*Originally posted within Tudor Secrets and Myths’ Tudor Summer Queens event but newly adapted for The Different Sides to Queen Elizabeth I: The women that affected her reign event.*
When discussing the women that had surrounded Elizabeth and her reign, it can seem ‘easy’ to pick Mary, Queen of Scots, can it not?
After all, we know from the common narrative of Elizabeth’s story that Mary seemed to dominate the latter years of Elizabeth’s reign, Mary was considered as being a threat to the Tudor dynasty and it could indeed be suggested that Mary was Elizabeth’s last, personal, menace.
Perhaps also Mary highlighted to Elizabeth how the uniqueness of Elizabeth, the uniqueness of a woman sitting on the throne of a country in her own right in a world that has often been shown as ‘man-made’ , wasn’t actually unique at all for here was Mary, Queen of Scots, doing the same thing too.
The dominance of Elizabeth’s story, the Glorious Gloriana that Elizabeth produced and indeed still produces today, is an fascinating part of the Tudor dynasty. However, the strength of it, can sometimes make us feel that Mary almost just ‘popped up’ within the later part Elizabeth’s story, when she was older and nearer the end of her reign, when, Elizabeth interestingly, is often portrayed as finally gaining the image we all recognise of her, with the famous wig and white paint upon her face.
But was that always the case? Did Mary, Queen of Scots just ‘pop up’ in the later stages of Elizabeth’s life? Or was she always there and so being, is a perfect candidate for this event?
Let’s go back to the start of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign…
By 1558 England had, depending on your point of view, one or two Queens of England with Lady Jane Grey and Mary I. However, Mary I had now died, finally naming her heir as her sister, Elizabeth, and it would be in that year of 1558 that Elizabeth I would be on her way to being crowned Queen of England.
Elizabeth was twenty-five years old when she became queen, but being both the daughter of the powerful King Henry VIII and the intelligent, well prepared for court life, Queen Consort Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was ready for her role. At Hatfield, where she had been staying and where she was notified of her sister’s death, she gave her first speech as queen.
‘My Lords, the law of nature moves me to sorrow for my sister; the burden that is fallen upon me makes me amazed and yet, considering I am God’s creature, ordained to obey His appointment, I will thereto yield, desiring from the bottom of my heart that I may have assistance of His grace to be the minister of His heavenly will in this office now committed to me. And as I am but one body, naturally considered, though by His permission a body politic to govern, so shall I desire you all… to be assistant to me, that I with ruling and you with your service may make a good account to Almighty God and leave some comfort to our posterity on earth. I mean to direct all my actions by good advice and counsel.’
ELIZABETH’S FIRST SPEECH, HATFIELD, 20 NOVEMBER 1558 SP12/1 F.12. LOADES, DAVID 2003 ELIZABETH I: THE GOLDEN REIGN OF GLORIANA
Being told she would be Queen of England on 17th November 1558 was, we can imagine, an enormous moment for Elizabeth, who had already suffered so much to get to this point and one can imagine there was so many events within Elizabeth’s life where she may have thought her chance to become queen might never have happen at all.
One of these events was in the April of 1555, when Elizabeth was asked to return to court after being under house arrest for some time, to attend to her half-sister, Queen Mary I, in the latter stages of her pregnancy. This had a political aim rather than a sign of sisterly respect. It was to show that with this unborn child, Elizabeth would never now be queen, however what this action probably highlighted more to her young sibling was to teach Elizabeth the dangers of pregnancy and how being thought of as barren, could transform a queenship.
This was because there was no baby at the end of her half-sister’s pregnancy, Mary had a false pregnancy, which can happen through the will of wanting to be pregnant. However, in later years it has been suggested that Mary was unwell and although she was showing signs of being pregnant, these were also the signs of her illness – Porter, Linda 2007 Mary Tudor: The First Queen. 337-338.
