Mary Queen of Scots
MARY STEWART WAS BORN INTO CONFLICT AND DIED AS A TRAGIC RESULT OF IT.
JAMES IRVINE-ROBERTSON ON ONE OF SCOTLAND’S BEST-KNOWN MONARCHS
The House of Stewart provided 14 monarchs for its country. Beginning as stewards to the rulers of Scotland, they became kings of the
four nations of the British Isles. The last of the line died a Cardinal in Rome. Two were executed, two were assassinated, one died in battle, one died accidentally, and seven died of natural causes – although two of those who may have suffered from hereditary porphyria died of grief and nervous exhaustion.
Romance surrounds much of the dynasty but one member stands out in this regard – Mary. She was born in 1542. Her father James V had just lost the battle of Solway Moss to the English and retired to Linlithgow Palace in a state of collapse. Six days after his daughter’s birth, he turned his face to the wall and died; she was Queen of Scots.
Two factors had complicated the lives of her predecessors. The first of the dynasty won the crown when Robert the Steward married King
Robert Bruce’s daughter. Others amongst the nobility considered that the crown could easily have been their own. They considered the
king to be a debatable first among equals rather than an elevated being anointed by God. And, like Mary herself, four out of the run of five Jameses had succeeded to the throne as minors which allowed the aristocracy to brawl with each other about the regency. Perhaps a third problem should be added. To a man, the Scots nobles were untrustworthy, mendacious, grasping, incapable of vision, and never looked beyond their own interests to that .....
To read the rest of this article you can buy this issue
or subscribe to Scotland Magazine to have every issue delivered direct to your door.
By James Irvine Robertson
Section : Scottish History
Page number : 30
