, in
45:56
Speaker 1: his aim to marry Mary. So yes, in April fifteen
46:01
Speaker 1: sixty seven, Bothwell manages to get support to Divorce's current
46:06
Speaker 1: wife and then to marry Mary. So sometime between like
46:10
Speaker 1: the twenty first and twenty third of April, Mary goes
46:13
Speaker 1: to visit you know, James at Sterling Castle for this
46:16
Speaker 1: is like the last time. So she goes to see him,
46:19
Speaker 1: and then she is abducted by Bothwell. Right now, we
46:29
Speaker 1: don't know what kind of happens and what's going on there,
46:32
Speaker 1: but whether it was an actual abduction or whether it
46:38
Speaker 1: was like a planned situation. There's also a theory that
46:43
Speaker 1: she was assaulted during this time and as such, but
46:47
Speaker 1: we just don't have any clue as to what happened.
46:50
Speaker 1: But on May fifteenth, they get married. So they get married.
46:57
Speaker 1: They get married like just after he's been acquitted of
47:02
Speaker 1: her husband's murder. I mean, living for the drama. But yeah, yeah,
47:08
Speaker 1: So even though he had the support of like a
47:10
Speaker 1: bunch of lairds right the court, the Scottish court was
47:15
Speaker 1: not fucking happy and they were just livid about like
47:23
Speaker 1: the marriage itself, and although she was out with like
47:26
Speaker 1: the customer morning period and because this was an option,
47:31
Speaker 1: the swiftness of it, and also the fact that the
47:34
Speaker 1: Queen was so easily swayed so quickly, it's it doesn't
47:38
Speaker 1: look good from her any angle, any angle. This is
47:42
Speaker 1: just absolute bollocks. And this just the shit hits the fan. Really.
47:48
Speaker 1: Her advisors turned against her, her subjects turned against her.
47:52
Speaker 1: Everyone is pissed because in their eyes, she's guilty as
47:56
Speaker 1: fuck at this point because of who she's associating with,
48:00
Speaker 1: of who she bloody married, and so she is basically
48:05
Speaker 1: stripped of her power. And so it's May she's just
48:09
Speaker 1: been married, and she suffers a spontaneous abortion otherwise known
48:14
Speaker 1: as a miscarriage, and when she got pregnant, we're not sure.
48:20
Speaker 1: I mean, if if she was assaulted in April, there
48:26
Speaker 1: really shouldn't have been much to happen in May, but
48:31
Speaker 1: I think it was before that. So we don't know
48:33
Speaker 1: whether this was who this was from, because Darley died
48:39
Speaker 1: in January and she would have been showing febue March
48:42
Speaker 1: April May four months, four months, so she could very
48:46
Speaker 1: well have been impregnated or it could have happened a
48:52
Speaker 1: little later by whom. Whom's to say, But again there
49:00
Speaker 1: is the rumor that she was assaulted and as such
49:03
Speaker 1: that's why she agreed to such a marriage. AnyWho, By
49:09
Speaker 1: July of that year, fifteen sixty seven, she is forced
49:14
Speaker 1: to abdicate her throne in favor of her son, James,
49:19
Speaker 1: who becomes James the sixth of Scotland and an absolute
49:23
Speaker 1: shit bag like he is awful, but that's another story
49:28
Speaker 1: for another day. So Mary is basically being held under
49:31
Speaker 1: house arrest. She's imprisoned at loch Leven for like a year,
49:36
Speaker 1: and she's only twenty five at this point, which is
49:39
Speaker 1: twenty five years old, and she comes up with a
49:42
Speaker 1: plan she straight up convinces the owner of Loch Leven
49:47
Speaker 1: to help Slash let her escape, and then for a
49:51
Speaker 1: full fortnite for two whole weeks, she just starts some shit.