It was on 6th November 1558 conversely, that Mary I gifts to Elizabeth her last lesson of queenship, which was to wait until the last possible moment to name your heir. This Elizabeth, herself, repeated on her deathbed in naming James I as her heir. Finally, as Mary I names Elizabeth as her heir it was in the year of 1558 that Elizabeth’s queenship begins in England – Neale, J.E 1954 Queen Elizabeth I: A Biography. 59.
Conversely, the year of 1558 would also be an important year for another Tudor queen, for being the granddaughter of King Henry VIII’s sister, Margaret, this would also be an important year for Mary, Queen of Scots.
Although Mary was indeed the Queen of Scotland, Scotland was not the land she resided in, in 1558. She was over the seas in France and she had been there for some time. The reason for this was because her mother had sort her daughter to marry the King of France’s son and heir, Francis, choosing him over King Henry VIII’s son, Edward.
They were married in Notre Dame Cathedral by the Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen and they were married in the presence of many, including Francis’s parents King Henry II and Catherine dé Medici.
This would seem to have been Mary’s proudest moment, she was Queen of Scotland and possibly soon to be Queen of France but behind the scenes, this could be suggested as the start of Mary losing the power behind her queenship as before her wedding day, she was made to sign a wedding treaty. This gave her husband the right to call himself King of Scotland, and that once he became the King of France, Scotland would come under that banner and the future of Scotland’s monarchy will lay with Mary’s husband’s heir in France. This was not uncommon at the time for females to hand over their rights to lands, titles or in this case thrones, in marriage. Mary was young when she signed this, she had been brought up in the court of France and had got used to obeying her future husband’s parents, she might not have thought too far forward of what she was possibly signing away, and we could challenge the concept that at this point, on whether she really had any choice.
Six months later Mary was purported to have been a pawn in a much bigger game…
It is interesting to note how history can change our own perceptions of the past and although we might naturally think, when looking at the future actions of Queen Elizabeth’s counsellors, that Mary, Queen of Scots always wanted the throne of England, but in reality, she, herself never showed any sign of wanting the English throne before her suggested time as heir, it was in fact the people surrounding her that wanted it as soon as possible, through her. This concept, we could suggest, Elizabeth would have seen before and perhaps understood better than her counsellors, with remembering the actions of Lady Jane Grey…
It was however, after twenty years of being held under house arrest that Mary, finding no way out and probably realising her life would never change, finally signs her name to a plot that wanted to depose Elizabeth and place Mary upon the English throne. Again, we could challenge the concept that at this point, so late in her life, with her health conditions and the bad treatment of Elizabeth’s counsellors, did Mary ever really have a choice?
The first man to suggest that Mary was the rightful Queen of England already was her father-in-law, King Henry II of France. He believed Elizabeth to be illegitimate and so being, had no right to the English throne, the only other person to that position could be, in Henry’s eyes, Mary.
Although Mary was the daughter of James Stuart, King of Scotland, Mary was also the granddaughter of Margaret Tudor, King Henry VIII’s sister, making her have blood ties to both the thrones of England and Scotland. The King of France proclaimed that Mary was the rightful Queen of England and that because Mary had married his son, then not only was his son the future King of France, King of Scotland but he should also be the rightful King of England too. – Fraser, Antonia 1969 Mary Queen of Scots. 83. King Henry of France even quartered the Royal Arms of England to include the arms of his son and daughter in law – Wormald, Jenny 1988 Mary, Queen of Scots. 21.
