Upon his death in 1547, she was named third in the line of succession, eligible to rule only in the unlikely event that her siblings, Edward VI and Mary I, died without heirs. The only surviving legitimate child of James V of Scotland, Mary was six days old when her father died and she inherited the throne. Mary Stuart . Elizabeth refused to name a potential heir, fearing that would invite conspiracy to displace her with the nominated successor. As Mary donned dual crowns, the new English queen, her cousin Elizabeth Tudor, consolidated power on the other side of the Channel. Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 - 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, reigned over Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication on 24 July 1567. It was there that she died on the afternoon of Thursday 8. Instead, its more likely the queens attitudes toward each other were dictated largely by changing circumstance. [169] Mary had been forced to abdicate and held captive for the better part of a year in Scotland. Widowed, Mary returned to Scotland in August 1561. Ultimately, Guy argues, If Elizabeth had triumphed in life, Mary would triumph in death., The queen herself said it best: As she predicted in an eerily prescient motto, in my end is my beginning., Meilan Solly [74] However, she assured Maitland that she knew no one with a better claim than Mary. Marys blood claim was worrying enough, but acknowledging it by naming her as the heir presumptive would leave Elizabeth vulnerable to coups organized by Englands Catholic faction. The Royal Family website says: "The Bowes-Lyon family is . Mary had briefly met her English-born half-cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, in February 1561 when she was in mourning for Francis. [100], Before long, Darnley grew arrogant. Moray had sent a messenger in September to Dunbar to get a copy of the proceedings from the town's registers. [144] Defeated, she fled south. Margareta Tudor, fdd 28 november 1489 i Westminsterpalatset i London, dd 18 oktober 1541, var en engelsk prinsessa, Skottlands drottning, och senare Skottlands regent under sonen Jakobs omyndighet 1513-1514. This legendary statement came true much later not through Mary, but through her great-great-granddaughter Anne, Queen of Great Britain. In the end, Moray returned to Scotland as regent and Mary remained in custody in England. [166] Guy points out that the letters are disjointed and that the French language and grammar employed in the sonnets are too poor for a writer with Mary's education[167] but certain phrases in the letters, including verses in the style of Ronsard, and some characteristics of style are compatible with known writings by Mary. A team of codebreakers have cracked secret coded messages in letters written by Mary, Queen of Scots while she was imprisoned by her cousin Queen . From the outset, there were two claims to the regency: one from the Catholic Cardinal Beaton, and the other from the Protestant Earl of Arran, who was next in line to the throne. [190] Her health declined, perhaps through porphyria or lack of exercise. Given her precarious hold on the throne and the subsequent paranoia that plagued her reign, she had little motivation to name a successor who could threaten her own safety. The early years of her personal rule were marked by pragmatism, tolerance, and moderation. The lords took Mary to Edinburgh, where crowds of spectators denounced her as an adulteress and murderer. [55], In Scotland, the power of the Protestant Lords of the Congregation was rising at the expense of Mary's mother, who maintained effective control only through the use of French troops. The versions of Mary and Elizabeth created by Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie may reinforce some of the popular misconceptions surrounding the twin queensincluding the oversimplified notion that they either hated or loved each other, and followed a direct path from friendship to arch rivalrybut they promise to present a thoroughly contemporary twist on an all-too-familiar tale of women bombarded by men who believe they know better.