Reel historyCultureMary of Scotland: Katharine Hepburn in Tudor romance with inaccurate kilts
Hepburn’s real-life affair with director John Ford adds extra spice to this tale of a fiery proto-feminist queen’s love for the Earl of Bothwell
Mary of Scotland (1936)
Director: John Ford
Entertainment grade: B+
History grade: B+
Mary, Queen of Scots was the daughter of James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise. Her great-grandfather was Henry VII of England, which gave her a strong claim to the English throne during the reign of Elizabeth I.
Legitimacy
The action begins in England, with a robust Elizabeth (the excellent Florence Eldridge, foreshadowing Bette Davis’s performance in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex three years later) holding court while her counsellors explain the plot. “In the eyes of Europe you are a pretender to the throne of England, because the marriage of your father, Henry VIII, to your mother, Anne Boleyn, is deemed invalid!” one says. For goodness’ sake, it’s 1561: surely Elizabeth would have noticed who her parents were by now.
Dress
Mary, Queen of Scots (Katharine Hepburn) arrives back in Scotland from France. She is met by a bunch of men in kilts, the bane of Scottish historical movies from here to Braveheart. What we call a kilt today – the fèileadh beag, or small kilt – was invented in the mid-18th century, almost 200 years after this film is set. The Scots should be wearing belted plaid, or the rather fetching skintight tartan trews sported by Mary’s father, James V.
Marriage
The Scotsmen tell Mary she must marry. “Of course, I can’t give myself out to be a virgin queen like our cousin Elizabeth,” she admits. Mary was previously married to King Francis II of France, though historians aren’t sure if the marriage was consummated: he was a sickly youngster of just 15 when they wed, and soon perished of a brain abscess. In any case, this Mary has the sort of feminist agenda you might not entirely expect in a 1936 movie: “I’m going to live my own life, do as I say!” she says. “I refuse to marry! I’m going to begin to be myself!”
Religion
Standing in her way is the firebreathing Protestant John Knox (Moroni Olsen, who also provided the voice of the Magic Mirror in Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released the year after this film). Like so many religious nutjobs through the ages, Knox wears a long, flowing beard and long, flowing robes, and really can’t cope with women. This is entirely accurate: Knox wrote a misogynist screed entitled The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women in 1558. “Look at me, Master Knox! Can you believe in your heart I’m as wicked as you say?” she asks him. Yes, he can. “Can’t you be tolerant?” Mary asks him. No, he can’t. “I called you Jezebel of France out there, and I’ll call it you again!” he blethers.
Sexuality
Eventually, Mary agrees to marry Lord Darnley. “Ah, the four pretty wenches,” he says to her ladies-in-waiting. “Five, my lord, now that you’re here,” one of them replies. Aspersions have been cast by some historians on Lord Darnley’s sexuality; this film doesn’t go as far as the later Glenda Jackson/Vanessa Redgrave version in suggesting that he was having a full-blown affair with Mary’s secretary, David Rizzio. Her true love is the Earl of Bothwell (Fredric March), who is really annoyed she has married someone else. “Darnley? Why didn’t you pick a man?” he says, then flounces off with his historically inaccurate kilt flapping.
Scandals
Darnley and a group of nobles stab Rizzio to death and defenestrate him (in real life his body was thrown down the stairs at Holyrood, not out of a window). Then Darnley is blown to bits in an explosion set by Bothwell (historians still argue over his guilt or innocence). “From the very beginning, I’ve always belonged to you,” Mary tells her husband’s murderer gratefully. The film politely leaves out Bothwell’s first wife; he divorced her in 1567, and married Mary 12 days later. The romantic drama spilled over on to the set of this film when director John Ford (better known for his westerns) embarked on an affair with the star, Katharine Hepburn. According to biographers, Ford’s wife made him end the relationship six months later. Dudley Nichols, who adapted the screenplay for Mary of Scotland, was so struck by the dynamic of Hepburn and Ford’s relationship that he based another screenplay on it – Bringing Up Baby, made with Hepburn and Cary Grant two years later.
Verdict
Katharine Hepburn makes for a spirited Mary, even if this version of her story goes a little heavy on the romantic goo.
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