Mary Stuart
Queen of Scots
"En ma Fin
gît mon Commencement..."
"In my End
is my beginning..."
Mary Queen of Scots is probably one of the most
fascinating women of the 16th Century. Like her cousins: Mary Tudor,
Jane Grey (she was beheaded by Mary after 9 days) and Elizabeth Tudor she was a
Queen in her own right. But unlike her cousins she became Queen at only six
days old.
The Young Mary Queen of Scots
Her father was King James V and his second wife Mary
of Guise. Mary was born prematurely on the 8th day of December in
the year of 1542 at Linlithgow Palace where James had also been born nearly 30
years previously.
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| Mary Queen of Scots |
Before he died, he is reported to have said, "it came wi a lass, it'll gang wi a lass"
(meaning "It began with a girl and
it will end with a girl"). This was either a reference to the Stewart
dynasty's accession to the throne through Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert
the Bruce or to the medieval origin myth of the Scots nation, recorded in the
Scotichronicon in which the Scots people are descended from the Princess Scota.
With James dead Mary was Queen of Scotland at the
age of six days old as the King's only legitimate child. Mary was baptised at
Church of St Michael as a Roman Catholic. Until Mary reached her majority Scotland
was ruled by a regent; Cardinal Beaton, and the Earl of Arran (who was next in
line to the throne) but Beaton's claim was based on a version of the late
king's will that his opponents dismissed as a forgery and Arran, with the
support of his friends and relations, became the regent until 1554 when Mary's
mother managed to remove and succeed him.
The treaty meant peace between the two countries. Beaton
rose to power in Scotland and began to push a pro-Catholic French marriage for
the young Queen who was moved to the safety of Stirling Castle. Regent Arran
resisted the move, but backed down when Beaton's armed supporters gathered at
Linlithgow. Mary and her mother to Stirling on 27 July 1543 by Earl of Lennox who
had 3,500 armed men. Mary was crowned in the castle chapel on 9th
day of September 1543, with "such
solemnity as they do use in this country, which is not very costly".
The French king, Henry II, proposed to unite France and Scotland through a marriage between the young queen and his three-year-old son, the Dauphin Francis. On the promise of French military help, and a French dukedom for himself, Arran agreed to the marriage and Mary was moved, again for her safety, to Dumbarton Castle in February 1548. The English left a trail of devastation behind once more and seized the strategic town of Haddington. In June, the much awaited French help arrived at Leith to besiege and ultimately take Haddington. On 7th July 1548, a Scottish Parliament held at a nunnery near the town agreed to a French marriage treaty.
When Mary arrived in France she was sent to convent
of Morlaix in northern France for her safety. She stayed at the convent until
December 1557 when she arrived at the French Court where the Scottish Queen was
greatly liked by everyone but her future mother-in-law Queen, Catherine d’Medici.
It was in France that Mary learned to play lute and virginals, and was
competent in prose, poetry, horsemanship, falconry and needlework, and was
taught French, Italian, Latin, Spanish, and Greek, in addition to speaking her
native Scots. Her future sister-in-law, Elisabeth of Valois, became a close
friend of whom Mary "retained nostalgic
memories in later life". Her maternal grandmother, Antoinette de
Bourbon, was another strong influence on her childhood, and acted as one of her
principal advisors. King Henry of France said "from the very first day they met, my son and she got on as well
together as if they had known each other for a long time.”
In November of the same year, Mary Tudor Queen of
England died either of ovarian cysts or uterine cancer. Many Roman Catholics in
England recognised Mary as England’s rightful Queen as they believed that Elizabethwas
a bastard and her parents’ marriage had not been valid and illegal. Mary’s
claim to the English throne was based on the fact that she was the
grand-daughter of Margaret Tudor and a direct descent from Henry VII. France
backed up her claim.
Back in February 1561, Mary met her English cousin,
Henry Stewart Lord of Darnley. Henry was the son of Matthew Stewart and
Margaret Douglas who Scottish aristocrats as well as English landowners
had sent him to France ostensibly to extend their condolences while hoping for
a potential match between their son and Mary. Margaret Douglas was Margaret
Tudor’s daughter to her second husband Archibald Douglas so Mary and Henry were
cousins in the first degree.
