. of England, daughter of Henry VIII. by Catharine of Spain, queen and tyrant of England, succeeded her half-brother Edward VI. in 1553. If she had been educated in Spain, and an inquisitor had been her preceptor, she could not have imbibed more strongly the bloody principles of Roman persecution; and to the eternal disgrace of the English prelacy, though the reformation had taken root in both universities, she found English bishops ready to carry her cruel designs to subvert it, into effectual execution. Upon her accession to the throne, she declared, in her speech to the council, that she would not persecute her Protestant subjects; but in the following month, she prohibited preaching without a special licence; before the expiration of three months, the Protestant bishops were excluded the house of lords, and all the statutes of Edward VI. respecting the Protestant religion were repealed; and before she had enjoyed the crown a year, archbishop Cranmer, who had saved her life when her father had resolved to take off her head, and the bishops Ridley and Latimer, were condemned for heresy at Oxford, and afterwards burnt. In 1556, the persecution became general; and Protestants of all ranks and ages, and of both sexes, fell victims to papal fury. It is observable, likewise, that the same perfidious violation of promises and treaties prevailed in the queen's council, with respect to public affairs.

By the treaty of marriage concluded between the queen and Philip prince of Spain, son of the famous emperor Charles le Quint, in 1554, it was expressly stipulated, that England should not be engaged in any wars with France on account of Spain; yet in 1557, Philip, who had brought immense sums of money into England, procured an offensive and defensive alliance against France, from the English administration, and 8000 of the queen's choicest troops were sent over to the assistance of the Spaniards in the Low Countries; the loss of Calais to the French was the first fruit of this war; and some assert, that upon this single occasion the queen showed a strong attachment to her native country, lamenting this stroke so deeply, that it occasioned her death; but it is better authenticated, that she was carried off by an epidemic fever, which raged so violently that it did not leave a sufficient number of men in health to get in the harvest. She died in 1558, in the 43rd year of her age, and fifth of her reign.

Mary of Medici, wife of Henry IV. king of France, was declared sole regent of the kingdom in 1610, during the consternation which the assassination of that beloved king had occasioned. By her ambitious intrigues, the nation lost all its influence abroad, and was torn to pieces at home by contending factions. After several vicissitudes of fortune, she was abandoned by her son Lewis XIII., whose reign had been constantly disturbed by the civil commotions she had occasioned; and died in indigence at Brussels, in 1642, aged 68. She built the superb palace of Luxembourg at Paris, and embellished that city with aqueducts and other ornaments.

Mary, queen of Scotland, daughter of James V., was born in December 1542. Her father dying a few days after her birth, the scarce existed before she was hailed queen of Scotland. Violent were the disputes among the nobility, who should obtain the guardianship of her infant majesty, and government of the kingdom. It was however at length adjudged to the earl of Arran, as the heir-apparent and first peer of the realm. Whilst yet in her infancy, Henry VIII. of England demanded her in marriage for his son Edward; but her guardian refused his consent, and the famous battle of Musselburgh was the consequence. The Scots being defeated, she was conveyed by the queen-mother to the isle of Inchmahome; where, we are told, she was instructed in the Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian languages.

At six years old she was sent to France; where, after continuing a few days with the king and queen, she was removed to a monastery, and was there educated with the daughters of the French nobility. In this seminary she acquired a taste for poetry, and also became a notable proficient in music, dancing, and the art of sitting gracefully on horseback; but needlework was her favourite amusement, in which she particularly excelled (A). On the 20th of April, 1558, she was married to the young dauphin; who dying in December 1560, she returned to her native country. She had not been long in Scotland, before she received proposals of marriage from Charles, archduke of Austria. Queen Elizabeth of England disapproved the match; and recommended Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, son to the earl of Lennox. To this nobleman she gave her hand; and by him she had one son, James I. of England. They had not been many months married before Darnley was barbarously murdered; and, in three months after, she espoused the earl of Bothwell, a man of no estimation, and who is generally supposed to have been the murderer of her late husband. From that fatal moment her life was a continued series of misfortunes: Scotland became a scene of confusion; her subjects rebelled; her husband fled to Denmark; and herself was made a prisoner, and treated with the utmost indignity. She found means to escape from the persecution of her subjects, and fled to England for safety; but she was too beautiful to find a friend in Elizabeth; who, with constant professions of esteem, after keeping her in confinement during 18 long years, at last brought her head to the block.

