In 1487, the War of the Scarlet and White Roses ended in England, and Henry VII of the Tudor dynasty was established on the throne. Elizabeth was his male granddaughter, and Maria was his female great-granddaughter.
Another important point: over the centuries England has tried to conquer poor and sparsely populated Scotland, whose inhabitants are used to looking for help from France.
And the third moment - at the beginning of the 16th century in Europe began the movement of the Reformation, or the so-called Protestantism, which rejected the Catholic Church as the only correct church of Christianity.
Worthy daughters of their mothers
The English king Henry VIII broke with Catholicism not for ideological reasons, but because the Pope forbade him to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry the maid of honor Anne Boleyn. This is how the Anglican Church, independent of Rome, but dependent on the king, appeared.
In 1533, Anna gave birth to her husband's daughter Elizabeth and soon went to the chopping block on charges of adultery. Henry married four more times, but only the third wife gave birth to his son Edward, who in 1547 became his father's successor to the British throne.
He was a promising monarch, but six years later he died without leaving an heir. The regents, who dreamed of preserving Anglicanism, tried to elevate to the throne another great-granddaughter of Henry VII - Jane Gray, who went down in history as the "nine-day queen" and ended her life on the scaffold.
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The daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, Maria, an ardent Catholic, ascended the throne. And she rushed to restore Catholicism in England so zealously that she even earned the nickname Bloody.
Many Protestants, including the head of the Church of England Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, went to the stake. And in addition, Mary married an even more zealous Catholic - King Philip II of Spain. It smelled like England could become a province of the Spanish Empire.
In general, when in 1558 Mary the Bloody died, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, put Philip and proclaimed Queen Elizabeth. She continued to be faithful to Anglicanism, especially since, thanks to her mother, this church, in fact, appeared.
Maria Stewart was 9 years younger than Elizabeth, but unlike the Englishwoman who was hidden for the time being, like a mouse, she was considered a political figure from birth.
Her father, King James V of Scotland, died six days after the birth of his daughter - from worries about the Battle of Solway Mosse lost to the British.
The baby was proclaimed Queen of Scots, and her mother Maria de Guise, a Frenchwoman from the family of the Dukes of Lorraine, tried to act as regent for her daughter.
The Scottish barons did not allow this, and a long struggle between the pro-English and pro-French “parties, which could just as well be called Protestant and Catholic, began.
Maria de Guise pulled in the direction of the Catholics - and in 1554 she received the coveted regency. She sent her daughter to the mainland and married the prince, who came to the French throne in 1559 under the name of Francis II.
It seemed that the French-Catholic party won the fight for Scotland, but at the same time the "red-haired beast" Elizabeth became the queen of England.
As soon as the French troops appeared in Scotland, national pride leaped in the highlanders, and they took up arms. Elizabeth sent English troops to help her co-religionists, which for once had been greeted by the Scots as liberators.
Marie de Guise had to agree to the status quo with the withdrawal of both the British and the French from Scotland. In July 1560, she died suddenly, and rumor attributed this death to poisoning, carried out on the orders of Elizabeth.
In December of the same year, Francis II died, and his 18-year-old widow had no choice but to return to her homeland, where she was still queen.
Crowned "cats"
Protestantism was established in Scotland as a state religion, and Mary Stuart was not going to give up her Catholicism. Her subjects, however, liked her: the beautiful and charming empress brought French charm and grace to the wilderness of the northern European outskirts.
Life was improving, but relations with the southern neighbor left much to be desired. Mary did not want to officially recognize Elizabeth, clearly intending to realize her claims to the throne of England. In search of a strong ally, she decided to marry Don Carlos, the son of the most powerful monarch in Europe, Philip II.
And then Elizabeth was so scared that she invited Mary Stuart to make her his heir, if only she did not become the wife of the Spaniard. The Scottish woman liked the offer, but it turned out that marriage was impossible due to the insanity of Don Carlos.
And then Elizabeth could not resist the hairpin, offering Mary another groom - Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. He was a noble and prominent man, but with one drawback - everyone knew him as the official favorite of Elizabeth. He was recently widowed because his wife fell down the stairs (which caused some rumors). Maria, of course, rejected the offer.
Opinions differ as to whether the concept of “favorite” in Elizabeth's case implied an intimate relationship. Officially, she positioned herself as a "virgin queen", claiming that she was "married to England." But, as they say, no one was holding a candle, and hardly would have dared.
But Elizabeth was constantly in the status of "marriageable bride", considering the proposals of the most respectable grooms in Europe. She was not seriously going to get married, but such flirting was an element of foreign policy.
Mary Stuart was a simpler and more sensual woman, and in 1565 she married handsome Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. He was three years younger than her, he was also Henry VII's great-grandson, which means that he was a relative of his wife, although not to such an extent that marriage was considered impossible.
But something went wrong with the spouses, and soon they began to live separately. The closest person to the queen who became pregnant was considered her secretary, the Italian David Riccio, who, being a foreigner and a Catholic, irritated the Protestant Scots.