The Scottish people were not happy about having an
Englishman as their King (even if he was a consort). Mary’s Brother James joined
with other Protestant lords in open rebellion. Mary set out from Edinburgh on
26th August 1565 to confront them, and returned to Edinburgh the
following month to raise more troops. In what became known as the Chaseabout
Raid, Mary and her forces and the rebellious lords roamed around Scotland
without ever engaging in direct combat. Mary's numbers were boosted by the
release and restoration to favour of Lord Huntly's son, and the return of James
Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell (who would later become Mary 3rd
husband) from exile in France. Unable to muster sufficient support, in October James
left Scotland for asylum in England at Elizabeth’s Court in England. Mary broadened
her privy council of both Catholics and Protestants.
By March 1566, Darnley became part of a secret
conspiracy with Protestant lords to “dispose” of Rizzio (he was nicknamed by
most as Wee David) and on the 9th March, the group of the
conspirators to murder Rizzio in front of the pregnant Mary at a dinner party with
Rizzio and five close friends, including Bothwell which was held at Holyrood Palace.
The group dragged Rizzio from the table
into the next room and stabbed him 56 times.
Mary's son by Darnley, James, was born on the 19th
June 1566 in Edinburgh Castle and Mary wished for Darnley to accept the child
was his in which he agreed to. The baby descendant from James V of Scotland and
Henry VII of England, which made him the future King of two kingdoms.
In October 1566, Mary was staying at Jedburgh on the Scottish Borders when she made a journey on horseback of at least four hours each way to visit the Earl of Bothwell at Hermitage Castle, where he laid ill from wounds sustained in a skirmish with the Border Lords. Mary's enemies used this to bring scandal to the Queen’s reputation by saying that the two were lovers, though Mary was accompanied by her councillors and guards.
When she returned to Jedburgh, she suffered a
serious illness of frequent vomiting, loss of sight, loss of speech, convulsions
and periods of unconsciousness and it was thought that she was thought to be near
death or dying but her recovery on the 25th October was credited to
the skill of her French physicians.
On the night of the 9th February 1567,
Mary visited her husband in the early evening and then attended the wedding
celebrations of a member of her household, Bastian Pagez. During the early
hours of the morning of the 10th, an explosion devastated Kirk o'
Field, and Darnley was found dead in the garden, apparently smothered. There
were no visible marks of strangulation or violence on the body. Bothwell,
Moray, Secretary Maitland, James and Mary were all suspects with motives, but
Mary was at church when the explosion happened. Elizabeth wrote to Mary of the
rumours, "I should ill fulfil the
office of a faithful cousin or an affectionate friend if I did not ... tell you
what all the world is thinking. Men say that, instead of seizing the murderers,
you are looking through your fingers while they escape; that you will not seek
revenge on those who have done you so much pleasure, as though the deed would
never have taken place had not the doers of it been assured of impunity. For
myself, I beg you to believe that I would not harbour such a thought."
Mary had believed that many nobles supported her
marriage to Bothwell but she was wrong, as things soon turned sour between the
newly elevated Bothwell (created Duke of Orkney and consort of the Queen) and
his old peers, and the marriage became deeply unpopular.
With the help George Douglas, Loch Leven’s owner, Mary
escaped on the 2nd of May 1568 and managed to raise an army of 6000
men, and met her brother’s smaller forces at the Battle of Langside on the 13th.
With her army defeated Mary fled south to the safety of England to beg for
Elizabeth’s aid; spending the night at Dundrennan Abbey, she crossed the Solway
Firth into England by fishing boat on the 16th where she landed at
Workington, Cumberland and stayed overnight at Workington Hall. On the 18th,
she was taken into protective custody at Carlisle Castle by local officials.
Mary expected Elizabeth to help her regain her
throne because they were kin but Elizabeth was cautious, and ordered an inquiry
into the conduct of the confederate lords and the question of whether Mary was
guilty of the murder of her husband who was one of Elizabeth’s subjects. Mary
was moved by the English authorities to Bolton Castle, Yorkshire in mid-July,
because it was further from the Scottish border but not too close to London. A
commission of inquiry, or conference as it was known, was held in York and
later Westminster between October and January 1569 while in Scotland, her
supporters fought a civil war against Regent James and his successors.