The fair heroine received her sentence of death with great composure; wrote her will the day before her execution; for which, on the succeeding morn, she prepared with religious solemnity, and perfect resignation. She was executed on the 8th of February 1587, in the 46th year of her age, in the castle of Fotheringhay, where she had been long confined, and on the first of August was interred in the cathedral church at Peterborough, with great pomp. Twenty-five years after, her remains were, by order of her son king James I., removed to Henry VII.'s chapel in Westminster abbey, and a magnificent monument erected to her memory. See (History of) SCOTLAND.

She wrote, 1. Poems on various occasions, in the Latin, French, and Scotch languages. One of her poems is printed among those of A. Blackwood; another in Brantome's Danse illustre, written on the death of her first husband Francis. 2. Consolation of her long imprisonment, and royal advice to her son.

(A) An impalement of the arms of France and Scotland, embroidered under an imperial crown, on the valance of the canopy in the presence-chamber at Whitehall, is said to be chiefly her performance. Sandif. Gen. Hist. p. 539.

Embroidery probably made a considerable part of her employment during her tedious imprisonment, the last almost 20 years of her life; for one of her historians informs us, that about the year 1579, she sent, with other presents, to her son, a magnificent state-bed, "one of the most curious pieces of workmanship that that or any age has produced, embroidered with gold and silk, designed and finished all by her own hand." The principal figures, 29 in number, were emblematical, with Latin mottoes, alluding to her unhappy situation, and the separate arms of England, Scotland, and France. See Mackenzie's Lives, vol. iii. p. 343. A copy of verses, in French, sent with a diamond-ring to queen Elizabeth. There is a translation of these verses among the Latin poems of Sir Thomas Chaloner. 4. Genuine Letters of Mary queen of Scots, to James earl of Bothwell; translated from the French, by E. Simmonds, 1726. There are, besides, many other of her epistles to queen Elizabeth, secretary Cecil, Mildmaye, &c. which are preserved in the Cotton, Ashmolean, and other libraries.

Mary II, queen of England, eldest daughter of James II, by his first wife, was born at St James's in 1662. She was bred up a Protestant, and married to the illustrious William Henry of Nassau, then prince of Orange, afterward king of England, in the 16th year of her age. She died in Holland with her husband till February 12, 1689, when she came over, and was solemnly proclaimed queen of England, &c. She was an equal sharer with her royal husband in all the rights belonging to the crown; but the administration and execution thereof was lodged solely in the king. She was a princess endowed with the highest perfections both of body and mind; she loved history, as being proper to give her useful instructions; and was also a good judge as well as a lover of poetry. She studied more than could be imagined, and would have read more than she did, if the frequent returns of ill-humours in her eyes had not forced her to spare them. She gave her minutes of leisure to architecture and gardening; and since it employed many hands, she said, she hoped it would be forgiven her. She was the most gracious of sovereigns to her subjects, and the most obliging of wives to her husband, as well as the most excellent of mistresses to her servants: she ordered good books to be laid in the places of attendance, that persons might not be idle while they were in their turns of service. She was exceeding zealous for a reformation of manners; charitable in the highest degree, without the least ostentation. This excellent queen died on the 28th of December 1695, at Kensington, of the small-pox, in the 33rd year of her age. In her the arts lost a protector, the unfortunate a mother, and the world a pattern of every virtue. As to her person, she was tall, of a majestic graceful mien, her countenance serene, her complexion ruddy, and her features beautiful.

Mary Magdalen's Day, a festival of the Romish church, observed on the 22nd of July.