Mary of Scotland (film): Difference between revisions

{{quote| In the [[The Renaissance|sixteenth century]], [[The Virgin Queen|Queen Elizabeth I]] (Florence Eldridge) learns that [[Mary of Scotland|Mary]] [[The House of Stuart|Stewart]] ([[Katharine Hepburn]]) has returned to Scotland to take her throne, while refusing to yield her claim to England. The Scottish lords, under the lead of the treacherous [[Name's the Same|James Stewart]], Earl of Moray (Ian Keith), have been using the [[Holier Than Thou|fanatical]] preacher, John Knox (Moroni Olson), to defame Mary as a dissolute persecutor. Mary finds support in the person of the bluff Earl of Bothwell (Fredric March), with whom she falls in love, but, angered by his presumption and urged by her Catholic secretary David Rizzio (John Carradine) to marry a Catholic, to strengthen her claim to the English throne, she weds the [[The Alcoholic|drunken]], [[Ambiguously Gay|effeminate]] Lord Darnley (Douglas Walton). Darnley, despised by all and insanely jealous, conspires with the lords to murder Rizzio. Thereafter the lords [[Stuff Blowing Up|blow up]] (no, really) the feckless Darnley and seize Mary and her infant heir, James VI. She escapes to Bothwell, who "forces" her to marry him; denounced by John Knox, Bothwell agrees to leave Scotland, so long as Mary is left on the throne. However, as soon as he is gone, the lords betray her. Mary escapes to England, seeking aid from Elizabeth -- who instead imprisons her. She is [[Kangaroo Court|tried for conspiracy]] against Elizabeth; having heard meanwhile of Bothwell's death in prison, she [[Heroic BSOD|accepts her condemnation]] to death. Elizabeth comes to her secretly to offer a last chance if she will renounce her claim to the throne, but Mary rejects her offer, taunting the English queen with her loveless life and the fact that Mary's son will inherit Elizabeth's throne. She then goes to her death -- hearing as in a vision the [[Everything's Louder with Bagpipes|pipers]] of Bothwell announcing her apotheosis.}}

{{quote| "What do you know of my life? You were ''born'' a queen. Honors, thrones, everything fell into your lap. What do you know of the struggle for power? I started with nothing, robbed even of a name, not acknowledged by my father. My own mother -- yes, Anne Boleyn -- was executed. And I learned how a woman may be a queen one day, and stand on the scaffold the next. I was sent to the Tower by my own sister -- oh, I know what prisons are, and being threatened month after month with execution. I died a thousand times. But I fought my way upward, inch by inch, until I wore the Crown. I gave my love to no man, but to my kingdom -- to ''England!'' And you prate to me of love! What do you know of my life?"}}