On the 26th day of January 1569, Mary was
moved to Tutbury Castle under the custody of the George Talbot Earl of
Shrewsbury and his wife Bess of Hardwick where she was housed with the promise
that Elizabeth will help restore her to her throne Scotland. She was permitted
her own domestic staff, which never numbered less than 16, and needed 30 carts
to transport her belongings from house to house. Her chambers were decorated
with fine tapestries and carpets, as well as her cloth of state on which she
had the French phrase En ma fin est mon
commencement ("In my end lies my beginning") embroidered. Her bed
linen was changed daily, and her own chefs prepared meals with a choice of 32
dishes served off silver plates. She was occasionally allowed outside under
strict supervision, spent seven summers at the spa town of Buxton, and spent
much of her time doing embroidery. Her health declined, perhaps through
porphyria or lack of exercise, and by the 1580s, she had severe rheumatism in
her limbs, rendering her lame.
At the age of only six months a treaty between
Scotland and England was drawn up at Greenwich, London which declared at the
age of 10 Mary would marry Prince Edward. The treaty was signed on the 1st
of July 1543. Mary’s maternal grandmother was Margaret Tudor who was King Henry
VIII sister so the young children were second cousins and a dispensation from
the Pope had to be attained until they could be married.
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| The Coronation of Mary |
Shortly before Mary's coronation, Scottish merchants
headed for France were arrested by Henry, and their goods impounded. The
arrests caused anger in Scotland, and Arran who was a Protestant) joined Beaton
and became a Catholic. The Treaty of Greenwich was rejected by the Parliament
of Scotland in December and renewal of the Auld Alliance between France and
Scotland prompted Henry's "Rough
Wooing", a military campaign designed to impose the marriage of Mary
to his son. English forces mounted a series of raids on Scottish and French
territory and in May 1544, the English Earl of Hertford (later Duke of
Somerset) raided Edinburgh, and the Mary was moved to Dunkeld for her safety.
In May 1546, Beaton was murdered by Protestant lords
and on 10th September 1547, nine months after the death of Henry
VIII, the Scots suffered a heavy defeat at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh. Mary's
guardians, fearful for her safety, sent her to Inchmahome Priory for no more
than three weeks, and turned to the French for help.
Mary en France
The French king, Henry II, proposed to unite France and Scotland through a marriage between the young queen and his three-year-old son, the Dauphin Francis. On the promise of French military help, and a French dukedom for himself, Arran agreed to the marriage and Mary was moved, again for her safety, to Dumbarton Castle in February 1548. The English left a trail of devastation behind once more and seized the strategic town of Haddington. In June, the much awaited French help arrived at Leith to besiege and ultimately take Haddington. On 7th July 1548, a Scottish Parliament held at a nunnery near the town agreed to a French marriage treaty.
At five, Mary left Scotland from the port at Dumbarton
on 7th August 1548 and arrived a week or more later at Roscoff or
Saint-Pol-de-Léon in Brittany. was accompanied by her own court including two
illegitimate half-brothers, and the "four Marys", four girls her own
age, all named Mary, who were the daughters of some of the noblest families in
Scotland along with Janet, Lady Fleming who was James V's half-sister, was
appointed Mary’s governess.
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| The Convent of Morlaix |
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| Mary and Francis in Reign |
Mary and Francis were officially betrothed in April
19th 1558. The terms of the agreement allowed the Scots to maintain
their traditional rights and would become united with France when Francis
became King of France. It was also agreed that if Mary died without having
children the Scottish throne would go to the Earl of Arran but a few days later
on the 24th Mary married Francis at Notre Dame in Paris and a secret
marriage agreement was signed by Mary giving control of Scotland to France if
she died without having children.
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| The Wedding of Mary and Francis |
In July 1559, Henry from a tourney accident and left
his son and Mary France but Francis died in December 1560 after a reign of 17
months.
Mary, who was about to become 18 years of age, was left widowed was in a difficult position and didn't want to stay in France and live under the
domination of her mother-in-law Catherine d’Medici she decided to return to
Scotland and take her chances with the Protestant reformers. Back in June Mary’s
mother, Mary of Guise, died suddenly at Edinburgh Castle leaving the country in
a state of civil war. It was said that she was poisoned by Protestant Scottish
Lords.
