70 Fun Facts About Mary, Queen of Scots

Where was Mary born on 8 December 1542?

Linlithgow Palace. The lochside palace where both she and her father James V were born burned out in 1746 and has stood roofless ever since.

How old was Mary when she became Queen of Scotland on the death of her father?

Six days. With a baby on the throne, regents governed in her name, and she was 18 before she came home from France to rule Scotland herself.

Told of Mary's birth, dying James V reputedly sighed that the Stewart crown came with a lass, meaning which king's daughter?

Robert the Bruce. His daughter Marjorie married Walter the Steward and their son became the first Stewart king; the line did end with a woman, but with Queen Anne in 1714, not Mary.

Who was Mary's mother, who later served as regent of Scotland?

Mary of Guise. Henry VIII had wanted the widowed French duchess as his own fourth wife, but she married his nephew James V instead.

Through which grandmother, sister of Henry VIII, did Mary derive her claim to the English throne?

Margaret Tudor. She was sent north at 13 to marry James IV and seal a peace with England, yet ten years later he was killed fighting her brother's army at Flodden.

The 1543 Treaty of Greenwich promised the infant Mary in marriage to whom?

Prince Edward of England. When the Scots tore up the treaty within months, his father Henry VIII sent armies north to force the match, a war later nicknamed the Rough Wooing.

After the Scots lost at Pinkie in 1547, the four-year-old Mary was hidden at which island monastery on the Lake of Menteith?

Inchmahome Priory. She stayed only about three weeks, but the scare helped persuade her guardians to promise her to the French king's son and send her abroad the next summer.

From which castle did the five-year-old Mary sail for France in August 1548?

Dumbarton. The rock fortress on the Clyde was Scotland's back door to France, well away from the English forces then occupying the south-east.

What were the surnames of the 'four Marys' who accompanied the young Mary to France?

Beaton, Seton, Fleming and Livingston. Mary Fleming's mother went along as the young queen's governess, until she became the French king's mistress and was replaced.

Which mother-in-law of Mary took power as regent of France when Mary was widowed in 1560?

Catherine de' Medici. She became regent for her ten-year-old younger son, and Mary, shut out of power at 18, sailed home to Scotland nine months later.

Mary, who grew to about 5 feet 11 inches, took which sickly future king as her first husband?

Francis II of France. He reigned for less than a year and a half before dying at 16, which left Mary a widow at 18 and sent her back to Scotland.

Where did the 15-year-old Mary marry the heir to the French throne in April 1558?

Notre-Dame de Paris. Twenty days earlier the bride had secretly signed deeds giving Scotland to France if she died without children.

How did Henry II of France die in 1559, making Mary Queen of France?

From injuries sustained in a joust. At a tournament celebrating peace with Spain, the Count of Montgomery's lance struck him in the head, and he died ten days later.

What killed Mary's teenage first husband, the King of France, in December 1560?

An ear infection. It turned into an abscess that killed the king at 16, and his sudden death saved the Prince of Condé, who was awaiting execution for treason.

Which 1560 agreement recognising Elizabeth's right to rule did Mary refuse to ratify?

The Treaty of Edinburgh. Elizabeth hit back by refusing her a safe-conduct for the voyage home in 1561, so Mary sailed for Scotland without one.

At which port did Mary land on her return to Scotland on 19 August 1561?

Leith. No welcoming party was waiting for the returning queen, who is said to have rested in a merchant's house by the harbour before she was escorted to Holyrood.

Which fiery reformer preached against Mary for hearing Mass, dancing and dressing too elaborately?

John Knox. Mary summoned him to Holyrood again and again, and one stormy audience in 1563 ended with the queen in tears while he stood his ground.

How did Mary's half-brother the Earl of Moray, regent of Scotland, die in 1570?

Shot by an assassin. A gunman loyal to Mary killed the regent as he rode through a town street, and his death tipped Scotland back into civil war.

Where in Mary's lodgings was the French poet Chastelard twice caught, an offence that cost him his head in 1563?

Her bedchamber. He survived the first offence but did it again, and her secretary Maitland claimed he had been sent by her enemies to blacken her name.

Which scene, a favourite of plays and films about Mary and Elizabeth I, never took place in real life?

The two queens meeting. They wrote to each other for years and a summit was planned for 1562, but Elizabeth cancelled it and never granted her captive rival an audience.

What nickname did Elizabeth give the tall young Darnley?

The long lad. Elizabeth teased Mary's envoy that the Scots liked 'yon long lad' better than the suitor she was pressing on Mary, her own favourite Robert Dudley.

What name is given to the 1565 rebellion in which Mary's army and Moray's rebels never met in battle?

The Chaseabout Raid. The name fits: the two armies marched back and forth across Scotland without ever fighting, until Mary's larger force drove Moray over the border into England.

What did Darnley demand that Mary refused to grant, turning him against her?

The Crown Matrimonial. It would have made him king in his own right, and the lords plotting against her favourite bought his help by promising to get it for him.

Which Italian secretary was stabbed to death in front of the pregnant Mary in 1566?

