Playing fast and loose with facts
Mary Queen of Scots takes liberties with history of doomed royal Three-time Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan portrays Mary Stuart.
Spoiler alert: The following discusses the plot of the film Mary Queen of Scots.
Few real-life clashes are more tailor-made for movie melodrama than the battle royal between two 16th-century queens, Elizabeth I of England and her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, who re-enact their bloody, sorry fates in Mary Queen of Scots.
As royal history fans know, it will not end well for Mary Stuart: she loses her head and Elizabeth Tudor signed the death warrant. This latest telling of the familiar story (opening Friday) is thoroughly compelling and as pro-Mary as previous films. Directed by Josie Rourke, it stars three-time Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan (as Mary) and Oscar nominee Margot Robbie (Elizabeth).
Will the movie get the seal of approval from historians? Probably not, but keep in mind it’s tough to pack a lot of history in two hours.
“History is written by the winners and Mary was a loser, but she’s a winner insofar as her son ended up ruling,” says John Guy, author of Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart, on which the film is based.
Mary’s execution at age 44 sent her to instant immortality, never mind the arrogance that helped put her on the block that day in 1567. By contrast, as described by historian Kate Williams in The Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots: Elizabeth I and Her Greatest Rival, the news of Mary’s death sent Elizabeth to her bed in shock, fury and tears, shouting that she never meant the death warrant to be carried out.
Elizabeth had refused to name her heir almost to the very end. When she died at age 69 in1603, she was succeeded by the obvious closest relative, Mary’s son, King James VI of Scotland, the distant ancestor of all the monarchs who came after, including Queen Elizabeth II.
So who achieved true immortality? Hapless, heedless, headless Mary? Or Elizabeth I, widely considered one of the greatest monarchs in history? Maybe both. Mary’s accent is questionable: In the movie, it’s Scottish (Ronan is Irish). In fact, Mary probably spoke with a French accent. Mary became queen of Scotland shortly after her birth when her father, King James V, died. Her French mother shipped her to France when she was 5, where she later married the French heir. Then her husband died and she returned to Scotland at age 18.
Nobility wasn’t this diverse: Elizabeth’s ambassador to Scotland is played by Adrian Lester (TV’s Hustle) and Bess of Hardwick, a famous English noblewoman of the era, is played by Anglo-Chinese actress Gemma Chan ( Crazy Rich Asians). But it’s safe to say there were few Africans or Asians in 16th-century England, let alone in the nobility.
Signing the death warrant: It did not take place with Elizabeth surrounded by a dozen male advisers. In fact, she signed it casually among other papers and later claimed she thought the execution would not be carried out. The two queens never met: The climactic scene has Elizabeth and Mary furtively meeting in a laundry shed, the two of them veiled from each other by sheer cloth hanging to dry. Documents show the two queens came very close to striking a deal for their peaceful coexistence and the narrative momentum demands the queens share a screen. “The point of any sort of drama is to capture the true essence of characters and sometimes that means departing from historical truth,” screenwriter Beau Willimon says.
Elizabeth died at age 69 in 1603, she was succeeded by Mary’s son, King James VI of Scotland.