Royal Drama! // How Historically Accurate is Mary Queen of Scots? [CC]

Subtitles section Play video

Right, it is time! The moment has come!
This is a long awaited — late — video. How historically accurate is the movie "Mary, Queen of Scots"?
Oh boy, do I have feelings.
I made a video a few weeks ago —
two months ago —
about the film "The Favourite" and its treatment Queen Anne,
who was the English and then British queen between 1702 and 1714.
I mentioned at the end of that video to let me know which film you'd like me to review next
and said, I would do "Mary, Queen of Scots" and then
promptly forgot.
But we're here now.
I am ready to get my history geek on.
Ahem.
For the — okay. No, that's, that's. Wow. Ugh.
Jesus, no. No, no glasses. No. Okay.
That was about it.
I actually have glasses with fake glass in and then I can just look suitably history "profeshor-ish" for these videos.
Professor-ish? "Profeshor-ish"...
Subscribe if you enjoy history, lesbians, disability awareness, and vintage fashion
with a comedic twist to everything because I honestly struggle to stay serious.
Also click the bell to get notifications,
and please do take a look at my little merch shelf down below or through the link in the description.
It's adorable!
See here.
Much like looking at the life of Queen Anne
— that gorgeous disabled lesbian played by the wonderful Olivia Colman —
the life of Mary, Queen of Scots, seems
quite personal to me?
Because I'm very obsessed with Philippa Gregory's historical novels,
and found the one concerning Mary very interesting.
So.... it....
But it kind of differed from what we've been taught about her in school
and then I start to dig deeper and begin researching into her life and her relationships,
particularly that with Elizabeth I, the Queen of England, who was her second cousin.
But before we get into the film...there's a dog coming to sit on my lap.
Hi!
Before we get into the film, let's begin with a little history lesson.
It's a big history lesson.
If you're English, you've most definitely heard of the Tudors, because all schoolteachers are apparently
obsessed with them!
So much so that you spend years and years learning about this one very specific royal family
to the extent that we know more about their family dramas than we do our own!
The Tudor dynasty — actually, I'm not calling them a dynasty, they don't deserve that.
Don't at me.
The royal family began when a man called Henry Tudor killed the English king,
and decided thanks to his INCREDIBLY tenuous link to the crown.
His grandmother had been the king's wife, but his grandfather was actually a glorified servant who
she ran off with after she was widowed, and his mother descended from an illegitimate grandson
of a former king? So, sure, Henry sure.
Also you DEFINITELY didn't have the poor princess in the tower killed!
Ugh. So over Henry Tudor.
Anyway. He sucked as a person and as the king.
He also forced the rightful but female heir to the throne,
the beautiful granddaughter of my favorite historical figure, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, into marriage
by coercing her into having sex with him until she was pregnant and then didn't even properly crown her
until he was sure that the baby boy was actually going to make it to childhood.
Ugh!
Apparently he told her if she didn't have a baby boy with him,
he was going to try and force her son on her younger sisters who were all children!
Delightful, delightful man!
They had four children:
Arthur, who was great.
Margaret, who was less great.
Henry, who was not at all great,
and Mary, who was cute and I'm never gonna mention again.
Don't write that in your history exam, okay?
This video is not a verified reference document.
Sadly Arthur, who'd have been a great king because he was a refined, courageous young man
and kid who got all the best bits from his mother's side, died as a teenager not long after marrying the Spanish
Princess Catalina of Aragon, also known as Catherine.
Remember that face. She'll be back.
Margaret, the second child is important, too.
At the age of 14, she was married to the king of Scotland, James IV, and sent up north as essentially a
peace treaty of a person. The hope was that she would have many, many babies who would securely tie the
Kingdom of Scotland and England, and thus ensure that the Scottish would stop raiding the north of England
trying to start a war.
I mean, good luck with that.
Sure, you just give him such a more reason to invade England.
Now they ever claimed that for him too, but sure.
Unfortunately, she wasn't the brightest spark and continually angered the Scottish Lords
by making stupid decisions
with men.
Much like we'll see her granddaughter do in a minute.
Margaret and James had by all accounts a very good marriage and produced six children, although only one
actually survived infancy and later became James V at the age of seventeen months
when his father was killed by the English.
Margaret then attempted to act as regent for her son,
the baby king, but faced more than a bit of opposition
from the Scottish Lords, who were, um...
(clicks tongue)
Not best pleased by women having power,
especially an English woman.
Especially them. They were part of an alliance with the French against the English.
See? I told you that who princess peace treaty thing wouldn't work out.
It didn't.
Margaret is considered to have acted calmly and with some degree of political skill.
By July 1540 she'd even managed to reconcile the contending parties and
Scotland along with France concluded peace with England that very same month.