Mary Queen of Scots Returns Home
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| Queen Mary "I have become Scotland! My heart, my soul - every fiber of my being is Scotland" |
Mary arrived back in her native country on the 19th
August 1561 at port at Leith after 13 years away in France and was
met by her illegitimate half-brother, Sir James Stewart. Many of her Scottish
subjects did not trust her along with Elizabeth of England.
James Stewart was a leader of the Protestants who
were opposed to Mary’s rule while John Knox (a Protestant reformer) preached
against the Queen, condemning her for hearing Mass, dancing, and dressing too
elaborately. She summoned him to her presence to remonstrate with him
unsuccessfully, and later charged him with treason, but he was acquitted and
released.
Looking For a Husband
To ensure the support of the Scottish Lords Mary
decided to marry again. Elizabeth attempted to neutralise Mary by suggesting
that she marry English Protestant Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, whom
Elizabeth trusted and thought she could control. She sent an ambassador Thomas
Randolph to tell Mary that if she married an English nobleman, Elizabeth would "proceed to the inquisition of her
right and title to be our next cousin and heir". The proposal came to
nothing maybe because the Dudley was unwilling to the match.
When a French poet visited Mary's court, Pierre de
Boscosel de Chastelard, was apparently besotted by Mary and in early 1563, he
was discovered during a security search hidden underneath her bed, apparently
planning to surprise her when she was alone and declare his love for her. Mary
was horrified and banished him from Scotland. He ignored the edict, and two
days later he forced his way into her chamber as she was about to disrobe. She
reacted with fury and fear, and when Moray rushed into the room, in reaction to
her cries for help, she shouted, "Thrust
your dagger into the villain!", which Moray refused to do as
Chastelard was already under restraint. Chastelard was tried for treason, and
beheaded. Maitland claimed that Chastelard's ardour was feigned, and that he
was part of a Huguenot plot to discredit Mary by tarnishing her reputation.
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| Lord Darnley in Gunpowder, Treason & Plot |
They next met on Saturday 17th February
1565 at Wemyss Castle in Scotland, after which Mary fell in love with the
"long lad" (he was over six feet tall). Elizabeth felt threatened by a
marriage between the Scottish Queen and Lord Darnley as both Mary and Darnley
were claimants to the English throne through her Aunt Margaret and their children
would inherit an even stronger, combined claim since Elizabeth was unwed and
possibly barren. Mary's insistence on the marriage seems to have stemmed from
passion rather than calculation. The English ambassador at her court, Nicholas
Throckmorton, reported that "the
saying is that surely she is bewitched” and that marriage could only be
averted "by violence".
Mary and Darnley's Marriage
Mary and Darnley married at Holyrood Palace on 29th July 1565,
even though both were Catholic and a papal dispensation for the marriage of
first cousins had not been obtained. The union infuriated Elizabeth, who felt
the marriage should not have gone ahead without her permission, as Darnley was
both her cousin and an English subject.
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| Wedding of Mary and Darnley in Mary Queen of Scots (1971) |
Darnley soon became annoyed and un content with his
position as King Consort, that he demanded the Crown Matrimonial, which would
have made him a co-sovereign of Scotland with the right to keep the Scottish
throne for himself if he survived his wife. Mary refused to make him co-sovereign,
and their marriage soon became strained.
Mary was with child by October 1565. Even though
Darnley was about to have an son and heir; a claimant to thrones of Scotland
and England, he was jealous of his wife’s friendship with her Catholic private
secretary, David Rizzio, who was rumoured to be the father of the unborn child.
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| The Murder of David Rizzio |
Over the next two days, a disillusioned Darnley
switched sides, and Mary received her Half-Brother at Holyrood. On the night of
11th –12th March, Darnley and Mary escaped from the
palace, and took temporary refuge in Dunbar Castle before returning to
Edinburgh on the 18th March where
James, Argyll and Glencairn were restored to the council.
The Birth of a Son
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| The Birth of James |
In October 1566, Mary was staying at Jedburgh on the Scottish Borders when she made a journey on horseback of at least four hours each way to visit the Earl of Bothwell at Hermitage Castle, where he laid ill from wounds sustained in a skirmish with the Border Lords. Mary's enemies used this to bring scandal to the Queen’s reputation by saying that the two were lovers, though Mary was accompanied by her councillors and guards.
