"Mary Queen of Scots was a villain who deserved to lose her throne and her life" Do you agree with this interpretation of Mary Queen of Scots?

  Bothwell was the leading suspect as he was known to be Mary’s lover. Virtually straight after Darnley’s death, Bothwell kidnapped Mary and forced her to marry him(!). When they had officially married the people of Scotland were furious and it made Mary look like a scoundrel and a cheat. I think this was another part of Mary’s master plan, so I don’t think Bothwell forced her to marry him but, they staged the whole thing and Mary really did want to marry him.

 The Scots rebelled against Mary and forced her to abdicate her throne and make way for James. The Scots then imprisoned Mary, but she broke free, with the help of Bothwell, and fled to England to seek the help of her cousin Elizabeth I. When Mary arrived in England she was imprisoned, but she wasn’t put in a rotten, stinky, slimy, rat infested cell, far from it, she was put in a tower with all her maids and treated like a high class person.

 I think Mary did and didn’t deserve to be treated like that. She was of Royal blood, but on the other hand she was a suspect in the murder of her former husband Lord Darnley.

 I think Mary may have played a part in the plots against Elizabeth because with Elizabeth out of the way she would have a claim to the English throne. I think Walsingham used a mean trick by intercepting letters between Bothwell and Mary using spies and telling Mary she could communicate with the outside world by writing in code, wrapping it in a water proof cover and putting it in a beer barrel.

It is my opinion that Mary was not really a villain because she was tricked into signing the papers which agreed for her Catholic followers in England  to be involved in the plot to assassinate  Elizabeth.  It is my opinion that Mary was more of a victim than a conspirator when she was imprisoned, and her presence would always constitute a threat to her cousin Elizabeth’s rule. Elizabeth had already proved her worth as a Queen in England but Mary was still an unknown quantity.

 To fully understand why Mary behaved as she did I feel several factors should be taken into consideration. Mary was no stranger to death and deceit for when she was less than one week old her father passed away leaving her to be brought up in France by her maids and nurses - at the tender age of sixteen she married and lost her husband The Dauphin, Francis II - she found out her ex - husband, Lord Darnley had been involved in the murder of her secretary Rizzio and her  husband Bothwell was the leading suspect in Darnley’s murder.

 I think Mary deserved to lose her throne but definitely not her life. She deserved to lose her throne because she wasn’t a good Queen, she didn’t really care what the Scottish people thought, she married a murderer and she may have been a murderess! She didn’t deserve to lose her life because of this or that she was tricked into signing the paper saying she would go through with Elizabeth’s assassination. Other people may have a different opinion because of the fact she was a possible murderess due to the religious law concerning divorce in Catholic marriages and she intended that the assassination of her cousin Elizabeth would occur. Elizabeth’s actions in taking over a week to sign her cousin’s death warrant echoed the uncertainties surrounding Mary.