BRITAIN
The timeline of Mary, Queen of Scots
1542: Mary Stuart is born at Linlithgow Palace in Scotland; her father, James V, dies six days later.
1543: A treaty is drawn up betrothing the Scottish princess to the heir to the English throne, Henry VIII's short-lived son, the future Edward VI, but the Scottish Parliament soon repudiates the agreement, preferring a
1544: The English wooing of Mary (and through her, Scotland) turns rough as Henry VIII sends troops across the border.
1548: The Scots Parliament agrees to a marriage between Mary and the French dauphin, later Francis II; the little princess is taken to France for her own safety.
1558: Mary and Francis wed at Notre-Dame in Paris.
1559: Henry II dies in a jousting contest and Francis succeeds him, making 17-year-old Mary queen of France as well as Scotland.
1560: Francis II dies of an ear infection. Negotiations over a remarriage for the young widow are inconclusive.
1561: Mary returns to Scotland after an absence of 13 years and meets a bitter adversary, Calvinist minister
1565: Mary takes a second husband, her cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley; the choice, which bolsters her claim to the English throne, infuriates Queen Elizabeth I.
1566: David Rizzio, the queen's private secretary, is killed in her presence by conspirators, including a jealous Darnley; Mary gives birth to a son, the future James VI of Scotland, later James I of England, but her relationship with Darnley fails and in the fall she nearly dies of a fever.
1567: Scottish lords, including Mary's advisor James Hepburn, the 4th Earl of Bothwell, kill Darnley at Kirk o' Field house in Edinburgh. Mary stuns the court by marrying Bothwell three months after Darnley's death, thereby prompting her enemies to take up arms against her. She is captured by rebel nobles at the Battle of Carberry Hill, then incarcerated at Lochleven Castle, where she miscarries a child thought to have been Bothwell's.
1568: Mary escapes, fights one last losing battle with rebels at Langside near Glasgow and then escapes to England, where she is imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth for the next 21 years.
1586: Mary is found guilty of treason against the English crown.
1587: Mary is beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire, England.
1603: Elizabeth dies and is succeeded by Mary's son, James, uniting the realms of England and Scotland.
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