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Mary Stuart Quotes

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Mary Stuart Quotes

“Mary Stuart and Elizabeth both aimed at toleration in an intolerant age, in the same ways that Catherine de’ Medici, the mother-in-law of one and the almost mother-in-law of another English queen, labored her whole life to heal the rift between Catholic and Protestant in France. All three of these queens worked as diligently and as astutely as they might to restrain the fratricidal wars of Christian against Christian. What they had to hold up against that violent seismic shift in human sensibility was the orderly traditions of monarchy. If they did not ultimately succeed, they slowed and tempered the disorder and violence.”

“Because [Michel de Castelnau] had been charged with making peace between [Mary Stuart] and her barons, he ignored Mary’s adamant insistence on how anti-monarchal she considered the rebel lords to be; he decided that hers was a profoundly immature political analysis. Yet Elizabeth’s own moral outrage at these same rebels’ affronts to monarchal principles, when, two years later, they refused to obey her commands to release their anointed queen from prison, suggests that Mary was simply being clear-sighted rather than naïve and saw earlier what Elizabeth learned only later. Mary was neither stupid nor ill-educated. She knew what she was talking about.”

“So Elizabeth behaved cautiously as usual and put Mary [Queen of Scots] in prison - nice prison, but she wasn't allowed out. And that's where she stayed for nineteen years. . . . She immediately became the focus of plots and rebellions. In 1569, there was a major Catholic rising in the north which aimed to free Mary, marry her to the Duke of Norfolk and put her on the throne. When it was defeated, Elizabeth had 600 rebels executed (so it wasn't just her sister who could be bloody).”

“Tarihin iradesi Elizabeth'in kişiliğinde ifade bulmuştu, çünkü tarihin iradesi her zaman kabuklarını geride bırakarak ileriye doğru çabalar. Bir ulusun bütün enerjisi Elizabeth'in kişiliğiyle birleşmişti, çünkü kraliçenin arkasındaki ulus tüm dünyanın fatihi olmayı arzuluyordu. Mary Stuart'la birlikte geçmiş, şövalyelere yakışır muhteşemlikte, kahramanlıkla ölmüştü. Böylece iki kadın da kendi seçtikleri alanlarda zafer kazanmış oldular, gerçekçi Elizabeth, tarih sayfalarını; romantik Mary ise, şiir ve efsaneleri fethetti.”