She became Queen of Scotland at six days old, Queen of France at 16, was imprisoned for 18 years by her own cousin — and her executioner botched the beheading twice.
Mary Stuart was born prematurely in December 1542 and inherited the throne of Scotland when her father King James V died just six days later. She was an infant queen in a kingdom riven by religious conflict and scheming nobles, ruled by regents while she was sent to France at age five to be raised at the most glamorous court in Europe.
At 15, Mary married the French Dauphin Francis, becoming Queen consort of France. For one glittering year she was Queen of two countries. Then her young husband died of an ear infection in 1560, and at 18 she was a widow, no longer wanted in France, sailing home to a Scotland she barely knew — a Catholic queen in a newly Protestant kingdom.
Mary ruled with surprising pragmatism at first, tolerating Protestant worship and retaining Protestant advisers. But her personal life became a disaster. Her second husband, Lord Darnley, was a vain, jealous drunk who orchestrated the brutal murder of her secretary David Rizzio in front of her — while she was pregnant. Darnley was then himself blown up at his house in Edinburgh, and many suspected Mary's third husband, the Earl of Bothwell.
The rapid remarriage to Bothwell — who was widely believed to have murdered Darnley — destroyed Mary's reputation. Scottish nobles rebelled, defeated her army, and imprisoned her in Lochleven Castle. She was forced to abdicate in favor of her infant son James, who would later become James I of England. She escaped, raised a new army, lost again, and fled south across the border into England.
Mary spent the next 18 and a half years as a prisoner of her cousin Queen Elizabeth I of England. Elizabeth was caught in an impossible position: executing a monarch was a dangerous precedent, but Mary alive was a perpetual focus for Catholic plots to put her on the English throne.
After being implicated in the Babington Plot — a Catholic conspiracy to assassinate Elizabeth — Mary was tried for treason in 1586 and condemned. On February 8, 1587, her executioner famously botched the beheading, requiring two or three blows of the axe. When he raised her severed head, her auburn wig fell off, revealing close-cropped grey hair.
Mary's tragedy haunted European politics for generations. Her son James went on to unite the English and Scottish thrones in 1603, and her descendants would rule England, Scotland, and later Great Britain for centuries. The woman who had been queen of three countries and prisoner of one ultimately got her revenge through her bloodline.