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special and their subjects couldn't simply overthrow and murder them even if they wanted to.

Elizabeth's ability to keep around her rival proved less than noble. She let her languish in captivity for twenty years and then on some fairly trumped up charges, she finally agreed to kill her. The acceleration likely came after a plot of Norfolk, her political rival, to mary Mary was discovered. This would have consolidated her power and put her in squarely with the English people and her major enemies.

So things began to move quickly for Mary and her enemies. A letter was produced that she supposedly wrote to Norfolk's conspirators, with a post script that was added that seemed to not only agree to Elizabeth's deat but encourage it. At her trial, along with her frightened servants' testimonies, this letter was the damning piece of evidence.

But did Mary write it? One possible clue came from a letter that Elizabeth had written when she was in a very similar position. She wrote to her sister, "bloody" Mary I of England, when she was imprisoned in the tower. After the text, she put diagonal lines across the remaining space of the paper. At the age of seventeen, she knew that she must do this to prevent any post script being written by Mary's faction.

So this letter wasn't discovered until many years later, puting Elizabeth I squarely responsible for a letter that was very similar to the fatal piece of evidence used against Mary I. So not only was there planted evidence against Mary, Elizabeth looks to have been very much responsible for it.

So this sordid tale bespeaks the extent of the legacy of Mary I, Queen of Scots. Not only was she mother to James I and through him EVERY SINGLE monarch that has come after Elizabeth I, her death and the assault that it meant to the monarchy in England meant that gradually what it meant to be the King of Queen gradually erroded away. Not only was she herself killed, but as a result it was a much easier thing to do to strip a King of Queen of his or her throne and life from the date of Mary's execution onward..

Learn more about this author, Carol H. Morgan.
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