MARIA Stuart (Stuarda), queen of SCOTLAND. — Born on 8 December 1542 in the castle of Lilithgow; daughter of Giacomo V, king of Scotland, and of Maria di Lorena, a fervent Catholic and niece of the duke of Guise, of France.
In November of the same year her father suffered a military defeat at Solway Moss while fighting against the Reformers, and shortly thereafter died, six days before the birth of his daughter. Calvinism had penetrated Scotland and was putting down deep roots there through the work of Giovanni Knox, an audacious preacher. The mother was regent for the infant M.; this circumstance favoured the rebellion of the Scottish nobility adhering to the Reformation. France, allied for several years through dynastic relationships, now tightened its bonds with Scotland, while the Anglican Church threatened to absorb it, and Enrico VIII supported the Protestant party there in the hope of uniting the two crowns. M. found herself contested by the two sides: in London they wished to betroth her to the prince of Wales; in Paris they wished her to become dauphine of France. France prevailed, and the regent favoured its plans: in July 1547 a French fleet took the fortress of St. Andrews from the Calvinists; Knox was captured and taken to France, and shortly thereafter M. was betrothed to the dauphin Francesco (the future Fran-
Elected superior in 1825, she immediately founded there the Work of the Magdalens, a true congregation of strict enclosure, devoted to prayer and penance. But she wanted a Work whose houses would not be autonomous and whose religious women could therefore spread throughout the world, and the opportunity presented itself at Angers. Sent there to restore the Work called of the Good Shepherd, which welcomed girls to be rehabilitated or protected, and made prioress there in 1831, she succeeded despite innumerable
cesco II); in July 1549 the Scottish Parliament approved the betrothal. It was the official victory of the Catholic party. But the regent did not feel secure. A French fleet, summoned by her, drove out the English garrisons and carried the little M. off to France, where she was raised at the court of the Valois. Meanwhile Knox regained his freedom and came to preach in England, then in Scotland, from 1.50 to 1551, forming a league among the Reformers and opening the struggle against the Regent. In 1558 M. married the Dauphin of France, who, on the sudden death of his father, ascended the Valois throne under the name of Francesco II. At seventeen M. was queen of France and queen of Scotland. Indeed, the Catholics of England regarded her as the legitimate heir of Maria Tudor, since for them Elisabetta was the “bastard.” Such regal splendour soon fell into eclipse. In December 1560 M. lost her husband and the throne of France; Elisabetta committed all her forces to her war against Catholicism. Knox had become popular again. An uprising of the nobility and the common people stripped Maria di Lorena of all power; she died shortly thereafter (June 1560). The Parliament, urgently convened through the influence of Knox, prohibited the practice of Catholic worship under pain of death and sanctioned Calvinism. On returning to her own Kingdom, M. was awaited by a republican nobility and by a rough populace accustomed to violence. It was a difficult task to restore the depressed monarchy and the suffocated Catholic religion.
M. secured for herself the right to a private chapel for her Catholic worship; but even there she was insulted by the Reformers; Knox himself presumed to lecture her on Calvinism in the halls of the royal palace. M. believed she had found a protector by marrying (July 1565) a cousin, Enrico Stuart, earl of Darnley. Because of her husband’s political inexperience, M. made use of an Italian, a good Catholic and a singer in her chapel, Davide Riccio. Jealous, Darnley killed him before M.’s eyes, holding her motionless with a dagger at her throat. She was in the sixth month of pregnancy. The thought of revenge entered her heart. An adventurer, the earl of Bothwell, with whom the Queen had become infatuated, was the perpetrator. Darnley fell together with his own house, through an explosion of gunpowder, on the night of 9–10 February 1567. Within three months Bothwell had become M.’s husband, after divorcing his own wife.
Giovanni Knox, more than seventy years old, rekindled the agitation with youthful vigour. Open war broke out. The insurgents defeated the Queen’s troops. Bothwell fled to Norway; M. was taken to Edinburgh as a prisoner. Confined in the castle on the island of Loch-Lever, she signed the act of abdication in favour of her son, after entrusting the regency to the earl of Moray.
A year later M. managed to escape (2 May 1568): she summoned her adherents, and was able to muster an army. Defeated by Moray at Longside, she took refuge in England, hoping for hospitality from Elisabetta. The latter kept her prisoner for nineteen years. The conspiracies attempted by the Catholics of England and France, with the aid of Filippo II, to free her by overthrowing Elisabetta from the throne, ended unsuccessfully. The discovery in 1586 of a plot against Elisabetta’s life served to legalize M.’s death sentence after a parody of a trial. The sentence was carried out three months later, on 9 February 1587, arousing an emotion that reached even the Romantics (cf. Schiller).
BBL.: M. Mignet, Histoire de Marie S., Paris 1854; M. Philippson, Histoire du règne de Marie S., 3 vols., there 1891; H. Fleming, Mary Stuart, 2nd ed., London 1898; H. Pollen, Papal negotiation with Mary queen of Scots, Edinburgh 1901; id., Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington Plot, there 1922; R. Mahon, Mary Queen of Scots, Cambridge 1924; Pastor, VII, pp. 456-77; VIII, pp. 300-25; X, pp. 277-99; P. Henry-Bordeaux, M. S., 2 vols., Paris 1938. Vedi pure G. R. Preedy, The life of John Knox, London 1940, passim; E. Percy, John Knox, new ed., there 1945, passim. Ettore Rota