Dumbasses of the latter 16th century; Scottish Edition

Long ago, in a Western European country far, far away, lived a bunch of mother fuckers who couldn't get their shit together. These where hard times; there was all the shit we deal with now, (ugly babies, fat chicks, STD's and Metrosexuals) only smellier. That's right, it stank. Literally. Like ass. Everywhere, all the time. It stank so bad that people used their own fecal matter to treat their plague. Why? Because it was handy, as they were sleeping in piles of it, and it stuck to the boils nicely. Also, they couldn't tell that it stank, really, because everything stank.
But the odiferous qualities of Medieval Europe are for another day. Mainly, this post exists to celebrate the first of a few choice "WTF?!" moments in 16th century European history. Let's start with a little somethin' for the laddies...

Mary, Queen of Scots
or How to be a Royal Dumbass

When first she returned to Scotland, the land of her birth, Mary had a lot going for her. She was tall, sexy, and she'd just recently enjoyed a stint as Queen of France as part of an extended trip abroad. She'd been a Frenchie since infancy, and couldn't quite relate to the Scottish way o' life. France in the 1500's was pretty much like France now; cafe, cafe, fop, jewelled fop, cafe, freak in a beret. Scotland in the 1500's was pretty much like Afghanistan now. Only with more rubble and a generally lower opinion of the rights of women. (Especially if those women are Queen of Scotland.) So "culture shock" doesn't really describe it. Suffice to say, Mary was quite contrary.
Her untreatable Uppity Bitch Syndrome (UBS) prevented her from seeing that her efforts to tart-up Scotland weren't going so well, that her craggy, sheep-buggering subjects hated her, and that John Knox wasn't the only one who wanted to slap her, fuck her, and throw her in the Inverness. Pretty much the only thing the Scottish liked was the fact she married her cousin, Henry, and only then because the Scottish are rednecks at heart, and also because it pissed off the English Queen, Elizabeth. (The one thing the Scottish like more than pissing off each other is pissing off the English. They liked the berets too, but that's not important.) So she goes all "West Virginia" and marries Henry, who used to be "Lord Darnley" only now he's married to a Queen, so he figures that makes him King.
Not quite.
So there was a lot of fuss, and he killed her best friend in front of her while she was 7 months pregnant with their baby, and she said he was an fuck-tard, and he said she was a whore, and it all went along smashingly until she crapped out the baby and Darnley started on the whole "King me" thing again. This was before "911" was an option, so she had to figure out another way to handle their frequent front-yard domestic disputes.
So she talked to some people and had Darnley blown up.
Then she married the guy who blew him up.
Then pretty much the entire country of Scotland wanted to blow her up.
(Cue John Knox laughing hysterically.)
Mary did the only thing she could do... she ran away.
And where did she run? Back to France, where she was raised, and where she still had a huge, loving family?
No.
Okay, maybe to Rome! She was a devout Catholic, after all, and she had a few cousins who were Arch-Bishop of Whatnot...
Nope.
Okay, where then?
Why the only place in the known world where she was even more reviled than Scotland!
ENGLAND!!
That's right. After making her short career as Queen of the Scots all the more memorable by managing to piss off her cousin Queen Elizabeth I of England virtually every other month, Mary did the logical thing and turned to her for help. And Elizabeth did help, by imprisoning Mary for 20 years and politely over-looking her occasional half-assed efforts to seize the English throne.

Until Elizabeth had her be-headed.
If it was good enough for mama, it's good enough for you, Uppity Bitch.


More on Scotland another time.