Login
0
18th January, 2019 in Entertainment, Women in History
Born in Linlithgow Palace on 8 December 1542 and pronounced queen six days later when her father, James VI, died with no male heirs, Mary’s life was set to be a difficult one. After spending the first five years of her life in Scotland, she was sent to France where she spent 13 years at the French court and married the first of her three husbands: Francis II of France.
Mary would rule as Queen consort of France for only 17 months until Francis suddenly died on 5 December 1560 of a middle ear infection that led to an abscess in his brain. Nine months later a grief-stricken Mary returned to Scotland where her Catholicism attracted suspicion in the Protestant country. When she was later accused of plotting the murder of her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, and went on to marry the man who was believed to have carried out the deed, James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, the Scots forced Mary to abdicate in favour of her son, the future James VI of Scotland and I of England.
Mary fled to England, expecting her cousin Elizabeth I to help her reclaim her throne, but instead Mary was kept prisoner in England from 1568 until her execution in 1587, accused of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth and place herself on the English throne.
Since her execution, Mary’s character has been debated time and time again. Was she a victim or a villain? Whoever she was, we continue to be fascinated with her story.
Mary has inspired books, operas, plays, songs, television series and continues to inspire filmmakers, but who portrayed her best? Take a look at the seven actresses below and decide for yourself!
14th August, 2025 in Military, Women in History Bletchley Park is perceived as a world of male intellectuals supported by a vast staff of women in menial roles – a place where men helped sway the course of the Second World War. But women were not just typists and clerks. They had serious, full-on codebreaking roles. And not ju… 29th May, 2025 in History, Society & Culture, Sport, Women in History I like to think that there is a symmetry between my query of myself in 1967 – ‘why don’t girls play football?’ – with my thought over fifty years later that the history of the Women’s Football Association needed to be written down. As I was pretty sure that I was the only survivi… 3rd March, 2025 in Biography & Memoir, History, Society & Culture, Women in History When Lady Dorothy Mills was a young girl, a female relative told her she would never be beautiful so she had better be interesting – and she was. Yet extraordinarily, this is the first book about this fearless woman who became the best-known female explorer of the 1920s and 30s,… 17th February, 2025 in Biography & Memoir, History, Women in History Dr Catherine Hanley holds a PhD in Medieval Studies (Sheffield, 2001), is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and is the author of historical works in several genres. Lionessheart is her latest book which follows the story of Joanna Plantagenet – princess, pioneer, captive a… 5th December, 2024 in Local & Family History, Military, Women in History John Lander author of new book Don’t Delay – Enrol Today highlights the importance of the women’s land army in Hampshire during both World Wars. World War I The Women’s Land Army was established by the British government to recruit women and girls to work in Britain’s agriculture… 28th October, 2024 in Entertainment The search for an actor to play James Bond did not start with the journey that ultimately led to the monumental casting of Sean Connery in 1962, but a full three years before in 1959 when 007 looked like making his cinematic debut in a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. After yea… 14th October, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, History, Women in History Emily Murdoch Perkins discusses her new book Regina: The Queens Who Could Have Been, a feminist ‘what if’ history looking at what would have happened if firstborn daughters had been crowned instead of firstborn sons. Where did the idea for the book come from? It all started… 19th September, 2024 in History, Women in History Henry, the king who was married six times and started his own church. Mary, the first regnal queen. Elizabeth, the queen who refused to marry. These are the Tudor royals that we all know about – but there’s one who has slipped through the history books and yet is, in my opinion,… 6th September, 2024 in Society & Culture, Women in History By the beginning of the 20th century, a new generation of women had begun to turn the idea of Victorian respectability on its head. Not for them the conventional, stultifying lives of their forebears. They rejected the traditional family hierarchy and fashioned new identities thr… 27th August, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, Entertainment, Women in History Author of Where Madness Lies Lyndsy Spence, has provided the soundtrack to the fascinating, but also tragic, life of film star Vivien Leigh. The complete playlist is available on Spotify below. Happy listening… Track 1: Il cielo in una stanza by Mina The dreamy orchestration evok… 5th July, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, Women in History Humans have been great travellers for thousands of years. Famous early male explorers like Magellan, Sir Francis Drake and Captain Cook, are household names. Women, with their restricted positions in society and their traditional roles of looking after the house and children, had… 5th June, 2024 in Military, Women in History ‘I remember one particularly badly injured pilot amongst the others being brought in. Because of his multiple injuries he was taken straight to the consultant surgeon for examination and treatment, but he was still conscious as he was taken to surgery. There was nothing anyone co… 30th May, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, Women in History Brimming with lies, hagiography and exaggeration! Elizabeth Gaskell’s sensational 1857 biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë continues to divide historians, critics and Brontë fans over 160 years after its first publication. Some see it as a unique first-hand insight into the… 30th April, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, Society & Culture, Women in History Introduction – G. Puccini, “Quando m’en vo'” La Boheme for Cello & Piano DARREN COFFIELD: Bohemian was a term used for those who lived unconventional lives, when the first Romani Gypsies appeared in sixteenth century France they were labelled bohemian and their non-conformist… 17th April, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, Women in History 21st April marks the anniversary of the birth of English novelist and poet Charlotte Brontë. While she lived only 38 years, her legacy – and her celebrity – have