Mary Queen of Scots

• Mary’s claim to the throne was as the Great granddaughter of Henry VII so William Cecil viewed her as a dangerous and poisonous threat to Elizabeth's throne
• Elizabeth proposes Mary marries Dudley (due to his loyalty to Elizabeth) but Mary marries Lord Darnley, seen as a threatening marriage as Lord Darnley is an English Catholic with royal blood and has affairs with men and women
• David Rizzio was rumoured he was having an affair with Darnley and Mary (unlikely he was with Mary) and was stabbed by Darnley - traumatised Mary
• Naked men in Darnley’s house but he runs out when they set an explosion but then was strangled by the people carrying out the plot
• Mary comes to England (1568) as she panics after being forced to abdicate her throne - they threatened to cut her throat; Cecil immediately has her put on house arrest surrounded by loyal Protestants
• Elizabeth claims they cannot meet because Mary is still embroiled in the scandal of Lord Darnley’s murder; Mary is imprisoned for 18-19 years in many castles all over England
• Cecil finds evidence of Mary’s threat to Elizabeth: his spies intercept encrypted letters from Mary’s supporters and shows a plot to put Mary on England's throne (the Babington Plot)
• Mary lost hope for her crown and went after Elizabeth's; pronounced guilty on October 25th, 1586, Cecil uses made up Spanish armada invasion to pressure Elizabeth to sign for the execution on February 8th, 1587
• Elizabeth begins to blame everyone else for this but herself, claiming she wasn’t aware of what she signed; she was always denying her responsibility, and to James she lied and blamed her councillors
• Mary is immortalised as a catholic Martyr - the damsel in distress