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| My child will have a throne in Scotland and England... That wicked barren English Queen wants my child dead, you will protect him. You will protect him your very lives." |
At Craigmillar Castle, outside Edinburgh, at the end
of November 1566, Mary and leading nobles held a meeting to discuss the
"problem of Darnley" where divorce was discussed, but nothing was agreed to.
Darnley’s Assination
The Lords at the meeting decided without Mary's knowledge to get rid of Darnley by other means.
"It was thought expedient and most profitable for the common wealth ... that such a young fool and proud tyrant should not reign or bear rule over them; ... that he should be put off by one way or another; and whosoever should take the deed in hand or do it, they should defend."
Darnley feared for his safety and after the baptism
of his son at Stirling shortly before Christmas, he went back his father's
estates in Glasgow. At the start of his journey, he was afflicted by a fever, possibly
smallpox, syphilis, or the result of poison, and he remained ill for some
weeks.
In late January 1567, Mary prompted her husband to
come back to Edinburgh. He recuperated from his illness in a house belonging to
the brother of Sir James Balfour at the former abbey of Kirk o' Field, just
within the city wall. Mary visited him daily, so that it appeared a
reconciliation was in progress.
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| Depiction of the Explosion at Kirk O' Field |
By the end of February, Bothwell was generally
believed to be guilty of Darnley's assassination. Darnley's father demanded
that Bothwell be tried before the Estates of Parliament, to which Mary agreed,
but Lennox's request for a delay to gather evidence was denied. In the absence
of Lennox, and with no evidence presented, Bothwell was acquitted after a
seven-hour trial on the 12th April. A week later, Bothwell managed to get more
than two dozen lords and bishops to sign the Ainslie Tavern Bond, in which they
agreed to support his aim to marry the queen.
Marriage Number Three
Mary visited her son at Stirling for the last time
between the 21st and 23rd May. On her way back to
Edinburgh on the 24th April, Mary was abducted by Lord Bothwell and
his men and taken to Dunbar Castle, where most people believed that Bothwell
had raped the Queen.
On the of 6th May, Mary and Bothwell
returned to Edinburgh and on the 15th May, at either Holyrood Palace
or Holyrood Abbey, they were married in a Protestant ceremony. Bothwell and his
first wife, Jean Gordon, who was the sister of Lord Huntly, had divorced twelve
days previously.
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| Mary and Bothwell |
The Scottish Catholics considered that the marriage
unlawful, since they did not recognise Bothwell's divorce or the validity of
the Protestant service. Both Protestants and Catholics were shocked that Mary
should marry the man accused of murdering her husband.
Twenty-six Scottish peers, known as the confederate
lords, turned against Mary and Bothwell, and raised an army against them. Mary
and Bothwell confronted the lords at Carberry Hill on June 15th, but
there was no battle as Mary's forces deserted during negotiations. Bothwell was
given safe passage from the field, and the lords took Mary to Edinburgh, where
crowds of spectators denounced her as an adulteress and murderer. The following
night, she was imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle, on an island in the middle of
Loch Leven. Between the 20th and 23rd July, Mary
miscarried twins and was forced to abdicate in favour of her
one-year-old son James on the 24th and her brother James was made regent, while Bothwell
was driven into exile and imprisoned in Denmark.
Prisoner
.jpg) |
| Loch Leven |
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| The Trial of Mary |
Mary refused to acknowledge the power of any court
to try her since she was an anointed queen, and refused to attend the inquiry
at York personally and instead sent representatives in her place but Elizabeth
forbade her attendance anyway. In evidence against Mary, James presented eight
unsigned letters said to be from Mary to Bothwell, two marriage contracts and a
love sonnet or sonnets said to have been found in a silver-gilt casket, decorated
with the monogram of Mary’s first husband. Mary denied writing them, argued
that her handwriting was not difficult to imitate and insisted they were
forgeries.
They are
widely believed to be crucial as to whether Mary shared the guilt for Darnley's
murder. The chair of the commission of inquiry, the Duke of Norfolk, described
them as horrible letters and diverse fond ballads, and sent copies to
Elizabeth, saying that if they were genuine they might prove Mary's guilt.
