Challenges to the rule of Queen Elizabeth I - AQAMary, Queen of Scots

Mary, Queen of Scots was Elizabeth’s cousin (not to be confused with Mary I, who was Elizabeth’s sister), so she had a dynastic claim to the line of succession to the English throne. However, Mary was a Catholic and also half-French, making her unsuitable as a monarch to the majority of English people.

Mary’s life had been filled with dramatic events. She had become Queen of Scotland in 1542 when she was just six days old.

Her first two husbands died and she was implicated in the second one’s murder. She was forced to abdicate and was imprisoned. She managed to escape and fled to England where she sought refuge from Elizabeth in 1568.

Mary’s threat to Elizabeth suddenly became more immediate now that she was in the country. In the short term, Elizabeth allowed Mary to live in Carlisle Castle as a closely guarded ‘guest’. But now she was faced with a dilemma: what should she do with Mary?

Learn more about the issue of Mary Queen of Scots in this podcast.

Listen to the full series on BBC Sounds.

Why did Mary pose a threat to Elizabeth?

A minority of Catholics supported the idea of Mary replacing Elizabeth as Queen of England, because they thought:

• Elizabeth was illegitimate and so felt she had no right to be on the throne. (Her father, Henry VIII, had divorced his first wife. Catholics didn’t recognise divorce and so viewed his second marriage to Elizabeth’s mother as illegal.)
• Mary would restore the supremacy of the Catholic Church and reverse Elizabeth’s Religious Settlement.

Mary’s connections to France, both through her mother and her first husband, also made Mary a potentially dangerous threat to England.