Dig to find 'Mary Queen of Scots' castle

[Still Waters]

Excavation work has started in a bid to find out what is left of a castle where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned.

A series of trial trenches will be dug in previously uninvestigated areas where Sheffield Castle once stood.

The dig, said to be the first comprehensive survey of the Castlegate site, is part of a £786,000 council scheme to revamp the area.

Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned at Sheffield Castle and Manor Lodge for 14 years in the 1500s under the care of the Earl of Shrewsbury.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-45169410

[Kittens Are Jerks]

It's interesting to see all the development around what was once the castle. Hope they come up with something substantial.

I found Mary's story quite tragic when I was younger, and hated  Elizabeth I for the longest time. Still do.

[Piney]

36 minutes ago, Kittens Are Jerks said:

I found Mary's story quite tragic when I was younger, and hated  Elizabeth I for the longest time. Still do.

I feel that Mary was set up but I still like Queen Bess. 

[Black Monk]

On 13/08/2018 at 5:03 PM, Kittens Are Jerks said:

It's interesting to see all the development around what was once the castle. Hope they come up with something substantial.

I found Mary's story quite tragic when I was younger, and hated  Elizabeth I for the longest time. Still do.

Mary was the wrongdoer, not Elizabeth.

[Black Monk]

On 13/08/2018 at 5:41 PM, Piney said:

I feel that Mary was set up but I still like Queen Bess. 

It was actually Mary's ineptitude and extreme political naivete which caused her downfall.

[Kittens Are Jerks]

1 hour ago, Black Monk said:

Mary was the wrongdoer, not Elizabeth.

Depends on one's perspective, but treachery and scandal were everywhere and no one was entirely virtuous.

[Black Monk]

41 minutes ago, Kittens Are Jerks said:

Depends on one's perspective, but treachery and scandal were everywhere and no one was entirely virtuous.

How can it depend on one's perspective? Mary was trying to kick Elizabeth off her throne. Mary was the wrongdoer and got what she deserved.

[Kittens Are Jerks]

48 minutes ago, Black Monk said:

How can it depend on one's perspective? Mary was trying to kick Elizabeth off her throne. Mary was the wrongdoer and got what she deserved.

As a Stuart and direct descendant of the Tudors, Mary had a very strong claim to the English throne.

I would hardly call her a wrongdoer.

[Black Monk]

1 minute ago, Kittens Are Jerks said:

As a Stuart and direct descendant of the Tudors, Mary had a very strong claim to the English throne.

I would hardly call her a wrongdoer.

Trying to illegally usurp someone's throne and have them assassinated isn't wrongdoing?

[Kittens Are Jerks]

5 minutes ago, Black Monk said:

Trying to illegally usurp someone's throne and have them assassinated isn't wrongdoing?

No more than locking someone up for nearly 20 years because you're threatened by their legitimate claim to the throne.

If it were me, I would have planned Elizabeth's assassination long before Mary did.

 

[Black Monk]

27 minutes ago, Kittens Are Jerks said:

No more than locking someone up for nearly 20 years because you're threatened by their legitimate claim to the throne.

1) It was, legally, Elizabeth's throne.

2) Locking someone up because they pose a threat to you, your life and your legally-held throne isn't wrongdoing.

3) Why on Earth would the Protestant English have wanted Mary as their queen when:

A) She was Catholic;

B ) She had strong links - including in blood - to England's enemy France;

C) She had proven to be a useless ruler of Scotland, so much so that the Scots themselves forced her to abdicate?

 

Edited August 18, 2018 by Black Monk

[Kittens Are Jerks]

8 hours ago, Black Monk said:

1) It was, legally, Elizabeth's throne.

2) Locking someone up because they pose a threat to you, your life and your legally-held throne isn't wrongdoing.

3) Why on Earth would the Protestant English have wanted Mary as their queen when:

A) She was Catholic;

B ) She had strong links - including in blood - to England's enemy France;

C) She had proven to be a useless ruler of Scotland, so much so that the Scots themselves forced her to abdicate?

