More than four centuries after she was executed in England for treason by her cousin, Elizabeth I, a row has broken out over the rightful resting place of Mary Queen of Scots, and her true place in the pantheon of Scottish heroes.

For Christine Grahame, MSP, Mary was “an iconic historical Scots figure” and this week the SNP member for the South of Scotland will begin a campaign in the Scottish Parliament to repatriate her remains from Westminster Abbey. But the move has been branded a stunt by Ms Grahame’s political opponents and dismissed as crazy by Jenny Wormald, one of the leading academic authorities on the queen’s life and death.

Contrary to the romantic myths which surround Mary, said Dr Wormald, she was a dreadful woman who was “much keener on becoming queen of England than she ever was of being queen of Scotland. It seems appropriate to leave her alone.”

The MSP’s motion has already attracted support from officials in the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland and senior lay figures, including the composer James MacMillan, who said that the return of Mary’s body would be “a profoundly religious and spiritual event”.

Mary, who was born at Linlithgow Palace in 1542, was crowned queen as an infant, but forced to flee to France at the age of five after Henry VIII’s invasion of Scotland. She married François, the heir to the French throne, but when he died, she returned to Scotland in 1561.

After six tumultuous years – in which she was married twice and associated with two murders – she was forced to abdicate by the Scottish nobility and unwisely took refuge in England. Unsurprisingly, Elizabeth I saw her cousin as a rival for her own throne, and Mary was imprisoned for 20 years, until she was tricked into expressing support for a plot against the English monarch. Found guilty of treason, she was executed at Fotheringhay Castle and buried at Peterborough Cathedral, before she was reinterred at Westminster Abbey in 1612, by her son, King James I of England and VI of Scotland.

Clearly, Mary had been “the victim of English plotting” said Ms Grahame, who will write to Linda Fabiani, the Culture Minister, urging the Scottish Government to support her campaign.

“Given the House of Stuart’s association with Falkland Palace, a place where Mary is believed to have spent her happiest days, that would appear to be an appropriate place to inter her remains,” she added.

Allan MacInnes, Professor of History at Strathclyde University, agreed that Falkland would be a fitting resting place for Mary. “She shouldn’t be in England under any circumstances,” he added.

Dr Wormald said that Mary had spent most of her childhood very happily in France, and there was no sense in which she was an enthusiastic queen of Scotland.

When Mary returned to the country aged 18, it was significant that she changed her title from “Queen of Scots” to “Queen of Scotland”, added Dr Wormald, a past president of the Scottish History Society and an honorary fellow of Edinburgh University.

“Her predecessors had emphasised their connection with their people. She changed to Queen of Scotland, she saw that the kings of England and France used the term ‘kingdom’. She wanted to be up to date.

“I can’t understand why anyone gets so worked up about her, apart from the romance – she’s got sex, violence, rape, murder, the lot,” Dr Wormald said.

Brian Wilson, the former Scottish Office Minister, accused Ms Grahame of a political stunt. “I doubt if many people are interested in carting corpses around Britain,” he said.

A spokesman for Westminster Abbey said: “The body of Mary Queen of Scots was brought to the Abbey on the express instructions of her son, in order that ‘honour be done to the body of his dearest mother’. That is a responsibility which the abbey takes very seriously, and the body has remained in our care ever since.”

Off with her head

Mary’s tumultuous lovelife cost her the Scottish throne. She had married her cousin, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, in 1565, but within a matter of months, Darnley was involved in the murder of David Rizzio, Mary’s secretary – and possibly her lover – an event which was intended to prompt a coup

In this treacherous atmosphere, the queen fled Edinburgh for Dunbar and a new protector, the Earl of Bothwell. When Darnley himself was murdered in February 1567, Bothwell was tried and acquitted of the crime That April, Bothwell proposed to Mary. When she refused him, he kidnapped and raped her before finally she acceded to his demands. He then divorced his own wife, marrying Mary within a fortnight.

The wedding was to prove disastrous for both. Mary was widely felt to have married her husband’s murderer.

The popular uprising which followed forced the queen to abdicate and Bothwell to flee to Norway

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