The Scottish Queen’s letters did not appear publicly
until the Conference of 1568, although the Scottish privy council had seen them
by December 1567. Some of Mary's contemporaries who saw the letters had no
doubt that they were genuine, among them was the Duke of Norfolk, who secretly
conspired to marry Mary in the course of the commission, although he denied it when
Elizabeth alluded to his marriage plans, saying "he meant never to marry with a person, where he could not be sure
of his pillow".
Elizabeth, as she had wished, concluded the inquiry
with a verdict that nothing was proven, either against the confederate lords or
Mary and for over-riding political reasons, Elizabeth wished to neither convict
nor acquit her cousin of murder, and there was never any intention to proceed
judicially; the conference was intended as a political exercise. In the end, James
returned to Scotland as its regent and Mary remained in custody in England. Elizabeth
had succeeded in maintaining a Protestant government in Scotland, without
either condemning or releasing her fellow sovereign.
Plots
.jpg) |
| Tutbury Castle |
In May 1569, Elizabeth attempted to mediate the
restoration of Mary in return for guarantees of the Protestant religion, but a
convention at Perth rejected the deal overwhelmingly. Norfolk continued to
scheme for a marriage with Mary, and Elizabeth imprisoned him in the
Tower of London between October 1569 and August 1570.
Early in the following year, James was assassinated
in
Linlithgow on 23rd January
1570 by James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, a supporter of Mary. James left his
wife Agnes Keith widowed and his three daughters Elizabeth (8), Annabel and
Margaret fatherless.
The regent’s death coincided with a rebellion in the
North of England, led by Catholic earls, which persuaded Elizabeth that Mary
was a threat. English troops intervened in the Scottish civil war,
consolidating the power of the anti-Marian forces. Elizabeth's principal
secretaries Sir Francis Walsingham and William Cecil, Lord Burghley, watched
Mary carefully with the aid of spies placed in Mary's household.
In 1571, Cecil and Walsingham uncovered the Ridolfi
Plot, which was a plan to replace Elizabeth with Mary with the help of Spanish
troops and the Duke of Norfolk. Norfolk was executed, and the English
Parliament introduced a bill barring Mary from the throne, to which Elizabeth
refused to give royal assent.
To discredit Mary, her letters were published in
London but the plots centred on Mary continued, and after the Throckmorton
Plot, Walsingham introduced the Bond of Association and the Act for the Queen's
Safety, which sanctioned the killing of anyone who plotted against Elizabeth
and was aimed at preventing a putative successor from profiting from her murder.
In April 1585, Mary was placed in the stricter custody of Sir Amias Paulet, and
at Christmas she was moved to a moated manor house at Chartley.
Trial
On the 11th August 1586, Mary was
arrested while out riding and taken to Tixall. In a successful attempt to
entrap her, Walsingham had deliberately arranged for Mary's letters to be
smuggled out of Chartley. Mary was misled into thinking her letters were
secure, while in reality they were deciphered and read by Walsingham.
From these letters it was clear that Mary had
sanctioned the attempted assassination of Elizabeth.
She was moved to
Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire in a four-day journey ending on the 25th of
September, and in October was put on trial for treason under the Act for the
Queen's Safety before a court of 36 noblemen, including Cecil, Shrewsbury, and
Walsingham.Mary denied the charges and was spirited in her defence, telling her
triers, "Look to your consciences
and remember that the theatre of the whole world is wider than the kingdom of
England".
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| Fotheringhay Castle |
Mary drew attention to the facts that she was denied
the opportunity to review the evidence, that her papers had been removed from
her, that she was denied access to legal counsel and that as a foreign anointed
queen she had never been an English subject and thus could not be convicted of
treason.
Mary was convicted on the 25th and
sentenced to death with only one commissioner, Lord Zouche, expressing any form
of dissent. Despite this, Elizabeth hesitated to order her cousin’s execution,
even in the face of pressure from the English Parliament to carry out the
sentence. She was concerned that the killing of a anointed Queen set a
discreditable precedent, and was fearful of the consequences, especially if in
retaliation, Mary's son James formed an alliance with the Catholic powers and
invaded England.