Taking someone's liberty away because they pose a threat is not cool.

Mary was not a practising Catholic. Had she been clever enough to convert, it's highly probable that Protestant nobles would have recognised her place in the English succession and Elizabeth would have been the one who was kicked to the curb.

[Black Monk]

11 hours ago, Kittens Are Jerks said:

Taking someone's liberty away because they pose a threat is not cool.

So you think Elizabeth should have kept Mary free to roam England and plot against Elizabeth's throne and her life? Don't be silly.

Quote

Mary was not a practising Catholic.

Yes, she was. She was a devout Catholic, so much so that many of her Scottish Protestant subjects regarded her with suspicion.

Quote

Had she been clever enough to convert, it's highly probable that Protestant nobles would have recognised her place in the English succession and Elizabeth would have been the one who was kicked to the curb.

Well, she wasn't clever enough to convert. Also, why would English protestants kick Elizabeth off the throne and replace her with Mary? Elizabeth was the legal and rightful queen of England. She wasn't on the throne illegally and wrongfully. She was the rightful Queen of England - not Mary.

[Kittens Are Jerks]

7 hours ago, Black Monk said:

So you think Elizabeth should have kept Mary free to roam England and plot against Elizabeth's throne and her life? Don't be silly.

Don't be rude.

7 hours ago, Black Monk said:

Yes, she was. She was a devout Catholic, so much so that many of her Scottish Protestant subjects regarded her with suspicion.

My sentence was incomplete. She was not a practising Catholic in public. A decision she made during her attempts to bring both factions together.

7 hours ago, Black Monk said:

Well, she wasn't clever enough to convert. Also, why would English protestants kick Elizabeth off the throne and replace her with Mary? Elizabeth was the legal and rightful queen of England. She wasn't on the throne illegally and wrongfully. She was the rightful Queen of England - not Mary.

Not questioning Elizabeth's claim to the throne, but Mary also had a strong claim to it. She was the great-granddaughter of Henry VII. However, in setting out the line of succession, Henry VIII ignored the Stuart claim to the English throne (a claim they had by the marriage of his sister, Margaret, to King James IV of Scotland).

[Black Monk]

52 minutes ago, Kittens Are Jerks said:

Not questioning Elizabeth's claim to the throne, but Mary also had a strong claim to it. She was the great-granddaughter of Henry VII. However, in setting out the line of succession, Henry VIII ignored the Stuart claim to the English throne (a claim they had by the marriage of his sister, Margaret, to King James IV of Scotland).

She had no right at all to Elizabeth's throne. The throne was lawfully Elizabeth's and Mary was in the wrong to try and usurp it. And, let's face it, you can hardly blame Henry for making it law that, after his death, his son Edward would then be king, followed by his daughter Mary as queen, and then followed by his daughter Elizabeth as queen if they each died without children (as would be the case). Why would he have favoured a foreign, more distant relative (his great-niece Mary, Queen of Scots) over his own offspring?

Mary was forced to abdicate the Scottish throne by the Scottish lords. She then went to England. Why would Elizabeth reinforce a disgraced former queen who tried to claim the English throne as hers and who had denounced Elizabeth as a b*stard? Why would the Protestant English queen strengthen the position of a Catholic woman whose religious leanings gave a focus for angry Catholics in England? Why would Elizabeth help a woman who had ties with England's great enemy, France? Taking all that into account, you can hardly blame Elizabeth for imprisoning her.

It wasn't Elizabeth who was in the wrong. It was Mary. Mary's own stupidity and political naivety proved her fatal downfall.

Edited August 19, 2018 by Black Monk

[Kittens Are Jerks]

1 hour ago, Black Monk said:

She had no right at all to Elizabeth's throne. The throne was lawfully Elizabeth's and Mary was in the wrong to try and usurp it.

Like I stated at the outset, it's a matter of perspective.