David Rizzio. Darnley and a band of armed nobles burst into her supper room at Holyrood, dragged him out and stabbed him more than fifty times.

Where was Mary's son James born on 19 June 1566?

Edinburgh Castle. The labour was a hard one, and one of her ladies is said to have tried witchcraft to shift the queen's birth pains onto another woman.

In October 1566 Mary rode from Jedburgh to visit the wounded Bothwell at which castle?

Hermitage. She rode there and back in a day, fell so ill afterwards that her life was despaired of, and later saw the ride twisted into proof of an affair.

At which house was Darnley staying when it was destroyed by an explosion in February 1567?

Kirk o' Field. The blast wrecked the house but did not kill him: Darnley was found dead in the garden without a mark from it, apparently strangled or smothered as he fled.

How long did the trial that acquitted Bothwell of Darnley's murder last?

Seven hours. Bothwell's armed followers filled the streets, so Darnley's father dared not come to accuse him, and with no evidence offered the acquittal was a formality.

What did a gathering of lords sign backing Bothwell's plan to marry Mary?

The Ainslie Tavern Bond. By the usual account Bothwell sprang it on his guests late in the evening after treating them to supper, shortly before he waylaid Mary on the road and carried her off.

Mary's accusers charged that she was seen playing which sport days after her husband Darnley was murdered?

Golf. The charges drawn up against her said she had played golf and pall-mall in the fields at Seton instead of mourning, which is why she is often called the first woman golfer.

What ducal title did Mary give Bothwell just before their wedding?

Duke of Orkney. Mary created the title days before the wedding, which the Catholic queen then went through by Protestant rites.

At which hill did Mary and Bothwell face the confederate lords in June 1567, only for her army to melt away?

Carberry. No battle was fought: after a day of parleys her men drifted away, Bothwell was allowed to ride off, and the couple never saw each other again.

In which island castle was Mary imprisoned and forced to abdicate in July 1567?

Lochleven. Threatened by the lords who held her, she signed away her crown, then escaped across the loch the following spring.

In a failed escape from her island prison, Mary got as far as the boat disguised as which servant?

A laundress. The men rowing her across saw through the disguise and turned back, but weeks later a youth of the household got hold of the gate key and she slipped away for good.

Which member of the castle-owning family helped Mary escape from her island prison in May 1568?

George Douglas. Her jailer's brother had fallen for his prisoner, and he was waiting on the far shore with horsemen when her boat came in.

At which 1568 battle did Moray's smaller army defeat Mary's, sending her fleeing to England?

Langside. Her army was the larger but was routed, and Mary fled south so fast that within three days she had left Scotland for ever.

How did Mary cross into England on 16 May 1568?

By fishing boat across the Solway Firth. She expected Elizabeth to help her win back her throne; instead she was in custody at Carlisle within two days and never left England again.

What did the silver casket produced against Mary at the 1568 inquiry supposedly contain?

Love letters to Bothwell. None was signed, Mary swore they were forgeries, and many historians now treat them as unsafe evidence of anything.

What verdict did Elizabeth's inquiry into Darnley's murder reach in January 1569?

Nothing was proven against either side. Yet the two sides fared very differently: Moray rode home to rule Scotland as regent, while Mary stayed Elizabeth's prisoner for the rest of her life.

Which duke headed the 1568 inquiry into Mary, schemed to marry her and was executed after the Ridolfi Plot?

Norfolk. He read the letters produced against Mary and thought her guilty, yet schemed to marry her anyway, and it cost him his head in 1572.

From 1569 Mary was held in the custody of which earl and his formidable wife Bess of Hardwick?

Shrewsbury. Fifteen years as her keeper ended badly: his marriage broke down, and Bess spread a rumour that he and his royal prisoner were lovers.

Which pastime filled much of Mary's captivity, often beside her jailer's wife, Bess of Hardwick?

Embroidery. More than a hundred panels she and Bess stitched survive, some with veiled messages: in one, a ginger cat toys with a mouse, read as red-haired Elizabeth and her captive.

What French motto did Mary display on her cloth of state in captivity?

En ma fin est mon commencement. 'In my end is my beginning' proved apt: she lost her crown and her head, yet it was her bloodline, not Elizabeth's, that went on to rule England.

At which Derbyshire spa town was Mary allowed to take the waters during her English captivity?

Buxton. Her keeper owned the lodging beside its warm springs, so the ailing queen could take the waters there without ever leaving his custody.

Which Spanish commander was to invade England and marry Mary under a 1570s papal plan?

Don John of Austria. Philip II's half-brother was by then governor of the Netherlands, a short crossing from England, but he died of fever in 1578 before anything came of it.

Why did the royal name Stewart become 'Stuart' in Mary's time?

French spelling had no letter w. Mary grew up at the French court, where the name was written Stuart, and she kept that form when she came home, so the dynasty is now spelled her way.

Mary's lost cipher letters, found in France and decoded in 2023, were written to whom?

The French ambassador in London. A computer scientist, a pianist and a physicist found 57 of her letters filed as Italian papers and broke the cipher themselves.

