Mary, Queen of Scots arrives in England, 1568–69
A Cousin in Custody
In May 1568, Mary, Queen of Scots, fled across the Solway Firth in a fishing boat and threw herself on Elizabeth’s mercy. The decision Elizabeth then took — to keep Mary in England rather than restore her in Scotland or send her on to France — created a problem that would last nineteen years and shape every crisis until 1587. Within a year of Mary’s arrival, the north of England was in armed rebellion. To understand why, we have to follow Mary’s story from her birth.
Mary was Elizabeth’s first cousin once removed, great-granddaughter of Henry VII through his eldest daughter Margaret Tudor. To Catholics, who never accepted Elizabeth’s legitimacy, Mary was the rightful Queen of England.
Mary’s Claim to the English Throne
Mary’s claim was straightforward in Catholic eyes. Henry VII of England had two daughters who survived to adulthood: Margaret Tudor, the elder, who married James IV of Scotland, and Mary Tudor, the younger. Elizabeth descended from Henry VII through his son Henry VIII. Margaret’s grandchild was Mary, Queen of Scots. Born in 1542, Mary became queen of Scotland aged six days old when her father James V died. Because she was the senior surviving Catholic Tudor descendant, Mary held a powerful claim of succession against Elizabeth.
Brought up in France, Mary married the heir to the French throne in 1558 and briefly became queen of France in 1559. While in France, she displayed the arms of England as well as Scotland on her royal banner — a public claim that Elizabeth, declared illegitimate by Parliament after Anne Boleyn’s execution, was a usurper. Mary was a Catholic, by upbringing and by deep conviction. For English Catholics, she was the obvious heir; for Catholic Europe, she was already the rightful queen.
Mary’s Disastrous Years in Scotland
Widowed at eighteen, Mary returned to a Scotland transformed by the Protestant Reformation of 1560. The Scottish Parliament, urged on by the preacher John Knox, had abolished the authority of the Pope and made Catholic Mass illegal. Mary as a personal Catholic monarch in a Protestant country struggled. Her second marriage in 1565 to Lord Darnley, an arrogant English Catholic noble, was a political catastrophe. Within three years, the Scottish nobility had forced her to abdicate and accept her infant son James as king in her place.
In March 1566, Darnley led a group of Scottish lords who burst into the queen’s rooms at Holyroodhouse and stabbed her secretary David Rizzio to death. Mary gave birth to their son James (the future James VI of Scotland and James I of England) in June 1566. In February 1567, Darnley himself was strangled and the house he was staying in blown up. Within three months, Mary married the Earl of Bothwell, the man widely believed to have killed Darnley. Scottish nobles rebelled. Mary was forced to abdicate in July 1567 in favour of her infant son and held prisoner. She escaped in May 1568, lost a battle at Langside near Glasgow, and fled south across the border into England.
Why Elizabeth Could Not Just Send Her Home
When Mary wrote to Elizabeth begging for help, Elizabeth had four options, each with serious problems. Restore Mary by force: this would require an English army marching into Scotland, which would alarm the Protestant Scottish lords now governing the country in the name of Mary’s baby son, and risk an unwanted war. Allow Mary to return to France: this would put a Catholic claimant to the English throne back in France, where her Guise relatives could give her armies and ships. Help Mary go on to Spain: even worse — King Philip II of Spain was already a potential enemy. Keep Mary in England: in some kind of comfortable custody. Elizabeth and Cecil chose this last option, framing it as protective hospitality.
The York and Westminster Conferences, 1568–69
To justify holding Mary, Elizabeth’s government held a quasi-judicial enquiry into the murder of Darnley. It opened at York in October 1568 and continued at Westminster from late November. The Earl of Moray, regent for Mary’s baby son and effectively running Scotland, produced the so-called Casket Letters — documents allegedly proving Mary’s involvement in Darnley’s murder. The conference reached no formal verdict: Elizabeth declared the case ‘not proven’. This non-verdict was politically perfect — it kept Mary tarnished enough to justify continued custody, but innocent enough that her royal status was not openly attacked.
Why Mary in England Was a Crisis
Mary’s presence created a permanent threat for five overlapping reasons.
- A ready-made Catholic alternative. Any Catholic dissatisfied with Elizabeth now had a queen to rally to without needing a foreign invasion to provide one.
- Political magnet for the disaffected. Powerful nobles like the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland could plot in Mary’s name; she became the focus of the 1571 Ridolfi plot, the 1583 Throckmorton plot and the 1586 Babington plot.
- Foreign support. Spain, France and the Pope all had reasons to back Mary. After Pope Pius V’s 1570 bull excommunicating Elizabeth, supporting Mary became a religious duty for Catholic monarchs.
- Marriage games. One early proposal was for Mary to marry the Duke of Norfolk, England’s premier Catholic noble. Cecil and Elizabeth saw this for what it was — the construction of a rival Catholic court inside England.
- Public sympathy. Mary was a fellow anointed queen. Executing her was politically toxic and would alienate Catholic Europe and even some English moderates.
Mary was a permanent threat because she combined a strong Catholic claim, ready-made appeal to disaffected nobles, foreign Catholic backing, marriage potential with English Catholics, and the moral protection of being an anointed queen.
The Norfolk Marriage Plan, 1569
In 1569, several Privy Councillors and nobles backed a plan for Mary to marry Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk — the only duke in England, a Protestant on the surface but with Catholic sympathies and immense lands. The plan was supported by some who saw Mary as a future heir; others opposed Cecil’s rising influence and saw a Mary–Norfolk match as a way of restoring traditional noble power. Elizabeth refused the marriage. The Northern Earls, already disillusioned with court politics and now seeing Mary as a potential ally, began the planning that led to the Northern Rebellion of November 1569 — covered in the next lesson.
Students often confuse Mary, Queen of Scots with Mary I of England. They are different people. Mary I was Elizabeth’s Catholic Tudor half-sister, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, who reigned 1553–58 and burnt around 280 Protestants as heretics. Mary I died in November 1558 — before this depth study even begins. Mary, Queen of Scots, was Elizabeth’s Catholic Stuart cousin, queen of Scotland from 1542, in England from 1568, executed at Fotheringhay in 1587. The depth study is about the Stuart Mary — not the Tudor one.
A Permanent Problem
By the end of 1569, Elizabeth had a Catholic cousin under house arrest, a north of England in revolt, and a Privy Council divided over what to do next. Mary would never leave England alive. The choice Elizabeth made in May 1568 — to keep her cousin in protective custody — was the one decision around which almost every later threat in this depth study would turn.