Premise
The first season opens in 1557, with fifteen-year-old Queen Mary Stuart living in a convent in France, but she is quickly returned to the castle where we learn she is awaiting her marriage to fifteen-year-old Crown Prince Francis, to whom she has been engaged since they were six. Mary has to contend with changing politics and power plays, as well as her burgeoning feelings for and the romantic attentions of Francis' bastard half-brother, Bash. Francis' mother, Catherine de' Medici, secretly tries to prevent the marriage following Nostradamus’ confidential prediction that the marriage will lead to Francis' death. The series also follows the affairs of Mary's Scottish handmaidens Lady Kenna Livingston, Lady Aylee Seton, Lady Lola Fleming and Lady Greer Norwood (based on "the Four Lady Marys"), who are searching for noble husbands of their own at French Court.
The second season opens after the death of King Henry II and follows the rise of Francis and Mary as King and Queen of France and Scotland. Together they have to balance their marriage with their roles as monarchs, and deal with the rising religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants, as well as the ambitions of the rival House of Bourbon for the throne of France.
The third season follows King Francis' declining health and his death partway through the season, leaving Queen Mary a widow and struggling to find new footing since she's no longer bound to France as its ruler. Francis' brother Charles is crowned the new under-aged king, with Queen Catherine as regent. The third season also introduces the court of Queen Elizabeth I of England, who plots against her own distant cousin Queen Mary, fends off marital prospects, and deals with her secret love affair with Lord Robert Dudley.
The fourth and final season, opening in 1563 and ending in 1587, has Queen Mary returned to Scotland as its rightful ruler and trying to regain power in her homeland. She has to manage her allies, such as her bastard older half-brother James Stewart and the outspoken Lord Bothwell, as well as her enemies such as the Protestant preacher John Knox. Tensions mount between Queen Mary and her own cousin Queen Elizabeth I, with Queen Mary marrying Lord Darnley, an English Catholic claimant to the English throne, in the hopes of taking England. In France, Catherine has to protect her mentally damaged son, King Charles IX, from the ambitions of her eldest daughter Queen Leeza of Spain, and their cunning teenage youngest brother, Crown Prince Henry.
