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Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart〔Also spelled as Marie and as Steuart or Stewart〕 or Mary I of Scotland, was Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 to 24 July 1567 and Queen consort of France from 10 July 1559 to 5 December 1560. Mary, the only surviving legitimate child of King James V of Scotland, was six days old when her father died and she acceded to the throne. She spent most of her childhood in France while Scotland was ruled by regents, and in 1558, she married the Dauphin of France, Francis. He ascended the French throne as King Francis II in 1559, and Mary briefly became queen consort of France, until his death in December 1560. Widowed, Mary returned to Scotland, arriving in Leith on 19 August 1561. Four years later, she married her first cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, but their union was unhappy. In February 1567, his residence was destroyed by an explosion, and Darnley was found murdered in the garden. James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, was generally believed to have orchestrated Darnley's death, but he was acquitted of the charge in April 1567, and the following month he married Mary. Following an uprising against the couple, Mary was imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle. On 24 July 1567, she was forced to abdicate in favour of James, her one-year-old son by Darnley. After an unsuccessful attempt to regain the throne, she fled southwards seeking the protection of her first cousin once removed, Queen Elizabeth I of England. Mary had previously claimed Elizabeth's throne as her own and was considered the legitimate sovereign of England by many English Catholics, including participants in a rebellion known as the Rising of the North. Perceiving her as a threat, Elizabeth had her confined in various castles and manor houses in the interior of England. After eighteen and a half years in custody, Mary was found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth, and was subsequently executed. == Childhood and early reign == Mary was born on 7 or 8 December 1542 at Linlithgow, Scotland, to James V, King of Scots, and his French second wife, Mary of Guise. She was said to have been born prematurely and was the only legitimate child of James to survive him. She was the great-niece of King Henry VIII of England, as her paternal grandmother, Margaret Tudor, was Henry VIII's sister. On 14 December, six days after her birth, she became Queen of Scots when her father died, perhaps from the effects of a nervous collapse following the Battle of Solway Moss,〔; 〕 or from drinking contaminated water while on campaign. A popular legend, first recorded by John Knox, states that James, hearing on his deathbed that his wife had given birth to a daughter, ruefully exclaimed, "It cam wi' a lass and it will gang wi' a lass!"〔This version is taken from Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie's ''The History of Scotland from 21 February 1436 to March 1565'' written in the 1570s. The phrase was first recorded by John Knox in the 1560s as "The devil go with it! It will end as it began: it came from a woman; and it will end in a woman" ().〕 His House of Stewart had gained the throne of Scotland by the marriage of Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert the Bruce, to Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland. The crown had come to his family through a woman, and would be lost from his family through a woman. This legendary statement came true much later—not through Mary, but through her descendant Queen Anne.〔; 〕 Mary was baptised at the nearby Church of St Michael shortly after she was born.〔; 〕 Rumours spread that she was weak and frail,〔; 〕 but an English diplomat, Ralph Sadler, saw the infant at Linlithgow Palace in March 1543, unwrapped by her nurse, and wrote, "it is as goodly a child as I have seen of her age, and as like to live."〔Sadler to Henry VIII, 23 March 1543, quoted in ; ; ; 〕 As Mary was an infant when she inherited the throne, Scotland was ruled by regents until she became an adult. From the outset, there were two claims to the Regency: one from Catholic Cardinal Beaton, and the other from the Protestant Earl of Arran, who was next in line to the throne. Beaton's claim was based on a version of the late king's will that his opponents dismissed as a forgery.〔; John Knox claimed the king had signed a blank sheet of paper that Beaton had then filled in, while Arran claimed that Beaton had taken the dying king's hand in his own and traced out the signature (). The disputed will is printed in 〕 Arran, with the support of his friends and relations, became the regent until 1554 when Mary's mother managed to remove and succeed him.〔; ; 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mary, Queen of Scots」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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