A Crown In the Cradle

Mary Stuart became Queen of Scotland when she was just six days old, kicking off a life entirely devoid of normalcy. Shipped off to France as a child to marry the Dauphin, she found herself briefly the Queen of France until her teenage husband tragically and conveniently dropped dead from an ear infection. Returning to Scotland as a tall, glamorous, 18-year-old widow, Mary stepped right into a snake pit of Scottish nobles who spent their free time plotting against each other.

Husbands, Explosions, and Treason

Mary’s romantic life is where her story veers from tragedy into a bizarre true-crime thriller. She married her first cousin, Lord Darnley, an objectively terrible person who quickly alienated everyone.

The resolution to her marital woes was predictably chaotic:

• Darnley’s house mysteriously exploded in the middle of the night.
• His body was found in the garden, untouched by the blast but clearly strangled.
• Mary then promptly married the Earl of Bothwell, the very man widely accused of organizing the explosion.

Unsurprisingly, this highly suspicious marriage went over poorly. Mary was forced to abdicate and fled to England to seek help from her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, who promptly locked her up for the next 19 years.

The Gruesome Finale

After nearly two decades of alleged plotting to assassinate Elizabeth, Mary was finally sentenced to death. Her execution is legendary for being notoriously botched. The executioner missed his first swing with the axe, burying it into the back of her head. It took three agonizing blows to finally sever her neck.

When the executioner dramatically lifted the severed head by its auburn hair to shout "God save the Queen!", the hair turned out to be a wig. Mary's real head—shaved and completely gray—plumped out and rolled across the floor. To add a final bizarre twist to the macabre scene, Mary's pet Skye terrier had been secretly hiding beneath her petticoats the entire time, emerging only to lie loyally by her lifeless body.