remained perennially present. Her 1847 novel Jane Eyre is one of the most enduring texts of the 19th century, a novel… 7th March, 2024 in Society & Culture, Women in History Cambridge University is internationally renowned for its ancient colleges. It is lauded for its educational excellence. But in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, infamy blighted its hallowed name. As an alarming number of courtroom dramas exposed the university’s steadfa… 19th January, 2024 in Local & Family History, Transport & Industry, Women in History This is the last book in the trilogy that started with my great great grandmother, Hannah Hall in the 1820’s as she re-located with her family to a new coal mine opening up in Hetton-le-Hole, County Durham. No-one at that time could have known the importance of that move. By 1822… 15th January, 2024 in Military, Women in History Author of Remarkable Women of the Second World War, Victoria Panton Bacon, remembers Pat Rorke. Pat died on 9th December 2023, aged 100 years and five weeks. ‘After the war, you have to learn to live together, remember that you are all human … behind all the bare recounted facts… 6th September, 2023 in History, Women in History Shortly after the midsummer festivities of 1458 a more sombre procession wound its way towards the parish church of St Andrew’s in the Norfolk village of Blickling. Amongst the mourners was borne the body of Cecily Boleyn, whose soul had departed to God on 26 June and whose morta… 16th August, 2023 in Biography & Memoir, Women in History For an author, writing a biography is rather like a love affair; there is a brief encounter, a rapport and then over the next few years you develop an intimate relationship with your subject. My latest book Mothers of the Mind about the remarkable women who shaped Virginia Woolf,… 25th July, 2023 in True Crime, Women in History The female private detective has been a staple of popular culture for over 150 years. But what about the real-life women behind the fictional tales? Women like Victorian sleuth Antonia Moser, Annette Kerner, the ‘Mrs Sherlock Holmes’ of Baker Street, and Kate Easton, ‘London’s Le… 26th June, 2023 in Society & Culture, Women in History Necessary Women: the Untold Story of Parliament’s Working Women by Mari Takayanagi and Elizabeth Hallam Smith is the first book to tell the stories of women who worked in Parliament, from housekeepers and kitchen staff in the nineteenth century through to the first women Cle… 11th May, 2023 in History, Women in History Learn more about the life and reign of Lady Katherine Grey, great-granddaughter of the first Tudor king, Henry VII, and sister of the ill-fated Lady Jane. 1. Although James VI of Scotland succeeded Elizabeth I upon her death in 1603, he was not the rightful successor according to… 4th May, 2023 in History, Society & Culture, Women in History What was it like to give birth in Victorian Britain? Much depended, of course, on individual circumstances: health, wealth, social – including marital – status, and access to medical care. For the Queen for whom the period is named, childbirth was a painful, in some respects unwe… 28th April, 2023 in True Crime, Women in History Author Caitlin Davies is a novelist, non-fiction writer, award-winning journalist and teacher. She is the author of six novels, six non-fiction books, and several short stories. Queens of the Underworld her history of female crooks, has recently been released in paperback. What i… 28th March, 2023 in Biography & Memoir, Society & Culture, Women in History All wars devastate the lives of ordinary people. Death and glory linger on the battlefields while many millions at home suffer the pain of fear, anxiety and dread. As a war reporter, I have witnessed a great deal of anguish in the aftermath of conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and L… 8th March, 2023 in Folklore, Society & Culture, Women in History The Mighty Goddess is a collection of 52 goddess myths from around the world written by me, Sally Pomme Clayton, with 52 papercuts created by artist and poet Sophie Herxheimer. My 40 year career as a writer and storyteller has focused on female protagonists and goddesses. And ove… 23rd September, 2022 in Biography & Memoir, History, Women in History Once a household name around the globe, the artist and author Kate Greenaway has long since slipped into relative obscurity. Famous for her quaint drawings of mittened and bonneted girls, Kate depicted a rose-tinted view of childhood in days gone by, capturing nostalgic innocence… 9th September, 2022 in Biography & Memoir, History, Women in History On 8 September 2022, Buckingham Palace announced that Queen Elizabeth II had died at the age of 96, after reigning for 70 years. Elizabeth succeeded to the throne in 1952 at the age of 25, following the death of her father, King George VI. As the monarch of the United Kingdom and… 9th September, 2022 in Biography & Memoir, History, Women in History Descending the stairs of the royal plane at London Airport on 7 February 1952, the former Princess Elizabeth took her first steps on British soil as queen. She was 25. Only days earlier, her parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, along with her sister, Princess Margaret, ha…
More articles you might like
Ask the author: Dermot Turing on the codebreaking women of Bletchley Park
Tracing the history of the Women’s Football Association
From cocktails to cannibals: The adventurous life of Lady Dorothy Mills, explorer and writer
Ask the author: Catherine Hanley on Joanna Plantagenet
Women’s Land Army in Hampshire
Casting the impossible: The search for James Bond
Ask the author: Emily Murdoch Perkins on rewriting royal history
The rebellious Tudor princess you should know about
The dark side of Bohemia
The music behind ‘Where Madness Lies’
The Women Who Went Round the World
‘I held his hand, he grasped it gratefully’
The Invention of Charlotte Brontë
The soundtrack to ‘Queens of Bohemia’
The legacy of Charlotte Brontë
Daisy Hopkins: The prostitute who fought against being imprisoned by Cambridge University
The Last Women of the Durham Coalfield – Hannah’s grand-daughter
Remembering Patricia Rorke: A remarkable woman who lived through World War II
The forgotten Boleyn
Meeting the mothers: The women who shaped iconic female authors
Walking you through ‘Private Inquiries’: The secret history of female sleuths
Parliament’s working women: ‘Jane’ and the last days of Bellamy’s Refreshment Rooms
Five things you may not know about Lady Katherine Grey
Wealth, poverty, and childbirth in Victorian Britain
Ask the author: Caitlin Davies on Queens of the Underworld – A history of female crooks
Behind Mabel’s War: Beyond the Blitz
Making ‘The Mighty Goddess’
The life of Kate Greenaway (1846-1901)
The reign of Queen Elizabeth II: A timeline
Queen Elizabeth II: A giant among British royals
Books related to this article
