Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots: The Controversial History of Cousins Turned Rivals

England's Queen Elizabeth had to fight for her life and position time and again in an era that was already unsafe for female leaders and she probably had remembered the searing feeling of realizing that her mother, Anne Boleyn had been executed by her father on a trumped-up charge. Danger was pervasive, and strategy was needed not just to thrive but to survive.

Perhaps nothing underscored that fact quite like Elizabeth’s relationship with her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary’s fame as a monarch lies less in her personality or achievements than in her position within the dynastic maneuvers and political and religious upheavals taking place in Europe in the 16th century. Most monarchs spent their early years learning in preparation to rule and then spend the latter part of their lives wielding power and status, but Mary was thrust upon the throne when she was only a week old, and she ceased to be queen nearly 20 years before her death.

Mary's tragedy was intertwined with her country's transformation. As a second cousin once removed of England’s Queen Elizabeth I, that potentially made Mary a rival for the throne. Mary was the granddaughter of Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII's sister, and her Catholicism made Mary the true and rightful Queen of England in the eyes of many Catholics and the Vatican. These facts, coupled with the realization that several English Catholics (especially rebels active in the Rising of the North movement) supported Mary, ardently made Elizabeth uneasy. Mary also did not help herself when she married James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, who was widely accused of raping her. The Scottish people rebelled, after which Mary abdicated and fled southwards towards England.

Elizabeth I was unsure at first what to do with Mary, so she kept Mary imprisoned in several castles and manor houses inside England, making escape difficult and thus unlikely.