Elizabeth asked Paulet, Mary's final custodian, if
he would contrive a clandestine way to "shorten the life" of Mary,
which he refused to do on the grounds that he would not make "a shipwreck of my conscience, or leave
so great a blot on my poor posterity". On 1st February
1587, Elizabeth signed the death warrant, and entrusted it to William Davison,
a privy councillor and on the 3rd ten members of the Privy Council of England,
having been summoned by Cecil without Elizabeth's knowledge, decided to carry
out the sentence at once.
Execution of the Queen
At Fotheringhay on the evening of 7th February 1587, Mary was told that she was to
be executed the next morning. She spent the last hours of her life in prayer,
distributing her belongings to her household, and writing her will and a letter
to the King of France.
To Henri III, the Most Christian King
of France
8th February 1587
Monsieur mon beau-frère, estant par la
permission de Dieu...
Royal brother, having by God's will,
for my sins I think, thrown myself into the power of the Queen my cousin, at
whose hands I have suffered much for almost twenty years, I have finally been
condemned to death by her and her Estates. I have asked for my papers, which
they have taken away, in order that I might make my will, but I have been
unable to recover anything of use to me, or even get leave either to make my
will freely or to have my body conveyed after my death, as I would wish, to
your kingdom where I had honour to be queen, your sister and old ally.
Tonight, after dinner, I have been
advised of my sentence: I am to be executed like a criminal at eight in the
morning. I have not had time to give you a full account of everything that has
happened, but if you will listen to my doctor and my other unfortunate
servants, you will learn the truth, and how, thanks be to God, I scorn death
and vow that I meet it innocent of any crime, even if I were their subject. The
Catholic faith and the assertion of my God-given right to the English throne
are the two issues on which I am condemned, and yet I am not allowed to say
that it is for the Catholic religion that I die, but for fear of interference
with theirs. The proof of this is that they have taken away my chaplain, and,
although he is in the building, I have not been able to get permission for him
to come and hear my confession and give me the Last Sacrament, while they have
been most insistent that I receive the consolation and instruction of their
minister brought here for that purpose.
The bearer of this letter and his
companions, most of them your subjects, will testify to my conduct at my last
hour. It remains for me to beg Your Most Christian Majesty, my brother-in-law
and old ally, who have always protested your love for me, to give proof now of
your goodness on all these points: firstly by charity, in paying my unfortunate
servants the wages due to them-this is a burden on my conscience that only you
can relieve: further, by having prayers offered to God for a queen who has
borne the title Most Christian, and who dies a Catholic, stripped of all her
possessions. As for my son, I commend him to you in so far as he deserves, for
I cannot answer for him.
I have taken the liberty of sending you
two precious stones, talismans against illness, trusting you will enjoy good
health and a long and happy life. Accept them from your loving sister-in-law,
who, as she dies, bears witness of her warm feelings for you. Again I commend
my servants to you. Give instruction, if it please you, that for my soul's sake
part of what you owe me should be paid, and that for the sake of Jesus Christ,
to whom I shall pray for you tomorrow as I die, I be left enough to found a
memorial mass and give the customary alms.
Your most loving and most true sister.
Marie Queen of Scotland
The scaffold that was erected in the Great Hall of
the castle was two feet high and draped in black. It was reached by two or
three steps and furnished with the block, a cushion for her to kneel on and
three stools, for her and the earls of Shrewsbury and Kent, who acting witnesses.
The executioners knelt before her and asked for her forgiveness
as was the custom. She replied, "I
forgive you with all my heart, for now, I hope, you shall make an end of all my
troubles." Her servants, Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curle, and the
executioners helped Mary to remove her outer garments, revealing a velvet
petticoat and a pair of sleeves in crimson-brown, the liturgical colour of
martyrdom in the Catholic Church, with a black satin bodice and black
trimmings. As she disrobed she smiled and said that she "never had such grooms before ... nor ever put off her clothes
before such a company".
 |
| The Execution of Mary |
After bidding her servants not to cry for her but
instead pray for her. She was blindfolded by Mary Kennedy with a white veil
embroidered in gold and knelt down on the cushion in front of the block, on
which she positioned her head, and stretched out her arms. She recited “O my Lord and my God, I have trusted in
Thee. O my dear Jesus, now liberate me. In shackle and chain, in torture and
pain, I long for Thee. In weakness and sighing, in kneeling and crying, I adore
and implore Thee to liberate me.”
