Imaginary Wish List: Mary, Queen of Scots

A queen by virtue of birth and marriage, an international celebrity, a Catholic martyr and—if her Calvinist opponents were to be believed—an idolatrous succubus and seductress, Mary, Queen of Scots was many things to many people. The cousin and heir of Elizabeth I, by the age of 26, Mary had outlived two of her three husbands—including one king of France and one who was strangled after a failed assassination attempt to blow up his house with gunpowder—and had given birth to the future James I and VI of Scotland and England. Forced to flee Scotland by a coalition of rebellious lords, she lived for 18 years under house arrest in England until her execution in 1587, aged 44. Despite the turbulence of her reign, which was marked by clan feuds, internecine murders and religious strife, Mary remained one of the most fashionable women in Europe—vivacious, refined and witty by all accounts, with a taste in the latest French and Italian fashions of the time. With a new film about her life, Mary, Queen of Scots, on the horizon, here’s what we think the Scottish Queen would be sporting today.