Search -
Mary, Queen of Scots (World Leaders Past & Present)
Mary Queen of Scots - World Leaders Past & Present Author:Sally Stepanek Mary, queen of Scots, was Scotland's last Roman Catholic ruler. An ambitious, passionate woman, she fought many personal and political battles before she was fatally caught in the post-Reformation cross fire between Catholics and Protestants. — When Mary's father died, within a week of her birth in 1542, she became her country's next ... more »ruler. Eventually, in order to escape Scotland's volatile political situation, the young queen went to France. There she was educated amidst the splendor of King Henry II's court and married the French crown prince, Francis. After her husband died in 1560, Mary returned to Scotland to find that religious tensions had intensified during her years abroad. Her attempts to unite her divided nation were thwarted when her enxt two marriages ended in scandals that fueled the attacks of her Protestant enemies. Forced to abdicate in 1567, Mary fled Scotland to seek the assistance of her cousin, Elizabeth I of England. Elizabeth decided to have Mary imprisoned, in the belief that Mary and her Catholic supporters posed a threat to the English throne and to the ascendancy of Protestantism in England. Mary was executed for treason two decades later, after being implicated in a plot against Elizabeth, although her greatest crime, in the eyes of her accusers, was her adherence to the Catholic faith.
Four hundred years after her death, Mary, queen of Scots, remains one of history's most enigmatic figures. Some consider her a religious and national martyr, while others see her as a deceitful murderess, whose true religion was an ambition unchecked by morality.« less