Mary I of Scotland: Don't You Want to Cuddle Her?

 

Mostly known as Mary Stuart of the Scots, that chick went through a hell of a lot of stuff in her life. Despite the fact that she became a queen when she was only six days old! 

Her father, King James V of Scotland, died in 1542 at the Battle of Solway Moss, a battle fought against his uncle, Henry VIII of England (we said a lot about that guy HERE) because he had refused to follow the latter's lead and break from the Catholic Church.

As a result, when Mary Stuart was only six days old, she became more important than I will ever be in my entire life, unless my books on Amazon begin selling someday (I think I just took shameless plugging to a new level).

And while Little Mary was carefreely spending her days pooping her diapers, unable to imagine the hellish life she had ahead of her, Cardinal David Beaton and James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, were bickering over the regency. Neither was giving an inch, since each of them firmly believed that his dick was larger than the other's and therefore he was the one who should rule until Little Mary came of age; nevertheless, eventually, Mary's mother, Mary of Lorraine, became the regent, even though she didn't even have a dick to begin with (then again, she never honored me with lowering her pants in my presence, so I cannot say with confidence that she didn't have one!)

Mary of Lorraine sent her five year old daughter to France, having arranged a marriage between the little girl and Francis, the four year old son of King Henry II of France. 

When the time was right, in 1558, Mary and Francis married. For all political expediency behind that marriage, neither of the two kids had any objections, having got along with each other from the moment they first met, having grown up together and most likely having played doctor many times until then (FBI ALERT!)

King Henry died in 1559 of a jousting accident (you should have picked a safer hobby, Henry), so the young couple became the King and Queen of France. The two years Mary and Francis (should I call them Fary or Mancis?) spent together was probably the last happy period in Mary's life. 

In 1560, poor Mary lost both her mother and husband to diseases. Charles, Francises brother, succeeded him to the throne. With nothing left to do in France anymore and having grown bitter over her losses, the girl packed her things and returned to her homeland. 

Which, let's face it, was a homeland in name only to her. Having spent practically all her life in France, now a queen of a place she knew little to nothing about. A Catholic Christian queen in a land sliding towards Protestantism, she was regarded with suspicion by her people. 

Under those circumstances, Mary had two options:

1. To focus on the problems of her nation and bust her ass to resolve them.

2. To begin pestering her first cousin once removed, Queen Elizabeth I of England, to acknowledge her as an heir presumptive to the English throne, a scheme more likely to get her into trouble than realistically bring about any positive results.

Guess which option she went for! 😅

Although Mary was tolerant of Protestants, problems never stopped. Eventually, Her Majesty realized that she needed a husband to help her run the kingdom (at this point, feminists want my head).

A series of unsuitable suitors came and went, including Pierre de Boscosel de Chastelard, a French poet from her court who went as far as to try to ambush her in her bedroom and, as a result, was beheaded on the command of a freaking out queen. (Someone should have told that guy that, in the medieval high society, such attempts on commoners' part had happy endings only in fairytales, hence the 'fairytales' name.)

Eventually, Her Majesty married her half cousin, Henry Stuart, aka Lord Darnley, who, if we believe the 'Mary Queen of the Scots' movie, was gay. I don't know wherever the creators of the aforementioned film got that idea. I mean, look at him in the picture below. Does this guy strike you as homosexual?

Okay, obviously, I was sarcastic!

Anyway, gay or not, one thing is for sure: Darnley was a huge dickhead and everybody hated his guts. 

A conspiracy was organized and, in 1567, Darnley was killed in an explosion at a house he was recuperating from some illness. 

A few months later, Mary married James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who had been one of the prime suspects for Darnley's assassination and allegedly raped her (now Luke/Laura from 'General Hospital' doesn't sound that bad a shipping anymore, does it?)

Meanwhile, nobility rebellions continued to rage, until, finally, Mary was successfully dethroned and imprisoned. 

She escaped the Loch Leven Castle in 1568 and, after a brief and unsuccessful attempt to get back the throne, she sought refuge in England, close to Queen Elizabeth, who turned out not to be as loving a cousin as Mary had originally thought.

Having not forgotten Mary's old claims to the English throne and considering her a threat anyway (English Catholics regarded Mary as the rightful queen), Elizabeth kept her cousin imprisoned on the pretext of her being a suspect for Darnley's murder.

18 years later, having realized that she would die in captivity unless she did something about it, Mary was involved in the Babington Plot to assassinate Liz. The letters she exchanged with the other conspirators were encrypted. At this point, I rode my time machine, traveled to the past and advised Mary to encrypt them by mirror writing, an ingenious encryption technique that no one will ever manage to decipher, not even in a million years.

Unfortunately for her and the conspirators, Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's secretary, managed to get his hands on the aforementioned letters and decipher them. Mary was found guilty of high treason and beheaded. See, Mary? I told you to use mirror writing, but NOOOO...

Anyway, till next time, don't forget to buy my novels on Amazon (author page HERE) and share my novels/blog posts on social media.

See you next time!