To What extent was Mary Stuart ‘Mad, Bad and dangerous to know?
Mary’s position since her birth in 1542 had no doubt been complicated and to some extent unique. Becoming the Queen of Scotland at the age of only one week, and then gone on to marry Francis II consequently becoming the Queen of France at the age of 17 had put her in a very good position. Yet in spite of these vastly changing fortunes we can clearly see that after the death of her Mother Marie of Guise and her French Husband Francis her life began to unravel. Mary at this point had no other choice but to return to Scotland in 1561 and regain her claim for Queen. The decisions made by Mary during her Reign as Queen of Scotland are an indication of Mary’s peculiar state of mind. We know that Scotland was largely a Protestant country at this point but due to Mary’s objection to follow the native religion she continued with her Catholic practises which consequently made her largely disliked by the population. She therefore struggled to gain support and consequently made herself very unpopular to the Scottish population. We also know that she alienated both Scotland and England by marrying a claimant to the English throne Henry Lord Darnley son of the Earl of Lennox and Grandson of her Tudor grandmother, Margret. By doing this it strengthened the Stuart claim to the English throne. We can see how dangerous Mary was to Elizabeth at his point, we can Cleary see that her main concern was to assert her claim to the English throne and that she was prepared to ratify the treaty of Edinburgh if Elizabeth would recognise her as her hair. It was only after the Marriage that Mary came to discover that he was in fact an entirely unsuitable husband. Mary to some extant also began to become rather ruthless while Darnley was implicated in the murder of Mary’s Italian secretary David Ricco who was brutally stabbed to death while clutching at Mary’s Skirt. We can certainly see at this point how the famous
