Mary, meanwhile, opted for marriage and a baby. Elizabeth, whose father Henry VIII had her mother Anne Boleyn executed, understandably chose to pass on these options. Their monarchies would, in theory, only be secured if they married and produced heirs or named successors. When the young monarch asserted her claim on the British throne-then occupied by her cousin, Elizabeth I-Mary and Elizabeth, both in childbearing years, were in similarly tricky predicaments. She was not “a femme fatale and manipulative siren who ruled from passion,” but a forward-thinking female ruler entrapped by the impossible circumstances of the 16th-century patriarchy. During exhaustive research for his 2004 biography, also titled Mary Queen of Scots, Guy realized how false her centuries-old reputation was. Mary Queen of Scots, the spirited 16th-century monarch played by Saoirse Ronan in the new biopic, Mary Queen of Scots, has been as much “a victim of the pen as the executioner’s ax,” according to British historian Dr.
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