49:57
Speaker 1: She leads an army, she garner's support of like six
50:01
Speaker 1: thousand men, and she battles with her brother, the Earl
50:06
Speaker 1: of Maury. I mean, they beat her, but she fights them,
50:12
Speaker 1: and even though they absolutely kick her ass, she doesn't
50:14
Speaker 1: quite admit defeat. She is I don't know what a
50:18
Speaker 1: flair for the dramatic, shall we say, And she just
50:22
Speaker 1: fucks off. So she goes across the border to England,
50:26
Speaker 1: stays a night in an abbey, then gets a hold
50:30
Speaker 1: of a fishing boat to go across this Alway Firth
50:34
Speaker 1: into England in order to beg her sweet sister, her
50:39
Speaker 1: cousin Elizabeth, to help her reclaim Scotland. That's right, She's
50:45
Speaker 1: going to her rival, who's thrown she has stick to
50:49
Speaker 1: claim on to then ask for help to give her
50:52
Speaker 1: more power. Not a great plan, Mary, not a great plan. Also,
50:59
Speaker 1: as we said before, Elizabeth was pretty suspicious like all
51:04
Speaker 1: the time, and maybe the person who may or may
51:08
Speaker 1: not have been involved in their husband's murder coming to
51:12
Speaker 1: see you, isn't you know, the most fortuitous of events.
51:17
Speaker 1: And so Elizabeth is mulling over this, and then Maray
51:20
Speaker 1: saends what is called the casket letters because they were
51:23
Speaker 1: found in a casket and there are these like eight
51:26
Speaker 1: letters which are love letters from like Mary to Bothwell
51:29
Speaker 1: and they're discussing like the plot, which was convincing enough
51:35
Speaker 1: for Elizabeth at the time, but like modern historians think
51:38
Speaker 1: that this was just like like a con This was
51:42
Speaker 1: just a way to taint Elizabeth's opinion of Mary and
51:46
Speaker 1: not give her the support that she wanted. And so
51:49
Speaker 1: Elizabeth she's on Maury's side, and she allows him to
51:53
Speaker 1: get back to Scotland to Rilla's regent for the infant
51:57
Speaker 1: King James and Mary Well. She says Mary that she's
52:02
Speaker 1: going to be lenient on her right, but like as
52:04
Speaker 1: long as she stays in English custody and doesn't get
52:08
Speaker 1: involved in any shit. Basically, stay in your room, don't
52:12
Speaker 1: get in any trouble. And so for the next twenty
52:16
Speaker 1: years or almost twenty years, Mary is kept in English
52:20
Speaker 1: custody like she is to stay in England, and she's
52:24
Speaker 1: effectively under house arrest. But those houses are castles, and
52:29
Speaker 1: she has like a little entourage, you know, and she
52:33
Speaker 1: is basically again past the parcel. So she goes around.
52:37
Speaker 1: Elizabeth just keeps her and just moves her around a
52:40
Speaker 1: bit because she doesn't want to harm her, because you know,
52:45
Speaker 1: she wants to be seen as like a decent, lenient ruler.
52:48
Speaker 1: But she's also really worried that, you know, Mary's gonna
52:52
Speaker 1: be involved in a plot against her and you know
52:55
Speaker 1: try and like claim to the English throne what she does.
53:01
Speaker 1: So it's like because during this time in captivity, like
53:05
Speaker 1: all of these plots trying to remove Elizabeth from the
53:08
Speaker 1: throne and pop Mary up there kept happening, but for
53:12
Speaker 1: the most part, she managed to not be directly involved
53:15
Speaker 1: in these schemes and kept like missing out. But by
53:19
Speaker 1: fifteen eighty four, she is kind of sick of being
53:23
Speaker 1: under house arrest. She wants to go outside, Like she's
53:26
Speaker 1: literally kept inside castles and stuff. I mean, she's got
53:29
Speaker 1: linens and you know, fancy dresses and jewels and you know,
53:33
Speaker 1: wine to wash her face with. It was part of
53:36
Speaker 1: her Bury rotaining, it was, and like she is just
53:41
Speaker 1: not feeling it anymore, and so she asks her eighteen
53:44
Speaker 1: year old son to help King James, who has been
53:48
Speaker 1: brought up to not trust this woman, shall we say?