Mary's third husband, Bothwell, fled Scotland by sea and died a prisoner in which country?

Denmark. His ship was seized off Norway, where a woman he had abandoned years before promptly sued him, and the Danish king then held him for the rest of his life.

How was Mary related to Elizabeth I, the queen who held her captive for nearly two decades?

They were cousins. Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, was the brother of Mary's grandmother, which gave her Tudor blood and, in many Catholic eyes, a better right to England's throne than Elizabeth's.

Why did Mary say Elizabeth's judges could not try her?

No English subject. As the anointed queen of another country she argued she could not commit treason against England's, but the court sat anyway and condemned her within a fortnight.

Six hours before her execution, Mary wrote her last letter to which king?

Henry III of France. Writing at two in the morning, she told her first husband's brother she was to be 'executed like a criminal' at eight and asked him to look after her servants.

What did Elizabeth's secretaries ask Mary's last jailer, Amias Paulet, to do, which he refused?

Kill her quietly himself. Elizabeth wanted to be spared the blame for executing a queen, but Paulet answered that he would not make 'a shipwreck of my conscience' by shedding blood without a warrant.

When Mary's outer garments were removed on the scaffold, what colour were the petticoat and sleeves beneath?

Dark red. Red is the Catholic Church's colour for martyrs, and Mary had insisted to the end that she was dying for her faith.

What were Mary's last words?

"Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit". She said it in Latin, three or four times over, with her head already on the block and her arms stretched out.

How did the axeman botch Mary's beheading in 1587?

He needed more than one stroke. Witnesses counted two blows and then a last cut to sever what still held, while Mary made 'very small noise or none at all'.

What happened when the executioner lifted Mary's severed head by its auburn hair?

It came away as a wig. The watchers saw that her own hair was cropped short and as grey as a woman of seventy's, though she was 44.

What became of William Davison, the secretary who sent Mary's death warrant on its way?

Jailed in the Tower. Elizabeth raged that the warrant had gone out against her wishes, and her secretary was fined 10,000 marks and locked up as the scapegoat.

Where was Mary first buried, in a service of the reformed church, months after her execution?

Peterborough Cathedral. She had asked to lie in France, but Elizabeth refused and gave her a Protestant funeral instead, almost six months after the axe fell.

In 1612 Mary's son had her reinterred where?

Westminster Abbey. Her son built her a marble tomb in the same chapel as Elizabeth's, so the two rival queens now lie in facing aisles a few yards apart.

Which scholar read Livy with Mary after dinner, then published the 'Detection' accusing her of her husband's murder?

George Buchanan. Mary had given her old reading partner a pension, yet he went to England with her accusers and wrote the book that damned her.

Which author's first major book was the prize-winning 1969 biography Mary Queen of Scots?

Antonia Fraser. She argued that the casket letters were unsafe evidence and that Darnley's killers were the nobles who hated him, a case she repeats in the Britannica entry she wrote on Mary.

A silver casket linked to Mary was bought for the nation in 2022 to go on show where?

National Museum of Scotland. A note kept inside for over 300 years tells how a Duchess of Hamilton bought the casket from a goldsmith because she was told it had once been Mary's.

Who is thought to have destroyed the original Casket letters in 1584?

James VI. The letters vanished after the Earl of Gowrie, who held them, was executed in 1584; if her son did have them destroyed, he also destroyed any chance of ever testing them.

Which pet was found hiding in Mary's skirts after her execution?

A small dog. An eyewitness wrote that it had crept under her clothes, could not be pulled out by force and afterwards would not leave her body.

Walsingham's agents arranged for Mary's secret letters to leave her prison hidden in what?

Beer barrels. A brewer carried the letters out in his casks, but each one went first to Thomas Phelippes, Walsingham's codebreaker, who deciphered it before it was sent on.

Which priest, roaming England disguised as a soldier named Captain Fortescue, drew Anthony Babington into the 1586 plot?

John Ballard. Seized that August and tortured in the Tower, he stood trial beside Babington, who confessed with good grace but laid all the blame on the priest.

What punishment did the 1586 plotters against Elizabeth receive for treason?

Hanged, drawn and quartered. The first batch were cut down alive and butchered; told of the horror, Elizabeth is said to have ordered that those dying the next day should hang until they were dead.

Who played Mary in the 2018 film Mary Queen of Scots, with Margot Robbie as Elizabeth I?

Saoirse Ronan. Cast in 2012, she waited five years for filming to start, and her Mary speaks with a Scottish accent that the real queen, raised at the French court from the age of five, may never have had.

Which future king was born at Fotheringhay Castle, where Mary was later executed?

Richard III. Fotheringhay was the home of the Dukes of York, so the duke's youngest surviving son was born in 1452 in the castle where Mary went to the block 135 years later.

At which Yorkshire castle and manor was Mary held for about fourteen years of her English captivity?

Sheffield. A Derbyshire boy who served as a page in her keeper's household there is said to have grown devoted to her, and the plot he led as a young man sent her to the block.