It ended with a crowd of barons stabbing Riccio right in front of the queen's eyes, in her private chambers. Among the daggers found at the scene of the murder was Lord Darnley's blade.
Despite the shock, Maria was safely relieved of the burden by her son Jacob and immediately began an affair with the brutal James Hepburn, Earl Bothwell, who was different from her pampered husband.
On February 10, 1567, the house where Lord Darnley spent the night flew into the air. The body of the king-consort was found in the garden: he probably managed to jump out of the burning house, but was overtaken by the killer. The Queen and Bothwell did not even try to imitate some kind of grief, and three months later they were married in Holyrood.
These events undermined the authority of the queen and ultimately led to her overthrow. Bothwell tried to raise an army in the north, but was forced to emigrate to Norway, where he ended up in prison on charges of long-standing seduction of a girl. He was not released any more.
Mary Stuart had to personally lead her supporters into battle, but she lost the decisive battle at Langside (May 13, 1568). The rebellious barons, claiming that they were acting in the name of the triumph of the Protestant faith, declared Mary deposed and swore allegiance to her two-year-old son, before whom, as usual, the Regency Council was created.
The deposed queen fled alone from the battlefield and after a few days of racing appeared in England, where she asked for asylum from Elizabeth.
Looking for evidence
Why did Maria turn to her old rival for help?
Firstly, being left alone, physically she could only get to the English possessions. Secondly, the new Regency Council of Scotland consisted not only of supporters of England, and it was profitable for Elizabeth to keep Mary Stuart with her as a possible weapon for taming the obstinate barons. Third, the monarchs of that time were considered God's anointed and had to adhere to some kind of corporate solidarity.
Elizabeth, trying to act as an arbiter, stated that before demanding the extradition of the fugitive queen, the barons must show evidence of her participation in the murder of Lord Darnley. Such evidence was the Letters from the Casket, lost by Bothwell during his escape, in which fabricated evidence was added to the originals. The English side considered them "insufficient".
Meanwhile, Mary recognized Elizabeth as the legitimate queen, stressing that she considers herself next in line for the English throne. "Red-haired beast" was not reassured. Its secret police have consistently uncovered Spanish-funded Catholic conspiracies. And in most cases, the conspirators were going to transfer the throne to the Scotswoman.
Due to the origin and facts of her biography, Mary Stuart was the banner of the English Catholics and, in general, everyone who did not like Elizabeth.
And most importantly, Elizabeth's agents failed to prove that Mary herself had something to do with these conspiracies. The "virgin queen" could only lock the tartan under tight guard in Sheffield Castle and hope in vain that, for example, she would fall down the stairs.
The commandant of the castle, Emias Paulet, performed the duties of the chief of security in an exemplary manner, but did not understand Elizabeth's hints, so, in the end, she said in her hearts: "How tired of this old fool with his conscience."
In 1569, widowed for the third time, Elizabeth's second cousin Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, decided to marry a Sheffield prisoner. For permission, he turned to Elizabeth, promising that he would return the Scottish throne to Mary, after which the two kingdoms would merge, so to speak, in political ecstasy.
Elizabeth did not give permission, since she did not trust Norfolk or Mary Stuart. Then Norfolk contacted the Spaniards and asked for money for a coup in favor of Mary. Elizabeth's agents covered the conspirators, Norfolk was executed, but again it did not work to prove that the Scotswoman had something to do with his plans.
Historians believe that almost half of the Catholic conspiracies uncovered during Elizabeth's reign were provoked by the secret police. This does not mean that the defendants were absolutely innocent. It's just that the secret service pushed them in the direction in which they were moving anyway, but too slowly.
Gentlemen don't lie
Suitable material could only be identified in letters to one of the supporters - a 25-year-old Catholic nobleman Anthony Babington. Babington was quartered after a short trial. And in general, there is reason to believe that the letters were falsified, since only their copies appeared in the court. But the judges took the word of the head of the British Secret Service, Francis Walsingham, who assured that the documents were genuine. Can noble gentlemen cheat?
Mary Stuart was sentenced to death and beheaded on February 8, 1587.
Climbing the scaffold, she looked older than her 44 years old and could hardly move her legs, exhausted by rheumatism. The executioner separated the head from the body only with the third blow, and when he tried to demonstrate it to the audience, the head fell out of the wig, hitting the scaffold platform. It was the head of a cropped gray-haired woman.
Elizabeth seemed to be going to cancel the death sentence, but signed the execution order by mistake. Secretary Davison, who allegedly incorrectly submitted the documents for signature, was put in the Tower and sentenced to an astronomical fine. Davison endured everything with humility and did the right thing. Two years later, he was released and over the next 20 years, until his death, he was paid a ministerial salary.
King Philip II used the execution of Mary Stuart as one of the reasons to launch a campaign against "unholy Elizabeth". The campaign ended with the death of the Invincible Armada.
Before her death in 1603, the childless Elizabeth handed over the throne to the son of Mary Stuart, King James VI, who became James I in England.
Dmitry MITYURIN