53:51
Speaker 1: And so he's like absolutely not, not even a little bit,
53:55
Speaker 1: not helping you. And so yeah, this is where things
53:59
Speaker 1: take a turn for Mary because by fifteen eighty six
54:04
Speaker 1: her luck basically runs out. I say luck runs out.
54:08
Speaker 1: I mean it's a total cock cup. It's an absolute
54:12
Speaker 1: co cup. So there's this Babington plot. So you've got
54:17
Speaker 1: Anthony Babington and John Ballard. They had this plan to
54:20
Speaker 1: rescue Mary and then put her on the English throne.
54:25
Speaker 1: And during this whole event, or this planned event, Mary
54:30
Speaker 1: played an active role in the conspiracy and it was
54:34
Speaker 1: a good plan for the most part, except that Elizabeth
54:39
Speaker 1: had a spy master, and being a spy master, he
54:45
Speaker 1: found out the plot and what he did was very
54:48
Speaker 1: simple but very clever. So he allowed Mary to correspond
54:54
Speaker 1: with the conspirators. He allowed them to send letters back
54:57
Speaker 1: and forth, and by doing that he was just gathering evidence.
55:03
Speaker 1: So he gets his hands on these letters and he
55:05
Speaker 1: is decoding them because they're all written in fucking code,
55:08
Speaker 1: because of course they are. No one's going to write
55:10
Speaker 1: let's kill the Queen in like block capital letters, and
55:13
Speaker 1: if you do don't want to do that, that's just foolish,
55:17
Speaker 1: Like at least make the code clever. So he reads
55:21
Speaker 1: it and it basically says that Mary is just putting
55:24
Speaker 1: her seal on it. She just is quite happy to
55:27
Speaker 1: use anything against Elizabeth and her approval is there of
55:31
Speaker 1: any means necessary? Right, And well, clearly this is not
55:37
Speaker 1: good for Mary because this evidence is brought to the
55:40
Speaker 1: Queen herself. And so on the twenty fifth of October
55:45
Speaker 1: fifteen eighty six, Mary stood trial and the English counselors
55:52
Speaker 1: convicted her of treason and she was sentenced to death,
55:56
Speaker 1: like she was supposed to have her head cut off,
55:59
Speaker 1: but Elizabeth was, you know, hesitating in the hole chopping
56:04
Speaker 1: off her cousin's head scenario, you see. Instead of a
56:06
Speaker 1: big old public execution, there was a plot to poison Mary,
56:13
Speaker 1: like before this could happen, Like there was this whole scheme.
56:17
Speaker 1: But like Mary's handler was like, I can't poison her
56:20
Speaker 1: because that that's against sort of basic morality. That's not cool.
56:26
Speaker 1: So then trying to sort of save face and try
56:30
Speaker 1: and make her seem like a more considerate queen, Elizabeth
56:34
Speaker 1: offers Mary a deal if she confesses her sins and
56:39
Speaker 1: begs for forgiveness. Elizabeth will pardon her, but Mary is
56:46
Speaker 1: I mean, they say pride is a sin, and she
56:49
Speaker 1: is fucking proud, and she digs her heels in and
56:52
Speaker 1: she straight up refuses to beg She's she's not having it.
