A Comparison Of Queen Mary I And Queen Elizabeth I

In Europe in the mid 1500’s Queen Mary I of Scotland and Queen Elizabeth I of England were both leaders of their countries. Mary and Elizabeth were both of Tudor blood meaning that although Elizabeth was already Queen, if anything were to happen to her, Mary, by rights, would become the Queen of England. This worried Elizabeth as she believed Mary may conspire to have her assassinated. To begin with, Mary had no plans of harming or conspiring to harm Queen Elizabeth I but as the conflict escalated, evidence arose showing that Mary eventually did conspire against Elizabeth before her death in 1587.
Mary was born in 1542 and only days after her birth her father, King James V died leaving Mary, the only heir to the Scottish throne as Queen when she was less than one-year-old. Mary’s mother, Mary of Guise was put in the position of Queen Regent. When Mary was
Mary maintained that, as a foreign anointed queen, she had never been an English subject and thus could not be convicted of treason because of Mary’s refusal to confess and arguing her case of ‘not being convicted of treason’ her demise was inevitable. She was found guilty of “compassed and imagined hurt, death and destruction of a royal person.”
Queen Elizabeth signed Mary’s death warrant on the 1st of February 1587, but without Elizabeth’s knowledge her councillors had Mary executed just a week later on the 8th of February. When Elizabeth gained knowledge of the execution she was furious of the actions that had taken place, the man she had left in charge of the death warrant, William Davidson, was sent to the tower as punishment. Her councillors begged her for forgiveness, claiming that they had wanted to spare her the pain of having to order Mary to be executed but Elizabeth stated that her councillors had one against what she