Martyr, Peter See PETER MARTYR(Pietro Martire Ver-
migli)
Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587) Queen of Scotland
(1542–67), Queen consort of France (1559–60)
The only child of James V of Scotland to survive him,
Mary was sent to be educated at the French court (1548)
and in 1558 married the future Francis II of France. From
1558 many people, including herself, regarded her as the
legitimate queen of England, on the grounds that ELIZA-
BETH Iwas a bastard. After Francis’s death, she returned to
Scotland (1561), a Catholic queen of an officially Protes-
tant (but in fact divided) country.
At first Mary successfully pursued an even-handed
course, but after her marriage (1565) to Henry Stuart,
Lord Darnley, she more openly favored the Catholics.
Darnley, however, earned her hatred by murdering (1566)
her secretary and favorite, David Rizzio. Darnley was as-
sassinated in 1567, probably by James Hepburn, Earl of
Bothwell, whom Mary afterwards married. Scottish opin-
ion, already discontented with her policies, was outraged,
both by the marriage and Mary’s widely suspected com-
plicity in Darnley’s death. A rebellion by Protestant nobles
forced her abdication (July 24, 1567), and she fled to Eng-
land (1568). Elizabeth I kept her confined in various cas-
tles, but she became the focus of several conspiracies. In
1586 the government acquired proof of her involvement
in the plot organized by Anthony Babington (1561–86) to
assassinate Elizabeth and rouse the English Catholics in
support of a Spanish invasion force that would place her
on the English throne. Mary was put on trial, found guilty,
and, with Elizabeth’s reluctant acquiescence, executed at
Fotheringay castle.
Further reading: Marcus Merriman, The Rough Woo-
ings: Mary Queen of Scots 1542–1551 (East Linton, U.K.:
Tuckwell, 2000); Susan Watkins and Mark Fiennes, Mary,
Queen of Scots (London: Thames & Hudson, 2001).
Mary I (1516–1558) Queen of England and Ireland
(1553–58)
The daughter of HENRY VIIIand his first wife, Catherine of
Aragon, Mary was declared illegitimate (1533) after the
end of her parents’ marriage. She remained loyal to her
mother and to her faith, but was compelled to acknowl-
edge her illegitimacy and to renounce Catholicism. In
1544 the crown was entailed upon her after any lawful
child of Henry. Despite attempts to place Lady Jane GREY
on the throne, Mary succeeded her half-brother, EDWARD
VI, in 1553. News of her marriage to PHILIP IIof Spain
caused revolts among her subjects, but Mary was deter-
mined to return England to the Catholic Church, and in
1555 papal authority was restored in England. The ensu-
ing martyrdom of around 300 Protestants (1555–58)
earned Mary the nickname “Bloody Mary.” In 1557 Eng-
land’s alliance with Spain in the war against France cost
her Calais, the last English stronghold on the Continent.
Mary died without a child to continue the Catholic suc-
cession and the throne passed to her Protestant half-sister
ELIZABETH I.Mary of Hungary (1505–1558) Queen consort of
Hungary (1522–26)
The younger sister of Emperor CHARLES V, she was known
as Mary of Austria before her marriage to King Louis II of
Hungary and Bohemia in 1522. When the childless Louis
was killed at the battle of MOHÁCS(1526) his realms
passed to the Hapsburgs. It was Mary who persuaded an
assembly of Hungarian nobles at Pressburg to elect her
brother Ferdinand (later Emperor FERDINAND I) as their
king, and she later mediated between Ferdinand and
Charles in their quarrel over the succession to the empire.
Mary was appointed regent of the Netherlands in 1531, a
post that she held until 1556, the year of Charles’s abdica-
tion. She retired with him to Spain, settling at the castle of
Cigales, near Valladolid, where she died.
Despite the growth of Protestantism in the Nether-
lands during her regency, Mary’s sway was generally mod-
erate and the enforcement of edicts against heretics was
carried out in a manner that did not provoke widespread
discontent. She was a keen patron of the arts, employing
Jacques DUBROEUCQas architect at her castles of Binche
and Mariemont and furnishing them with pictures by the
great Flemish masters and by TITIANwhich she took with
her when she retired to Spain.Masaccio, Tommaso (Tommaso di Giovanni di Simone
Guidi) (1401–1428) Italian painter
Bynamed Masaccio (“slovenly Tom”) because of his slip-
shod appearance, he was born at Castel San Giovanni di
Altura and moved to Florence in 1417, where he joined
the Arte dei Medici e Speziali in 1422. Only a handful of
paintings are definitely attributed to him, the earliest of
which was the polyptych painted for the church of Sta.
Maria del Carmine in Pisa (1426), which is now largely
destroyed. The central panel, Madonna and Child En-
throned, survives in the National Gallery, London, and
indicates the debt Masaccio owed to GIOTTO, to BRU-
NELLESCHI’s approach to linear perspective, and to DO-
NATELLO’s ideas about the construction of the human
figure. Similar influences are evident in his fresco of the
Trinity (1425–27), painted for Sta. Maria Novella in Flo-
rence, and again in his masterpiece, the frescoes for the
Brancacci chapel of Sta. Maria del Carmine in Florence.
Although some of these latter frescoes have been lost,
those that remain—painted in association with Filippino
LIPPIand MASOLINO—illustrate Masaccio’s masterly con-
trol of chiaroscuro and revolutionary concentration upon
the humanistic spirit of his subjects. Such scenes as The
Expulsion of Adam and Eve, Tribute Money, and St. Peter
Giving Alms in this chapel became models for subsequent33004 4 MMaarrttyyrr,, PPeetteerr