56:56
Speaker 1: She's not gonna do it. She's not going to beg
56:58
Speaker 1: for forgiveness. And as eventually Elizabeth signs Mary's death warrant
57:06
Speaker 1: on the first of February fifteen eighty seven, and her
57:11
Speaker 1: privy counts sol They're like, super, thanks good, we can
57:13
Speaker 1: just go do this now. And it takes them two
57:17
Speaker 1: days to just like cross teasedot eyes. And on February seventh,
57:23
Speaker 1: so like six days later, she gets told that she's
57:27
Speaker 1: gonna get her head chopped off. And so when it
57:30
Speaker 1: comes to the day of her death, she's like spending
57:33
Speaker 1: her time like praying and getting stuff in order. And
57:36
Speaker 1: while she's doing this, they are literally building a scaffold
57:40
Speaker 1: in the palace hall, like in the hall, and she
57:44
Speaker 1: finally walks up to the chopping block. She is dressed
57:48
Speaker 1: in like a black satin bodice, a velvet pedicoat, and
57:53
Speaker 1: it's got these like crimson like a deep red like
57:57
Speaker 1: crimson sleeves and this is like and this was Mary
58:04
Speaker 1: using her clothes to send a message, so like that
58:07
Speaker 1: type of crimson in Catholicism, like it is the color
58:10
Speaker 1: of martyrdom. Like she's basically saying that she's a martyr
58:15
Speaker 1: to Catholicism. Like that's okay, Mary, not that you were
58:19
Speaker 1: just really proud and tried to steal a bunch of
58:21
Speaker 1: stuff and was very terrible at ruling a country, but okay.
58:25
Speaker 1: But she gets up there and she's getting undressed by
58:28
Speaker 1: you know, her servants and whatnot, and she makes the
58:31
Speaker 1: executioner laugh because she's like, I've never been taken care
58:37
Speaker 1: of this way before, and I've never got undressed in
58:39
Speaker 1: front of such company, Like yeah, this is what they
58:44
Speaker 1: call gallows humor, Like this is what I was talking about.
58:48
Speaker 1: But so she forgives the executioner anyway, because she's like yeah,
58:54
Speaker 1: And so she kneels down, puts her head on, and
58:58
Speaker 1: then stretches out her arms, expecting this to be like
59:02
Speaker 1: a noble and quick death. It is not. So the executioner,
59:12
Speaker 1: I don't know if he was still laughing from what
59:13
Speaker 1: happened before, but he like he was not the best
59:19
Speaker 1: executioner in the world. And I don't know if this
59:23
Speaker 1: was a deliberate choice by Elizabeth because she really wanted
59:26
Speaker 1: to like or maybe her counselors deliberately chose someone who
59:30
Speaker 1: wasn't like super great at this. But yet it was
59:33
Speaker 1: not a pleasant execution because the first swing it misses,
59:40
Speaker 1: so instead of just going down on the neck, it
59:44
Speaker 1: hits the back of her head. The second one hits
59:48
Speaker 1: her neck, but it doesn't completely go through, and it
59:53
Speaker 1: gets to the point where they have to like saw
59:56
Speaker 1: through the rest of her neck with the axe like
59:59
Speaker 1: they go and people start freaking out a little bit
1:00:08
Speaker 1: because because they were not prepared for this, so like
1:00:13
Speaker 1: by the time they actually chopped off the head, the
1:00:17
Speaker 1: executioner tries to lift up the head so they can
1:00:20
Speaker 1: go like, God save the Queen, and as he's doing
1:00:25
Speaker 1: it to sort of be like hah Trader, it's revealed
1:00:28
Speaker 1: that she was wearing an auburn wig and that she
1:00:31
Speaker 1: had gray hair underneath, which is you know, natural and
1:00:34
Speaker 1: or stress. Whom's to say. But they go to lift
1:00:37
Speaker 1: it up and her head just drops and rolls onto
1:00:43
Speaker 1: the ground into like some of the people that are
1:00:45
Speaker 1: there is that they say that like her mouth, her
1:00:50
Speaker 1: was still moving like the decapitated head, that the lips
1:00:53
Speaker 1: were still moving, and it was freaking just like all
1:00:56
Speaker 1: of these people out listen, you're all the people whood
1:00:59
Speaker 1: Is decided to watch someone be publicly murdered in front
1:01:03
Speaker 1: of you. So you deal with the gruesoveness of it, okay.
