Mary, Queen of Scots

Born on December 8, 1542, Mary Stuart became queen at only 6 days old. She was the granddaughter of  Margaret Tudor, great-granddaughter to Henry 7, and niece to Henry 8. At the end of July, 1848, Mary sailed to France to be raised in the French court and be married to the Dauphin, Francis in order to stalemate the English (Henry was pressing for her to wed his son Edward). They married on April 24, 1558, and seemed to genuinely like each other, but unfortunately, the marriage was a short one with the young king dying on December 5, 1559 of an ear infection at only 16. On August 19, 1561, she  arrived back in Scotland to rule in her own right. On July 29, 1565, she married her cousin Henry, Lord Darnley, and gave birth to their son James on June 19, 1566. Unfortunately, the marriage was a turbulent one, and Mary came under suspicion when Darnley was found dead outside his home after an explosion on February 10, 1567 (it's believed he was killed after the explosion). To make matters worse, on May 15, 1567, she wed James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who was a prime suspect in Darnley's death (it's been debated ever since why: was she a willing participant, or was she forced to?), ending whatever remained of her support, and on July 24, 1567, she was forced to abdicate the throne in favor of her son. On May 16, 1568, she managed to hire a boat and fled to England, hoping her cousin Queen Elizabeth would help restore her to her throne. Alas, it was not to be: she lived under house arrest until February 8, 1587, when she was executed for her supposed involvement in what was called the Babbington plot to execute Elizabeth and put Mary on the throne. Her son James eventually becomes Elizabeth's successor and becomes James 1 of England when Elizabeth dies on March 24, 1603, uniting England and Scotland: to this day, every British monarch is descended from Mary. Though a small list, here's some books I've found on her:

She was a child crowned a queen....
A sinner hailed as a saint....
A lover denounced as a whore...
A woman murdered for her dreams...
Margaret George's Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles brings to life the fascinating story of Mary, who became the Queen of Scots when she was only six days old. Raised in the glittering French court, returning to Scotland to rule as a Catholic monarch over a newly Protestant country, and executed like a criminal in Queen Elizabeth's England, Queen Mary lived a life like no other, and Margaret George weaves the facts into a stunning work of historical fiction.

Queen of Scotland at six days old.
Queen of France at seventeen years old.
A widow at eighteen.
The young and trusting Mary, Queen of Scots, is sailing home to her kingdom after years in exile. The danger from her cousin, the English Queen, has not lessened since then. Religious divides threaten to tear the nation apart and, across the border, Elizabeth keenly watches this new threat to her throne.
Amid the furious turmoil and uncertainty in her Scottish kingdom, Mary finds she has one loyal servant - James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, a 'glorious, rash and hazardous young man' known to all as the Galliard. In Bothwell's courage and love for her, Mary finds serenity, and though fate works against them, no force can conquer their spirit.
This stunning novel from the acclaimed author of Young Bess breathes new life into the little-known story of the great love of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Mary Stuart became Queen of Scotland at the tender age of six days old. Her French-born mother, the Queen Regent, knew immediately that the infant queen would be a vulnerable pawn in the power struggle between Scotland’s clans and nobles. So Mary was sent away from the land of her birth and raised in the sophisticated and glittering court of France. Unusually tall and slim, a writer of music and poetry, Mary was celebrated throughout Europe for her beauty and intellect. Married in her teens to the Dauphin François, she would become not only Queen of Scotland but Queen of France as well. But Mary’s happiness was short-lived. Her husband, always sickly, died after only two years on the throne, and there was no place for Mary in the court of the new king. At the age of twenty, she returned to Scotland, a place she barely knew.
Once home, the Queen of Scots discovered she was a stranger in her own country. She spoke only French and was a devout Catholic in a land of stern Presbyterians. Her nation was controlled by a quarrelsome group of lords, including her illegitimate half brother, the Earl of Moray, and by John Knox, a fire-and-brimstone Calvinist preacher, who denounced the young queen as a Papist and a whore. Mary eventually remarried, hoping to find a loving ally in the Scottish Lord Darnley. But Darnley proved violent and untrustworthy. When he died mysteriously, suspicion fell on Mary. In haste, she married Lord Bothwell, the prime suspect in her husband’s murder, a move that outraged all of Scotland. When her nobles rose against her, the disgraced Queen of Scots fled to England, hoping to be taken in by her cousin Elizabeth I. But Mary’s flight from Scotland led not to safety, but to Fotheringhay Castle.

“Burn the murderess!”

So begins The Captive Queen of Scots, the epic tale of the Scottish Queen Mary Stuart, cousin to Queen Elizabeth of England. After her husband, Lord Darnley, is murdered, suspicion falls on Mary and her lover, the Earl of Bothwell. A Catholic in a land of stern Protestants, Mary finds herself in the middle of a revolt, as her bloodthirsty subjects call for her arrest and execution. In disgrace, she flees her Scottish persecutors for England, where she appeals to Queen Elizabeth for mercy, but to no avail. Throughout Mary’s long years as the Queen’s prisoner, she conceives many bold plans for revenge and escaping to freedom—but the gallows of Fotheringhay Castle loom...

Set against royal pageantry, religious strife, and bloody uprising—and filled with conspiracies, passion, heartbreak, and fascinating historical detail—The Captive Queen of Scots is an unforgettable tale of the intense rivalry between two powerful women of noble blood.

Royal Blood podcast, episode 56

Some nonfiction I recommend:

She was the quintessential queen: statuesque, regal, dazzlingly beautiful. Her royal birth gave her claim to the thrones of two nations; her marriage to the young French dauphin promised to place a third glorious crown on her noble head.
Instead, Mary Stuart became the victim of her own impulsive heart, scandalizing her world with a foolish passion that would lead to abduction, rape and even murder. Betrayed by those she most trusted, she would be lured into a deadly game of power, only to lose to her envious and unforgiving cousin, Elizabeth I. Here is her story, a queen who lost a throne for love, a monarch pampered and adored even as she was led to her beheading, the unforgettable woman who became a legend for all time.

Handsome, accomplished, and charming, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, staked his claim to the English throne by marrying Mary Stuart, who herself claimed to be the Queen of England. It was not long before Mary discovered that her new husband was interested only in securing sovereign power for himself. Then, on February 10, 1567, an explosion at his lodgings left Darnley dead; the intrigue thickened after it was discovered that he had apparently been suffocated before the blast. After an exhaustive reevaluation of the source material, Alison Weir has come up with a solution to this enduring mystery. Employing her gift for vivid characterization and gripping storytelling, Weir has written one of her most engaging excursions yet into Britain’s bloodstained, power-obsessed past.