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Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, was born at Linlithgow Palace in 1542, and was the daughter of James V. by his queen, Mary of Lorraine, a princess of the family of Guise. Her father dying when she was a few days old, the regency was, after some dispute, vested in the Earl of Arran, who declined Henry VIII.'s demand for the hand of Mary for his son Edward.

In the summer of 1548 the young queen was sent by her mother to France, where she was educated in a French convent, and in 1558 was married to the dauphin, afterwards Francis II. He died seventeen months after his accession to the crown, in December 1560, and in August 1561 the widowed queen returned to Scotland, Mary had, of course, been educated in France as a Roman Catholic, but when she returned to Scotland she found that the influence of the Presbyterians was paramount in her kingdom. Though inclined to have Roman Catholicism again set up in Scotland, after a vain attempt to influence Knox she resigned herself to circumstances, quietly allowed her half-brother, the Protestant Earl of Moray, to assume the position of first minister, surrounded herself with a number of ether Protestant advisors, and dismissed the greater part of her train of French courtiers. She even gave these ministers her active support in various measures that had the effect of strengthening the Presbyterian party; but she still continued to have the mass performed in her own private chapel at Holyrood.

At first her subjects were quiet, she herself was popular, and her court was one of the most brilliant in Europe. The calamities of Mary began with her second marriage, namely, to her cousin, Lord Darnley, whom she married on July 29th, 1565. Darnley was a Roman Catholic, and immediately after the marriage the Earl of Moray and others of the Protestant lords combined against the new order of things. They were compelled to take refuge in England, and the popularity of Mary began to decline. In addition to this Darnley proved a weak and self-indulgent, and almost entirely alienated the queen by his complicity in the murder of Rizzio (March 9, 1566), though a reconciliation seemed to be effected between them about the time of the birth of their son, afterwards James VI. of Scotland and I. of England (19th of June, 1566) About the close of the same year, however, Darnley withdrew from the court, and in the meantime the Earl of Bothwell had risen high in the queens favour.

When the young prince James was baptized at Stirling Castle, on the 7th of December, 1566, Bothwell did the honours of the occasion, and Darnley, the father of the prince, was not even present. Once more, however, an apparent reconciliation took place between the king and queen. Darnley had fallen ill, and was lying at Glasgow under the care of his father. Mary visited him, and took measures for his removal to Edinburgh, where he was lodged in a house called Kirk-of Field, close to the city wall. He was there tended by the queen herself; but during the absence of Mary at a masque at Holyrood the house in which Darnley lay was blown up by gunpowder, and he himself was afterwards found dead with marks of violence on his person (February 9, 1567).

The circumstances attending this crime were very imperfectly investigated, but popular suspicion unequivocally pointed to Bothwell as the ringleader in the outrage, and the queen herself was suspected, suspicion becoming still stronger when she was carried off by Bothwell, with little show of resistance, to his castle of Dunbar, and married to him on the 15th of May. A number of the nobles now banded together against Bothwell, who succeeded in collecting a force; but on Carberry Hill, where the armies met on the 15th June, his army melted away. The queen was forced to surrender herself to her insurgent nobles, Bothwell making his escape to Dunbar, then to the Orkney Islands, and finally to Denmark. The confederates first conveyed the queen to Edinburgh, and thence to Loch Leven Castle, where she was placed in the custody of Lady Douglas, mother of the Earl of Moray. A few days after, on the 20th of June, a casket containing eight letters and some poetry, all said to be in the handwriting of the queen, fell into the hands of the confederates.

The letters, which have come down to us only in the form of a translation appended to Buchanan's Detection, clearly show, if they are genuine, that the writer was herself party to the murder of Darnley. They were held by the confederates to afford unmistakable evidence of the queen's guilt, and on the 24th of July she was forced to sign a document renouncing the crown of Scotland in favour of her infant son, and appointing the Earl of Moray regent during her son's minority.

After remaining nearly a year in captivity Mary succeeded in making her escape from Loch Leven (May 2, 1568), and, assisted by the few friends who still remained attached to her, made an effort for the recovery of her power. Defeated by the Regent's forces at the battle of Langside (May 13. 1568) she fled to England, and wrote to Elizabeth entreating protection and a personal interview; but this the latter refused to grant until Mary should have cleared herself from the charges laid against her by her subjects. For one reason or another Elizabeth never granted Mary an interview, but kept her in more or less close captivity in England, where her life was passed in a succession of intrigues for accomplishing her deliverance. For more than eighteen years she continued to be the prisoner of Elizabeth, and in that time the place of her imprisonment was frequently changed her final prison being Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire. She was at last accused of being implicated in a plot by one Babington against Elizabeth's life and having been tried by a court of Elizabeth's appointing, was on the 25th of October, 1586, condemned to be executed. There was a long delay before Elizabeth signed the warrant, but this was at last done on the 1st of February, 1587. Mary received the news with great serenity, and was beheaded, week later, on February 8,1587, in the castle of Fotheringhay.

Authorities are more agreed as to the attraction; talents, and accomplishments of Mary Stuart than as to her character. Contemporary writers who saw her unite in testifying to the beauty of her person, and the fascination of her manners and address. She was witty in conversation, and ready in dispute. In her trial for alleged complicity in Babington's plot she held her ground against the ablest statesmen and lawyers of England. Besides letters and other prose writings, Mary was the author of some short poems of no great merit. The best is one on the death of her first husband, Francis II. The lines beginning 'Adieu, plaisant pays de France,' long ascribed to her, were written by a French journalist of the 18th century.