One queen executed. One died after childbirth. And the third married her Prince Charming.

This week we look at quite a few queens and even a sister of a queen. But we start out with the most tragic story of a well-known Scottish queen.

The Tudors Dynasty podcast.

The day had arrived.

This day, she knew, would be her last. The sound of construction in the castle indicated that a

scaffold was being built for her execution. Queen Elizabeth had signed her cousin's

death warrant and today the former reigning Queen of Scots would die.

After years locked away from the world, Mary's end was her new beginning.

At the base of it, her religion was her downfall.

Baptized in the Catholic Church, Mary was forced to flee Scotland as a young girl and was

betrothed to the future king of France. They married in 1558, but by 1560, both Mary's husband and

mother were dead. Mary returned to Scotland to reclaim her throne, now out of her minority,

and with her regent mother deceased. Her return to her native country was not as warm of a

welcome as she had hoped, and from that point on her life, Scotland was not the fairy tale she had imagined.

A belief that she succeeded at her Catholic cousin Mary I was at the base of her troubles.

The Scottish Queen presented that she believed she was the rightful ruler of England since she was Catholic,

and since Elizabeth was both illegitimate and not a Catholic.

But the basis of Mary's problem stems from the men in her life.

She married her cousin, Henry Lord Darnley.

He turned out to be a disastrous drunk

and moaned up dead only eight months after the birth of their son,

future James the 6th of Scotland and First of England.

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