Following the death of her husband Francis II of France in 1560, Mary, Queen of Scots returns to her native land.

Sly Elizabeth also sends the younger, dashing but weak and spoiled Lord Darnley from a powerful Catholic family.

Elizabeth is satisfied that reckless, passionate Mary's romantic misadventures will keep her busy in Scotland and give England less to worry about.

Soon after the wedding, Darnley throws a childish temper tantrum, complaining that he has no real power and is merely Mary's king consort.

Disillusioned, Mary soon banishes Darnley from her bed and frequently consults with the gentle, soft-spoken Italian musician and courtier David Riccio.

Mary's young son James is to be crowned king of Scotland (although Moray will effectively rule as regent) and raised as a Protestant.

Over time, the once proud queen of Scots succumbs to an empty routine, plotting half-heartedly to escape but growing increasingly used to her seclusion.

With the help of fellow minister Walsingham, Cecil finds evidence of Mary's involvement in the conspiracy to assassinate Elizabeth known as the Babington Plot.

[2] The confrontation at Bothwell's Hermitage Castle seems loosely based on an actual incident at Carberry, and the film misses out the decisive Battle of Langside.

The movie reunited Hal Wallis, John Hale and Charles Jarrott who had made Anne of a Thousand Days.

Wallis was looking to do a follow-up and decided to make a film about Mary Queen of Scots, in part because a best-selling book about her by Antonia Fraser was in the news.

"I did not read it because I knew it was based on historical fact and was sure there was nothing in it we couldn't obtain from a study of history books," claimed Wallis in his memoirs.

[9] Vincent Canby had little good to write about the film in The New York Times, describing it as "a loveless, passionless costume drama".

He wrote: "Unfortunately there is no excitement whatsoever in what Charles Jarrott, the director, and John Hale, the author of the original screenplay, have put together ... Mary, Queen of Scots intends, I assume, to illuminate history ... yet all it's really doing is touching bases, like a dull, dutiful student ... Because both Miss Redgrave and Miss Jackson possess identifiable intelligence, [the film] is not as difficult to sit through as some bad movies I can think of.