(claps)
Good job, Margaret! Hooray!
Oh, but then she ruined it.
Unfortunately. She was seduced by the Earl of Angus who was
insert-rude-word-here, and according to his own uncle a "young witless fool."
Apparently he was a magnetic presence who swayed Margaret into giving too much to his own family
and thus anger the other Lords, who turned against him, and, wow was that a drama.
Essentially, she started a civil war and then she ran away back to England leaving her children behind.
Well done.
So poor James V was the baby king, and he had to grow up fast!
But hopping back to England quickly.
Okay. With Margaret's older brother Arthur dead,
her younger brother Henry had become King,
King Henry VIII.
To start with he was young, charming, handsome, the dream king!
And he even married his brother's poor widow had been bitterly neglected and abused by their father.
Apparently because he actually wanted to marry her and then she said no. 'Cause... no.
Everything was great, except Henry and Catherine really struggled to have children.
Only one, Mary, survived babyhood and after 24 years together,
he divorced her in order to marry her maid-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn.
Please note, we are speeding through history here.
There were many other terrible things that
happened surrounding this marriage breakup and the way Catherine was treated.
Including Henry changing the religion of the entire country just so that he could say
that he was now head of the church and he could marry whomever he wanted.
These Henrys...
Despite the drama and shifting poor Catherine, Henry didn't even keep his interest in Anne up
and when she only gave him a daughter but no sons in three years,
he essentially invented a reason to chop off her head.
Three years! He gave her three years to have a son and then he chopped off her head.
(seethes)
The one daughter they did produce is very important to our story, however,
as she would grow up to be Elizabeth I, Queen of England,
as played by Margot Robbie in the film in question.
But okay. Just to condense history in this Henry dynamic a little more, Henry then married
Anne's lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour, who died giving birth to that son Henry had wanted so much.
Not that he cared, apparently. He just had a feast
and then didn't even go to see her as she lay dying and asking for him
Ugh!
He then went on to marry three more women: divorced, beheaded and arrested, in that order.
But the last one was fortunately able to survive him, so
go her.
Once Henry had died, the crown then went to his son, who died young,
his oldest daughter, who died without children,
and then finally just Elizabeth. Because she was the only one left.
Oh yeah, and the entire religion of the country changed with every new monarch, which left many people dead
and absolutely everyone confused. Also no one could decide whether Elizabeth was legitimate or not
because maybe Henry had actually illegally divorced his first wife? Then like...
See? I told you. Those Tudors! All they do is ruin things! Ugh!
So Elizabeth I finally has her crown. Excellent!
But what's happening back in Scotland?
Well, you remember that her cousin James V was on the throne, right? Became king at seventeen months old?
Well, firstly, he had a pretty horrible childhood,
since despite being king all of the adults in his life basically just used him as a pawn
including his aforementioned terrible stepfather, who held him prisoner for three years and ruled in his place!
I mean, okay, don't worry then, James eventually escaped and then banished his entire step-family.
Go James!
He married twice, both to French princesses — ish —
and tried to strengthen the ties there as his godfather was the king of France.
France and Scotland kind of had a thing.
It's like largely because they both hated the English.
I mean it was like a revenge coupling, really. You'll see more about that.
His first wife, Madeleine, had been very sickly since birth and her father, the King of France,
was not best pleased at the thought of his frail 16-year-old getting married
but couldn't really say no to James, since there was a treaty that promised him a French princess.
And oh, what do you know? She died six months into marriage.
This is why you pay attention to people's health complaints.
Anyway, less than a year later, he had a new wife, Mary de Guise, who was a widow with two sons already,
so everyone assumed she'd be more robust.
The union produced two sons!
However, both died in infancy.
Scotland's really cold.
Then in 1542, in short succession war broke out with England, Mary gave birth to a baby Mary,
and King James died, meaning — as the only legitimate child of James V — Mary, Queen of Scots, took a throne
at just six days old. Six.
Note, I said legitimate.
He had a lot of illegitimate ones. Nine, in fact.
Three of whom he fathered before he was 20, and one of whom we're gonna hear about more later.
I love how gossipy these videos are! So fun!
Okay, you've probably got this far in and now you're thinking,
"Jessica, when are you actually going to start talking about the damn movie?"
But this is all very important background knowledge, okay? You need it.
Although, let's be honest.
I think you know the answer to the question in the title already.
How historically accurate is "Mary, Queen of Scots?"
(hums skeptically)
No.
Firstly, and this for me was very important, Mary was sent to France at the age of five
because she was engaged to the heir of the French throne. So she lived in the French Court for 13 years.
She was the favorite of the King of France, over his own children even.
But she did not have a Scottish accent!