1:01:06
Speaker 1: But another thing that happened that freaked people out is
1:01:09
Speaker 1: there was movements coming from under her skirt and out
1:01:12
Speaker 1: came her Maltese terrier like she had smuggled a dog
1:01:16
Speaker 1: out with her. And so on the eighth of February
1:01:19
Speaker 1: fifteen eighty seven at Fotheringay Castle, Mary Stuart, Queen of
1:01:25
Speaker 1: Scots was executed at age forty four. So Mary had
1:01:32
Speaker 1: requested to be buried in France, but Elizabeth just completely
1:01:36
Speaker 1: vetoed that and her body was embalmed and placed in
1:01:41
Speaker 1: a lead coffin and she was buried at a Protestant
1:01:46
Speaker 1: service in Peterbock Cathedral in July fifteen eighty seven. However,
1:01:51
Speaker 1: that was not to be her final resting place because
1:01:55
Speaker 1: when her son, James the Sex of Scotland became James
1:01:58
Speaker 1: the First of England, he had her exhumed and reburied
1:02:02
Speaker 1: in Westminster Abbey. And he did this whole thing about
1:02:05
Speaker 1: like asking for forgiveness to seem like he was better,
1:02:09
Speaker 1: but no, no, he was all show. And so ends
1:02:14
Speaker 1: our story of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scot's. If you
1:02:19
Speaker 1: enjoyed my retelling of this historic tale, feel free to
1:02:22
Speaker 1: rate and review five stars on Apple Podcasts and or Spotify.
1:02:26
Speaker 1: That was my radio Puss in her voice way, but
1:02:29
Speaker 1: wasn't It was like, let's do this. I don't forget.
1:02:32
Speaker 1: You can follow me on all of the socials. I
1:02:34
Speaker 1: am on Twitter, I guess I don't know what it's
1:02:37
Speaker 1: x now, whatever it is. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
1:02:45
Speaker 1: I'm on all the places. I'm on most of the places.
1:02:49
Speaker 1: Links are on the description down below. Oh, speaking of
1:02:53
Speaker 1: Edinburgh Castle, actually that is one of the four castles
1:02:57
Speaker 1: I'm going to be visiting, going to be doing as
1:02:59
Speaker 1: part of Trover Tree. So it's a fun gonna be
1:03:02
Speaker 1: like private history tour trip with myself and we're gonna
1:03:06
Speaker 1: have another guide, but I'm going to tell you the
1:03:08
Speaker 1: bits of history that they usually don't want to share
1:03:10
Speaker 1: with you, because like it starts in Edinburgh, and then
1:03:13
Speaker 1: it goes up to like the Isles, the Highlands or
1:03:16
Speaker 1: going to like the Isle of Sky. It's gonna be
1:03:19
Speaker 1: super super fun. There's a link for the Trover trip
1:03:22
Speaker 1: information down below. I think the first eight and get
1:03:27
Speaker 1: to the first eight, like early bird people get like
1:03:30
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars off off the cost of the thing,
1:03:33
Speaker 1: which is you know anywhere you can save a buck. Absolutely,
1:03:37
Speaker 1: So if that's interesting, you should just give a week
1:03:40
Speaker 1: clink and get involved. Oh and I guess it's time
1:03:45
Speaker 1: for recommendation time. So for listening, I am gonna recommend
1:03:53
Speaker 1: the Wine and Crime podcast because we've been talking about
1:03:56
Speaker 1: like true crime podcasts and things like that, and honestly,
1:04:01
Speaker 1: the Wine and Crime gals they are just they are
1:04:04
Speaker 1: tip top, they know what they're doing, and they're just
1:04:08
Speaker 1: not dicks. They're fabulous for watching. If you or have
1:04:15
Speaker 1: not seen the Barbie movie, what are you doing with
1:04:18
Speaker 1: your life? Go watch the Barbie movie. And for reading,
1:04:24
Speaker 1: I'm going to suggest lessons in chemistry. It's just a
1:04:30
Speaker 1: good we read. And with that, I am going to
1:04:33
Speaker 1: bid you good night adios au revoir of Where Is
1:04:37
Speaker 1: In My Friends? Ah Bye bye