- John Knox: We have a scourge upon our land. 'Tis worse than pestilence and famine. 'Tis a woman with a crown.
- Queen Elizabeth I: I was jealous. Your beauty. Your bravery. Your motherhood. You seemed to surpass me in every way. But now I see there is no cause for envy. Your gifts are your downfall.
- Mary Stuart: What now, sister?
- Queen Elizabeth I: You will still have my protection. Under my terms.
- Mary Stuart: Until you have me killed?
- Queen Elizabeth I: I will do no such thing.
- Mary Stuart: Wouldn't you? As Henry killed your mother?
- Queen Elizabeth I: I am not my father.
- Mary Stuart: But, you share his blood.
- Queen Elizabeth I: As long as you do not provoke my enemies, you have nothing to fear. Your fate rests in your own hands.
- Mary Stuart: If I seek to help your enemies, tis only because you pushed me to their arms. And should you murder me, remember that you murder your sister - and you murder your Queen.
- Mary Stuart: I have been abandoned by so many. I am utterly alone.
- Queen Elizabeth I: As am I. Alone.
- Mary Stuart: Be my sister. Be my boy's Godmother. Together we could conquer all of those who doubt us. Do not play into their hands. Our enmity is precisely what they hope for. I know your heart has more within it than the men who counsel you.
- Queen Elizabeth I: I am more man than woman now. The throne has made me so. But I have no enmity with you.
- Mary Stuart: Except to seed rebellion and to deceive me time and time again.
- Queen Elizabeth I: If you still seek my protection, you would do well to watch your words.
- Mary Stuart: I will not be scolded by my inferior.
- Queen Elizabeth I: Your inferior?
- Mary Stuart: I am a Stuart, which gives me greater claim to England than you possess.
- Mary Stuart: There are times for wisdom. And there are times for love. But there are also times for strength.
- John Knox: If a Prince strays from God's will, it is not in doubt that they may be resisted. And in your case, as with all women: their sight is but blindness; their strength, weakness; their counsel, foolishness; their judgment, frenzy. Are we to abide a papist and a woman both?
- John Knox: The authority of women, which I call not true authority, by cardinal bondage, bringing forth monsters!
- Queen Elizabeth I: Tell me what to do?
- William Cecil: We must make civil war in Scotland.
- Queen Elizabeth I: You would have me depose the sister monarch?
- William Cecil: It is either civil war there. Or civil war here.
- Queen Elizabeth I: I want to know nothing of it.
- William Cecil: The arrangements shall be mine, alone.
- Lord Randolph: How did the world come to this?
- Lord Maitland: Wise men servicing the whims of women?
- Lord Randolph: Aye.
- Mary Stuart: You have not betrayed your nature. I cannot fault you for succumbing to his charms as I did. But we must be more careful now.
- William Cecil: Madam, we cannot let her name your successor. She has no right.
- Queen Elizabeth I: When I am dead and you are dead and she is dead, it matters not what names we did or did not say. The world will decide for itself.
- Mary Stuart: It is enough my own Lords treat me as though I'm but a girl. I will not be treated as such by Elizabeth. I will be the woman she is not. I shall produce an heir, unlike her barren self.
- Title Card: Mary Queen of Scots was born a Catholic. As Protestants fight to control Scotland, the infant Mary is sent to Catholic France. At 15, she marries the heir to the French throne.
- Title Card: At 18, Mary is widowed and returns home. Scotland is now dominated by Protestants, and governed by her half-brother.
- Title Card: Elizabeth is England's Protestant Queen. By birth, Mary has a strong claim to England's throne. Her very existence threatens Elizabeth's power.
- William Cecil: Mary is our foe! We must not bow to her as we bow before you!
- Queen Elizabeth I: You have the boldness to doubt my judgement!
- William Cecil: Can he control her?
- Robert Dudley: If she's anything like our Queen, then she does not yield to a bridle.
- William Cecil: So says our Master of the Horse. By bridle do you speak of matrimony?
- John Knox: We resist those who would tempt us with indulgences. Deny those who worship luxury. Respect not those who flaunt their excesses and whore themselves to wealth and the degradations of the flesh.
- Mary Stuart: I should like to marry again. To know how it feels to have a man fully. But, not if I am owned.
- Henry Darnley: How it must feel - ruling all that you see.
- Mary Stuart: I am but its servant. Are you prepared to be its servant?
- Mary Stuart: [kissing, embracing, lying down in bed] We cannot.
- Henry Darnley: No. This is not that. I promise. Have faith in me.
- Henry Darnley: You'll be my Queen?
- Mary Stuart: Yes.
- Henry Darnley: And I your King?
- Mary Stuart: Yes.
- Henry Darnley: And your master?
- Mary Stuart: My husband.
- Mary Fleming: Might I ask - since we have not known it ourselves - what is it like?
- Mary Stuart: To have a man? I have only lain with François. He shook terribly from fright. As did I. The poor boy did his best. But, it was over before it began.
- Mary Stuart: You look exquisite, Mademoiselle.
- David Rizzio: Is it a sin that I feel more a sister to you than a brother? Forgive me. I forget myself in your company.
- Mary Stuart: Be whoever you wish with us. You make for a lovely sister.
- Queen Elizabeth I: No Prince's revenues be so great that they satisfy the insatiable ambition of men.
- William Cecil: This I understand.
- Queen Elizabeth I: Which is why you are the closest thing I shall ever have to a wife.
- William Cecil: [laughs] I shan't mention your proposal to Lord Dudley.
- [Elizabeth laughs]
- Mary Stuart: Are you afraid Henry?
- Henry Darnley: No.
- Mary Stuart: Good. Because our swords are not just for show.
- Henry Darnley: I am not a cuckold.
- Earl of Lennox: Would you rather the honest truth be told? That you are a sodomite?
- Mary Stuart: I will not do it.
- Lord Maitland: You will, Madam. By force if we must.
- Mary Stuart: Then I shall meet force with force!
- Robert Dudley: The news is urgent.
- Queen Elizabeth I: What news do I want from Scotland? Bloodshed? Go conspire among yourselves.
- Lord Maitland: The people believe you are a traitor and a whore. What army can defeat an entire nation turned against its Queen? They would sooner parade your head on a pike than bow before a harlot. I for one would gladly hold high the pike.
- James, Earl of Moray: He is right. You cannot raise an army.
- Mary Stuart: Many times you have said I cannot do what I have done!
- John Knox: The Queen is a servant of Satan. She is a fornicator - with a monstrous lust. This pleasuring woman is not fit to rule us. Would we kneel before a polecat who is bedding an Italian, David Rizzio, a Catholic who never leaves her bed chamber?
- Queen Elizabeth I: It is my choice. God would have a woman be a wife and mother.
- William Cecil: So you defy his will.
- Queen Elizabeth I: No - I choose to be a man.
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