When Mary, Queen of Scots was allegedly found to have worked with conspirators to commit regicide against Elizabeth I of England, it left the English queen in a bit of a predicament. Any lesser ranked person would be executed without a second thought, but Elizabeth feared the backlash. While Elizabeth ordered her death anyway, her ultimate concern was that Mary’s son King James VI of Scotland (who was ironically Elizabeth’s heir and eventually successor) would ally with a foreign power against England in revenge.