The fact that Mary, was not just the Queen of Scotland but had Tudor blood in her veins, something that was lacking in people at this point in history, was the reason for both her survival for so long and also her curse with the relationship she would have with Queen Elizabeth I. The fact that Mary’s father-in-law highlights this so earlier on within Elizabeth’s reign, within the year she was crowned, does not stand Mary well in future events…
Eight months after Elizabeth gains her crown, Mary’s life is turned upside down perhaps for the first time. Her father-in-law wanted to celebrate the fact that he had managed to have placed his son in the role of King of France, King of Scotland and to his mind, the King of England as well as celebrating the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, which had claimed to have ended the power struggle between Spain and France for the dominance over Italy. As a part of these celebrations there was a joust and in King Henry’s enthusiasm, he joined in himself against the Count of Montgommery. His wife, Catherine, had pleaded him to not be involved because of the risks, but like so many kings at the time, King Henry was competitive and went ahead anyway. However, an accident did happen and the king suffered from brain damage of which he passed away shortly after on 10th July 1559 – Fraser, Antonia 1969 Mary Queen of Scots. 86-88
Mary, at the young age of sixteen had now become Queen Consort of France. Her queenship in France was short-lived however, on 5th December 1560, Mary’s husband King Francis of France passes away, due to an infection in his brain. Mary’s reign as Queen Consort only lasted seventeen months and now at this point, Mary was a widow, she was now classed as the Dowager Queen of France and she was also an orphan. She had no children so could not claim regent, this role went to Catherine dé Medici, while Mary’s brother-in-law, Charles, was too young to rule.
What example was Mary already producing for Elizabeth here?
Mary’s case, we can imagine was already interesting to Elizabeth. Mary had been separated from her own throne at a young age, rather than placing herself, in what might have been imagined as ‘care’, in the English Tudor court. That decision had led Mary to be been under the control of the French court, which from Elizabeth’s eyes at least, Mary was used by. It may have seemed the french had taken Mary’s lands away from her, the anointed Queen of Scotland, through trickery under the guise of marriage. Now, at this point a queen had lost everything. She lost a husband, her title and possibly her lands too. The fact that Mary was now an orphan, like Elizabeth, may have helped the comparison forming in Elizabeth’s mind already, here was Elizabeth’s other half shown plainly in front of her, here was also what not to do, as queen.
What does Mary do at the point when she was only now Dowager Queen of France?
She puts her trust in her relations, her half-brother James Stuart and her cousin Queen Elizabeth I and travels back to her homeland of Scotland. This was the land of which she was queen in her own right and planned to do good works as such. She did not plan to be her half-brother’s puppet, but be a queen alone. We could challenge the concept that Mary might have taken this position so early on in her reign because she had realised how easy it was to lose her title, as she had lost all in France or that she looked to her cousin Queen Elizabeth I as inspiration. After all, here was her cousin, her blood, sitting on her throne, alone.
Similarly, we could wonder how Elizabeth took Mary’s first actions as Queen of Scotland. Elizabeth had, it could be suggested, made mistakes before she was queen but she learnt quickly, perhaps she thought Mary could be able to do the same and so, for Elizabeth, here was a ‘sister’ with unspoken understanding of the hardships it was to be a queen. Nudge that idea a little further and perhaps at this point for Elizabeth, here was a true friend in a very lonely world…
We might wonder, with hindsight, what history would have been like, if Mary chose to stay that way and to have never married again…
For the simple and normally acceptable act for a queen to marry to produce an heir to her throne was in turn the ultimate downfall between these two queens. The troubles and problems that Mary’s marriages caused to not only Mary’s own reputation, but to the reputation of queenship, in Elizabeth’s eyes, was terrible. Perhaps, this also gave Elizabeth satisfaction that she had been right after all to have chosen her country, over any husband.
However, with hindsight, how right was Elizabeth?
Elizabeth’s reign ended with her. This, of course meant the end of a powerful woman’s life but it also meant the end of the Tudor dynasty. Whether we agree or not with how the Tudor dynasty came about, the wars, the changes, the rules and ultimately the deaths that happened because of it, the reasons for all that ended because Elizabeth, only Elizabeth, ‘chose’ to not have a husband, a king and a heir. Ironically, she chose not to have the one thing that the Tudor dynasty had been known for wanting.
Whereas, if Mary had not married again, if she had not given birth to an heir, Mary’s son, James VI of Scotland and James I of England would never have been a option for Queen Elizabeth I to name as her heir on her deathbed.
