The Wildly Different Childhoods of Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots

On February 1, 1587, Queen Elizabeth I of England signed the death warrant for her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. From the article:

"On 24 April 1558 CE, Mary, then 15, married the 14-year-old Prince Francis, who the next year became King Francis II of France (r. 1559-1560 CE). The ceremony took place in Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Another family change was to quarter the English royal arms with those of the French in a new emblem that signified Mary's claim to the English throne, now occupied by Henry VIII's daughter Elizabeth I of England. For many English Catholics, Elizabeth was illegitimate as they did not recognise her father's divorce from his first wife Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536 CE). For Catholic conspirators, Mary, the closest relative to the English queen, would be a good alternative to Protestant Elizabeth.
Said to have been a beautiful & vivacious woman, Mary enlivened her residence at Holyrood House with hunting & dancing parties.
Unfortunately, Mary's marriage did not last long as Francis, never blessed with robust health, died in December 1560 CE. Following Francis' death and her mother's in June of the same year, Mary, then still only 18, decided to return to Scotland where she would continue to press her claim for the English throne. There was further friction between the two cousin-queens as Elizabeth had been outraged by the quartering of the royal arms business and she refused to guarantee Mary safe passage to her homeland. On her side, Mary would not recognise the 1560 CE Treaty of Edinburgh which had officially accepted Elizabeth's right to be the queen of England. Finally, Elizabeth refused to acknowledge Mary as her heir.

Return to Scotland
Catholic Mary was not welcomed in Scotland where the barons controlled government but were themselves still divided into two camps: Catholic and Protestant. The Protestants were winning the battle for Scots minds as Scotland was undergoing a sea-change in religion through the efforts of such figures as the Calvinist minister John Knox (c. 1514-1572 CE). Knox was an influential figure who founded the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and his views that a woman should not rule, especially one with the 'wrong' religion, were adopted by many others.

Despite the bias of the Protestant nobles, who called themselves the 'lords of the congregation', Mary was determined to rule her kingdom, and she visited many parts of it in person between 1562 and 1566 CE. The queen had a handsome income thanks to her French lands and she brought a touch of glamour. Said to have been a beautiful and vivacious woman, Mary enlivened her residence at Holyrood House with hunting and dancing parties.
The queen made an attempt to reconcile the religious divide in her country by forbidding the holding of the mass in public (she herself attended a private mass). Mary also recognised the Reformed Church. Still, suspicions remained and were exacerbated when Mary married her cousin Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley (1545-1567 CE), a Protestant who now favoured the Catholic mass, on 29 July 1565 CE. From here on, things started to turn sour for the queen. First, Darnley led a group of nobles who murdered Mary's private secretary, the Italian David Rizzio (aka Riccio) on 9 March 1566 CE. Rizzio's 'crimes' were to have been Catholic and suspected of being rather too friendly with the queen, which piqued Darnley's jealousy. The Italian was dragged from the queen's presence and knifed 56 times in an adjoining chamber.

The queen's private life then entered a new disastrous phase. Darnley himself was murdered on 10 February 1567 CE, possibly with Mary's knowledge as the queen had not forgiven him for Rizzio's murder. The queen had had a son with Darnley, James Stuart, born on 19 June 1566 CE in Edinburgh Castle. As Elizabeth I still had not married or had children, James was now heir to the kingdoms of both Scotland and England.

The ringleader of the Darnley assassination plot was James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell (c. 1535-1578 CE), who, on 10 February 1567 CE, had Darnley strangled and then blew him up along with Kirk O'Field House using barrels of gunpowder. Mary then married Bothwell on 15 May 1567 CE which fuelled suspicion that the queen had indeed been involved in the murder of Darnley. To add further scandal and intrigue, Bothwell had taken Mary to Dunbar Castle and then allegedly raped her (Mary may have been a willing partner in the escapade). They married after this strange incident but by now the Protestant Scottish barons, who were given material aid by Elizabeth I, had had enough of their 'French' Catholic queen and her dubious private life. The barons, led by James Douglas, Earl of Morton, defeated Mary and Bothwell on the battlefield in July 1567 CE east of Edinburgh without either army exchanging blows. It seemed the queen had lost her already limited support and her army evaporated. Mary was then imprisoned in a castle located on an island in Loch Leven. It was there she miscarried twins, Bothwell being the presumed father.
Mary was formally obliged to abdicate on 24 July 1567 CE in favour of her son who became James VI of Scotland (r. 1567-1625 CE). James was barely one year old and so, given a Protestant education, he could be easily manipulated by the barons who ruled in his name. Bothwell, meanwhile, fled to Orkney, the seat of his dukedom, and from there to Norway but died in madness and obscurity in a Danish dungeon in 1578 CE.

Escape to England
Fearing for her safety as the civil war raged on, Mary fled Scotland in May 1568 CE and sought sanctuary with her cousin Elizabeth in England. Mary's first attempt to escape Loch Leven Castle had involved her dressing as a washerwoman but she was given away by her aristocratic hands. A second attempt involving a rowing boat was successful. Not quite giving up on her kingdom, the queen made one more attempt to get back her throne by joining forces with supportive clans (the Campbells, Gordons, and Hamiltons). The regent, James Stewart, the Earl of Moray (l. 1531-1570 CE) defeated this force at the battle of Langside (13 May 1568 CE), and Mary fled south of the border.

The English queen was at a loss what to do with Mary who was, on the one side, a family relation and fellow monarch with divine rights but, on the other side, a serious threat to her throne. As in many other areas of policy, Elizabeth dithered and procrastinated, delaying the ultimate decision regarding Mary's fate by putting her under house arrest. To thwart possible coups, the former Queen of Scots was regularly moved to different country houses and kept under close observation. Unfortunately for Mary, this would result in almost 20 years of imprisonment during which she saw neither Scotland or her son ever again. The two queens never met either as Mary was moved from the Scottish border to Sheffield Castle, Tutbury Castle, and Fotheringhay Castle, amongst many others. Forbidden the presence of a Catholic priest, Mary got around the prohibition by having a priest disguise himself as an almoner."