Posted by Damian
on 6/9/2009, 23:35:52, in reply to "Re: Mary,Queen of Scots' last letter to go on show "
195.93.21.99
--Previous Message--
: If the report is accurate, she was self
: deluding to the end. She was not a martyr;
: she was a murderess. She was clearly
: involved in the murder of her second
: husband, and then plotted to overthrow both
: her own son, and her cousin Elizabeth.
Well,she was brought up at the French court where imprisoning and or murdering inconvenient people including relatives was practically a way of life,rather like it was at the Tudor court.Let's not get holier than thou here!
Mary did what she felt she had to do to survive just like cousin Elizabeth did.She wanted her throne back (taken away by unscrupulous relatives using her infant son as a pawn) and her liberty (strangely taken away by her English cousin).That her efforts were less successful than her cousin's merely illustrates that she was not quite as clever at doing it than her cousin was.Didn't make her any worse...just less capable.
The real reason why Walsingham,Burghley and others wanted to get rid of Mary was to remove a potential figurehead for imagined Catholic uprisings in the event of a Spanish invasion (the Armada was launched the following year).
That's why they framed her with the ridiculous Babington Plot.To that extent,although certainly no saint,Mary was right to consider herself a martyr for the cause of an increasingly oppressed people ie.the English Catholics.
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