Mary of Scotland 1936

In 1561, Mary Stuart, the young widow of Francis II of France, sails from the Continent back to her homeland to reclaim the Scottish throne. She lands with her trusted secretary, Rizzio, and together they ride toward Holyrood Palace near Edinburgh, determined to reassert royal authority after years abroad.

But the homecoming stirs a tense court politics. Mary must face her half brother, Moray, the lean and wary leader of Scotland’s nobility, who questions her devotion to Catholicism and her readiness to marry. While a council tries to guide her government, the fiery preacher John Knox publicly brands her a “wicked” Catholic, sharpening the clash between reformist zeal and the queen’s authority. In the background, the calculating Throckmorton works with Elizabeth to influence events from abroad, hoping to tilt the balance against Mary.

Rizzio counsels Mary to wed Darnley, a Catholic heir to the English throne, hoping to secure an alliance that could stabilize her rule. Yet she cannot deny her growing attraction to the powerful Bothwell, even as she agrees to the marriage with Darnley. As pressure mounts, Mary’s council presses her to dismiss Rizzio, and Darnley—already agitated—is drawn into fabricating charges of adultery against the secretary. In a fateful night, a group of Scottish lords attacks Rizzio in her bedchamber; a drunken Darnley watches as Mary is forced to sign a false confession of infidelity. The crime shatters the court’s balance and drives Mary into a perilous new alliance.

With Bothwell’s loyal troops at her back, Mary and Darnley evade the faction opposed to them. A year after the birth of a son, James, the king’s temperament grows dangerously unstable. Darnley is killed when his private refuge is destroyed by planted explosives, and Knox denounces Bothwell as the murderer. In a daring and controversial act, the earl abducts Mary and, defying the council, secretly marries her. Barely twenty days later, Moray abducts baby James, and rebel lords besiege Holyrood. Outnumbered, Bothwell agrees to leave Scotland if Mary may remain queen, but Moray reneges on the deal, imprisons Mary, and proclaims himself regent.

Mary escapes captivity and, convinced that Elizabeth will support her, makes for England. Instead, Elizabeth takes Mary prisoner and, after Bothwell dies in a Danish jail, puts her on trial for treason. Crushed by the news of Bothwell’s death, Mary remains steadfast in her claim to the English throne, even when clemency is offered. She embraces a life that she believes has offered more fulfillment than Elizabeth’s, and faces execution with quiet, unyielding courage.