The first blow missed the neck and cut into the back
of the head (ouch!) and Mary was heard to whisper "Sweet Jesus" and the second blow almost severed the head
and it took the third blow completely cut through the remaining sinew.
As the executioner then picked up the head and held
it up in the air to show the audience saying “god save the queen” and the head rolled to the floor, the hair
being a wig. Mary's hair was almost entirely grey from her long imprisonment so
she wore a wig to hide the fact that she no longer had her strawberry blonde
hair.
Every relic was burned and every drop of blood
washed away. Her little Skye terrier
which had managed to hide under her skirts and would not leave his dead
mistress's side was also washed but refused thereafter to be fed (forget man’s
best friend this proves dog’s can be a girl’s best friend.)
Mary's body was then subjected to further
humiliations as her heart and organs were buried deep within the Castle where
she had been beheaded while the body was then embalmed and incarcerated in a
heavy lead coffin which remained unburied in the Castle until for 5 months and
22 days after the Queen’s execution, when it was taken at the dead of night for
fear of public protest, to Peterborough Cathedral. Mary had requested to be
buried in France but Elizabeth refused her cousin’s request.
When the news of the execution reached Elizabeth,
she became indignant and asserted that Davison had disobeyed her instructions
not to part with the warrant and that the Privy Council had acted without her
authority. Elizabeth's vacillation and deliberately vague instructions gave her
plausible deniability, to attempt to avoid the direct stain of Mary's blood.
Davison was arrested, thrown into the Tower of London, and found guilty of
misprision. He was released 19 months later after Cecil and Walsingham
interceded on his behalf.
Burial
 |
| James looks at his mother's portrait in Gunpowder, Treason and Plot Part "If you could see me now." |
Mary’s son by Darnley, James became Elizabeth’s sole
heir and ascended to throne in 1603. He became James VI of Scotland and James I
of England. Even though he never knew his mother he knew about her and what she
looked liked. Mary had been brought up as a Catholic but her son was a
Protestant and that was one of the reasons why Elizabeth left him as the Heir
to England.
James ordered for his mother be reburied in
Westminster Abbey, in a chapel opposite the tomb of Elizabeth I. In 1867, her
tomb was opened to try to find the resting place of James I; he was ultimately
found with him buried near his great-great grandfather Henry VII, but many of
her other descendants, including Elizabeth of Bohemia, Prince Rupert of the
Rhine and the children of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, were interred in Mary’s
vault.
Legacy
 |
| The Other Queen |
I personally think that Mary is an extremely
fascinating woman. A Queen at six days old, brought up at the French court as a
Princesse de la France to become Queen of France then Dowager Queen and then
returning to her home country after 13 years as Queen of Scotland only to be
chased into England where she would meet her end. She was both a Stuart of
Scotland but also a Tudor of England. She was a ruthless ruler like her English
Queen and I believe she would of been a fantastic Queen if she had been
Protestant or been born a century earlier.
Mary makes a fascinating subject in the Media. The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory
tells the story of Mary’s imprisonment in England through the eyes of Mary,
Bessie Hardwick
and George Talbot. Gregory stated “it is
a challenge to write a novel about Mary Queen of Scots - so much has been
written about her already - a play and an opera as well as dozens of histories.
In this novel I looked at her long years of imprisonment and the extraordinary
triangle that developed between her, her gaoler the Earl of Shrewsbury and his
wonderful wife Bess of Hardwick. The dynamic between these three makes this
novel not just an historical novel about the times but a psychological study of
three people trapped together.”
Mary has been used in films for years; centuries
after her death in 1587. Vannesa Redgrave played the Scottish Queen in 1971
British film Mary, Queen of Scots while
Camille Rutherford took the part in the 2013 Swiss film Mary Queen of Scots. French actress Clémence Poésy took the part of
Mary in Gunpowder, Treason and Plot
in 2004.
Mary defiantly deserves to recognised as a brilliant
Queen in her own right and should be celebrated in this blog.
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