Take that idea further and we could ask, who would the throne of England have gone to then and what would that ultimately mean for the monarchy of today?
It may be understandable for us to think that Mary learnt a lot from the queenship of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, in the early stages of Mary’s reign in Scotland. But, perhaps to fully understand the complexity of the cousin’s relationship is to understand that they were both very intelligent women who were able to see and learn from all around them. So, as much as it could be deemed that Mary had learnt from Elizabeth, Elizabeth too learnt from Mary.
What would have been Mary, Queen of Scots view Queen Elizabeth I?
Sadly, one of the lessons Elizabeth, possibly unconsciously taught Mary, was never to trust anyone close to you or your throne. One wonders, when we consider how intelligent Mary, Queen of Scots undoubtedly was, that she may have indeed seen this lesson early on but chose to perhaps see the best in people first.
It can be purported that Mary did not always see Elizabeth in good light, from Mary’s point of view, Mary, herself, may have thought that she had done nothing wrong to Elizabeth. Mary had asked to be named heir when Elizabeth passed away, but that was all, at this point anyway. Mary may have thought, who else could take the throne but her, the Tudor bloodline was wearing thin. Yet, when she needed the help of her cousin, help was always hard to find.
Then, there was the twenty years or so of house arrest, when Mary was watched, her freedom taken away, and in the worse cases of that, her food and living standards had dramatically dropped, so much so that it would have been suggested to have harmed her health.
Would Mary have seen Elizabeth in good light here? Would Mary have still thought that Elizabeth was someone she would learn from and trust, considering they were family? Or did Mary see the side of Elizabeth that was vain, selfish and unbelievably suspicious with the ‘Tudor curse’ and because of those three traits, was Elizabeth to Mary often a cruel queen?
Or had Elizabeth shown all these traits to Mary, at one point?
About the Author
Being a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and having studied history at university, Amanda has written academic papers for universities and special events including the Hampton Court Palace’s Field of the Cloth of Gold event.
Freelancing, Amanda has been a historical researcher for museums, books and television programmes on a range of subjects of different time periods. She has appeared on Sky History’s, History’s Greatest Myths television programme.
She is the author of The Boleyns: From the Tudors to the Windsors, published by Amberley Publishing.
Reviews of The Boleyns: From the Tudors to the Windsors –
‘The Boleyns provides a fascinating summary of the lives of some of the Boleyns’ descendants. With adulteresses, soldiers, statesmen, and queens numbered amongst their progeny, it provides a great overview of the later history of a family usually overshadowed by their most famous member.’ — Elizabeth Norton
‘A glittering evocation of the Boleyn family’s rise.’ — Dr Owen Emmerson, Castle Historian, Hever Castle
‘In taking the long view of the Boleyns, this wonderful book offers a genuinely fresh perspective on one of the most famous families in British history. The executioner’s sword might have brought Anne’s story to a brutal close, but her bloodline would endure far beyond that of Henry VIII and is still part of the royal family today.’ — Tracy Borman.
Amanda has written articles for many magazines, websites and societies, including: Dan Snow’s History Hit, The Anne Boleyn Files, The Whitechapel Society Journal, The Charles Dickens Society and Tudor Secrets and Myths Facebook page.
Her other historical non-fiction books include:
● The award winning, Martha, the life and times of Martha Tabram, a suggested victim of Jack the Ripper.
● Jack and Old Jewry: The City of London Policemen who Hunted the Ripper.
● The award-winning, Inspector Reid: The Real Ripper Street.
● The Cutbush Connections: In Blood, In Flowers and in the Ripper case, the life, the cases and the family of Superintendent Charles Henry Cutbush.
She is currently working on a number of historical projects, including another book with Amberley Publishing to follow The Boleyns: From the Tudors to the Windsors, due to published in 2025.
ahpurse's Blog: Tudor and Victorian Historian 