[Black Monk]

On 19/08/2018 at 8:57 PM, Kittens Are Jerks said:

Like I stated at the outset, it's a matter of perspective.

No, it isn't. It's actually a matter of historical fact.

Edited August 25, 2018 by Black Monk

[Kittens Are Jerks]

9 hours ago, Black Monk said:

No, it isn't. It's actually a matter of historical fact.

It's not historical fact; it's just one side of a convoluted argument.

Despite being declared illegitimate during the reign of Henry VIII (1544 Succession Act and Henry VIII’s Will), Elizabeth had a legal claim to the English throne after the death of her half-siblings, Edward VI and Mary Tudor. That legal claim, however, came into question when the legitimacy of her father's Will was challenged. Furthermore, Elizabeth never legitimised herself. English common law denied inheritance rights to illegitimate children.

Mary, as the senior descendant of Henry VIII's elder sister Margaret Tudor, was considered by Catholic Europe to be the rightful heir to the English throne despite being omitted from the line of succession in Henry’s Will. But the crown, the Stuarts argued, was an ordained birthright — something that could not be made or unmade by men.

But sure, if you want to keep arguing, we can start with whether or not Henry VII's succession by Right of Conquest was valid. Why keep the Plantagenets out of the equation? Or you could simply acknowledge that English succession was often messy and complicated and that pretty much everyone's legitimacy could be challenged.

Not that any of this matters anyway, because in the end, Mary's epitaph, in the end is my beginning, proved to be prophetic. Her son James VI of Scots became James I of England and every reigning British monarch since then has been descended from Mary — not Elizabeth.

[Black Monk]

13 hours ago, Kittens Are Jerks said:

 

 

Quote

It's not historical fact;

Of course it is. The facts are all there in the history books.

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Despite being declared illegitimate during the reign of Henry VIII (1544 Succession Act and Henry VIII’s Will)

And re-legitimated over the course of her childhood.

Quote

 Elizabeth had a legal claim to the English throne after the death of her half-siblings, Edward VI and Mary Tudor. That legal claim, however, came into question when the legitimacy of her father's Will was challenged.

Only by those nefarious people close to Mary, Queen of Scots.

Quote

Furthermore, Elizabeth never legitimised herself. English common law denied inheritance rights to illegitimate children.

Henry relegitimated Elizabeth. That was evidenced as soon as he placed her back into the line of succession. Had she not been relegitimated she would never have been named as an heir to Henry's throne in his will.

Quote

Mary, as the senior descendant of Henry VIII's elder sister Margaret Tudor, was considered by Catholic Europe to be the rightful heir to the English throne

So? Why should the English matter what Catholic Europe thinks? It wasn't for Catholic Europe to decide who rules England. And, of course, Catholic Europe WOULD think that, wouldn't it? England, however, was a Protestant nation and the English people were deeply unhappy at the prospect of a Catholic monarch.

Quote

But the crown, the Stuarts argued, was an ordained birthright — something that could not be made or unmade by men.

And it was that arrogant and undemocratic way of thinking, of course, which led to the English Civil War, the defeat of the Stuart monarch Charles I and his beheading outside Whitehall Palace.

Quote

But sure, if you want to keep arguing, we can start with whether or not Henry VII's succession by Right of Conquest was valid.

Well he was the King of England. He won the as a result of a decades-long war.

Quote

 Why keep the Plantagenets out of the equation?

The Plantagenets themselves also won the English throne through force of arms. That's how the first Plantagenet monarch Henry II got to the throne.

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Her son James VI of Scots became James I of England

And that was rather unfortunate. It was his arrogant and undemocratic son Charles I - a big believer in the Divine Right of monarchs to rule as they please, rather than being subjected to the will of people and parliament - which led to the English Civil War and his execution. As you can see, they were a troublesome lot those Stuarts.

Quote

and every reigning British monarch since then has been descended from Mary — not Elizabeth.

But at least they're not those damn unpleasant Stuarts.

 

Edited August 26, 2018 by Black Monk