Now according to contemporary accounts Mary was beautiful, lively, clever,
and spoke French, Italian, Latin, Spanish, Greek, and a bit of Scots, but she did not speak English.
Her limited ability to communicate with the Scottish Lords was probably the root of most of their problems.
That being a woman because misogyny!
As the film portrays, she was indeed very beautiful with auburn hair and quite tall.
Her adult height was 5 foot 11 inches, which is like 1.8 meters which is even taller than me.
Mary was brought up in the knowledge that she was not only the Queen of Scotland,
but was also destined to become the Queen of France and the Queen of England,
as most Catholics believed Elizabeth was not the rightful heir to throne due to being both Protestant and
iffy on the legitimacy thing.
She believed, as the entire French Court did, in the Divine Right of Kings:
that a king was chosen by God and therefore cannot be wrong and isn't even really a human,
but is instead a heavenly presence on Earth, which would have all been fine
except that her husband became king and just up and died.
So she did indeed get to be Queen of France for a bit.
But not much.
Widowed Mary returned to Scotland and claimed the throne she did have,
and struggled to govern her unruly Kingdom, since female monarchs are kind of the devil in their eyes.
The next part's covered by the film.
Spoilers!
Elizabeth — the unmarried, childless, 28-year-old Queen of England — is unnerved by Mary's claim to her throne.
So she decides the best thing to do is marry Mary off to an Englishman,
meaning the future King of Scotland will be half English.
Also Protestant.
Hopefully for Elizabeth.
Elizabeth chooses Robert Dudley, a disgraced nobleman who she secretly loves to propose to Mary.
Weird choice.
Both are unwilling to be married to each other but then Elizabeth develops smallpox and Mary sees a chance, 'cause...
Agrees to take the offer provided that Mary is named Elizabeth's heir apparent.
But....
Elizabeth's then like reluctant to let go of Dudley and doesn't die,
so secretly sends Lord Darnley to Scotland.
Cue English Lords facepalming.
Lord Darnley is a cousin of both queens.
So by marrying him Mary is just
strengthening her claim to the throne of England?
Didn't think that through.
In Scotland, Mary's council is suspicious of Darnley as they fear an English takeover.
Both kingdoms demand he return to England immediately.
But Mary refuses and marries him,
only to discover him in bed with her friend and private secretary, David Rizzio the following morning.
Cue more facepalming.
Mary decides to crush the rebels who hate her husband,
but demands that Darney give her a child.
Once a child is conceived, Mary declares that the child is the heir apparent to Scotland and England,
which deeply offends the English, unsurprisingly.
Mary's half-brother, who is pretty sure he should be the king
because he's a man (never mind that he's illegitimate)
concludes with pretty much everyone to spread rumors that Mary was adulterous
and her child was illegitimately fathered by Rizzio, which
gay, but sure.
Fearing the accusations against Mary and the discovery of his own homosexuality,
Darnley is coerced by the baddies to join them in murdering Rizzio and reluctantly delivers the final blow!!!
He is
the worst.
I mean.
Okay, not the worst. He's not a Tudor, but he still sucks.
Mary agrees to pardon the men involved, provided she's presented with evidence that Darnley had taken part.
She ultimately forgives her half-brother and asks Elizabeth to be her child's godmother.
Together they agree that baby James is heir presumptive to both countries,
which the English hate.
Mary banishes her husband Darnley but refuses to divorce him since she's Catholic.
Oh, but apparently God doesn't say anything against murdering husbands.
So she just asked her advisor and protector, the Earl of Bothwell, to have him killed.
Unsurprisingly much drama abounds.
Mary is supposed to flee and leave baby James behind.
The following morning Bothwell tells her the council have decided
that she marry a Scotsman (him) immediately, which she agrees to.
The country then believes that she is a harlot who had her husband killed to marry another man.
Well done.
Despite furiously objecting to it, Mary eventually abdicates her throne and flees to England.
Elizabeth arranges for a clandestine meeting with her,
where Mary asks for Elizabeth's help to take back her throne, and insults her a bit.
Elizabeth won't go to war on behalf of the Catholic, but instead promises safe exile in England,
As long as Mary does not aid her enemies.
Seems reasonable.
Unfortunately, Mary only ever looks a gift horse in the mouth,
so gets lippy and Elizabeth orders should be placed under house arrest in England.
She then spend years and years and years going back and forth on whether or not she should just execute Mary
and be done with it
The film rather speeds over this, though,
and eventually when presented with compelling evidence that Mary has conspired with her enemies
to have Elizabeth assassinated, Elizabeth just orders Mary's execution.
And then cries for Mary as she walks onto the scaffold.
Only for Mary to throw off her cloak and reveal a bright red dress implying that she is a martyr.
