Kinship

How were Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I related?

First cousins once removed: both descended from Henry VII and Elizabeth of York — Elizabeth as a granddaughter, Mary as a great-granddaughter.

The two queens’ lines part at Henry VII. His daughter Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII’s elder sister, married James IV of Scotland in 1503; their son James V was Mary’s father. Henry VII’s son Henry VIII was Elizabeth’s father, by Anne Boleyn. Henry VIII was therefore Mary’s great-uncle, and Elizabeth — one generation nearer the common ancestor — was a first cousin of Mary’s father. Mary was born in December 1542 and became Queen of Scots when she was six days old, on the death of James V.

The relationship mattered because it made Mary a claimant. Many Catholics counted Elizabeth illegitimate, and in their eyes Henry VII’s rightful heir was Mary, by way of Margaret Tudor. When Elizabeth succeeded in 1558, Henry II of France had Mary and his son, the Dauphin Francis, styled king and queen of England, and England’s arms were joined to theirs in France. The claim never went away, and it remained a lasting source of friction between the two queens.

The kinship shaped the ending too. After her forced abdication in 1567, Mary escaped to England expecting her cousin’s help; Elizabeth, treating her as a threat rather than a guest, held her instead, moving her between castles and country houses for some eighteen years. Convicted in 1586 of a plot against Elizabeth’s life, she was executed at Fotheringhay Castle the following year. Elizabeth never married, and when she died in 1603 she was succeeded by Mary’s son, James VI of Scotland — her first cousin twice removed — so the throne Mary had claimed passed, in the end, to Margaret Tudor’s line.

Computed from every recorded line in The British Royal Line on Kinlight; written 29 September 2026.