(heavenly noises)
And here we come to the breakdown of the film: fact or fiction?
Spoilers, obviously.
One, Mary's Scottish nurse, I just.
No.
That girl was French before she was anything else.
There are some letters that described her "Scottish" accent, but they weren't written by Scottish people.
So there may have been some confusion.
It's generally just believed she sounded French.
Two, Mary and Elizabeth did not meet face to face to hash out the drama and attempt to resolve the war.
I mean they never even met! Never!
Although they sent many letters to each other occasionally moaning about how they hadn't met yet.
Interestingly, Elizabeth's letters to her fellow queen are very...
romantic.
Three, the gay thing.
Not the lesbian undertones. The other gay thing.
The man thing: debatable.
I mentioned this in my review of "The Favourite,"
But it's actually really, really hard to know for sure if people in history were gay,
unless they wrote it down themselves since it's not like there is the tell-tale sign of pregnancy.
Four, Dudley and Mary did not meet as the film shows when he offered his hand in marriage to her.
Instead, much later, once she was already in captivity.
Five, Mary did think of Elizabeth as her inferior.
After all, Elizabeth had been declared illegitimate at two-and-a-half years old,
and no one ever actually reversed that act.
She was also the wrong religion, according to Mary.
They weren't friends who became enemies. They were just enemies. From birth.
Six, the film's tag lines are "Born to fight" for Mary and "Born to rule" for Elizabeth,
Which is a complete role reversal.
No? Just, no?
Mary was raised knowing she would eventually be queen of three countries.
Elizabeth was raised with half the country questioning the legitimacy of her parent's marriage
and the other half sure her father was not her father.
Seven, the film portrays Mary as refusing to abdicate her throne in a confrontation
between herself and her husband Bothwell,
with her treacherous brother James Stuart, Earl of Moray, and scheming advisor Lord Maitland.
In real life, Mary did sign away her throne, likely out of coercion and threatening,
but after escaping her enemies' clutches, she immediately sought out an army to reclaim her throne.
So this was kind of right but kind of wrong.
Eight, Elizabeth's scars.
Poor Margot Robbie, okay?!
The film startled her with a heavy prosthetic nose and pock marks
and it's the least glamorous cinematic interpretation of Elizabeth I ever.
It's very weird though, as, despite this kind of seeming bid for authenticity,
no other character, not even an extra has anywhere near as grizzled her face as Elizabeth,
making her weird anomaly.
Nine, this is semi shown in the film but
Bothwell was an abhorrent human being who kidnapped and raped Queen Mary
but due to her belief from the sacred body of a monarch,
once it was obvious she'd been abused in such way, because she became pregnant with twins,
she had to say it was her choice and thus protect the sanctity of her person!
He then fled to exile in Denmark and didn't help her and she begged him to.
Ten, this one's really interesting
It's often debated in the film world, so let me know what you think.
Director Josie Rourke told the LA Times,
"I was really clear. I would not direct an all-white period drama."
And as such the film portrays the English ambassador to the Scottish court,
Lord Thomas Randolph, as a black man and Elizabeth Hardwick as being of Chinese ancestry.
Eleven, this is a really tiny issue, but they kept calling Mary "Queen of Scotland."
But that's inaccurate, since the monarchy in Scotland ruled their people not the land
because no one is ruling the highlands.
Have you seen the place? Good luck.
Twelve, in the final scenes of the film,
Mary thinks very kindly of her son, James King of the Scots, who later becomes King of England.
In reality by this point, Mary was entirely disillusioned with her son James,
after he cut off contact with her and pursued his own treaties and policies with Elizabeth without consulting
or caring for his mother in her captivity.
She wrote to her French relatives and expressed her brokenhearted disappointment in him.
Thirteen, aaand finally.
The timeline is just really off!
She was in prison for 18 years, and the film just jumps over it.
Mary was placed in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury and his wife, Bess of Hardwick, in 1569,
and moved around to various residences of couples at their own cost.
My final opinion of the film:
It's one of those classic epic costume dramas I love so much, but I do feel the historical inaccuracy is kind of
wrinkled so much that I'm not sure I'd watch it again.
I just kept watching and thinking,
"No, it's not right. No. It's nothing like that. No."
It was very annoying.
If I hadn't known these things, I think it's a film that I would return to and watch again and again.
Sadly, now you've seen this video,
I've probably ruined it for you, too.
So yay!
At least we're in the same boat.
What do you think of the film?
If you haven't seen it, but somehow have made it to the end of this video...
Congratulations.
Would you watch it now?
Let me know in the comments what you thought and which historical film you'd like me to ruin next.
Please remember to like this video and subscribe if you haven't already. I'll see you in the next one.
Mwa!