Mary’s troubles began 6 days after her birth, the same day that her father, King James V of Scotland, died and the infant was declared Queen of the Scots.
She was proclaimed the Queen of France, at age 16 and widowed by 18.
Initially Queen Mary defies pressure to remarry.
Instead, she returns to her native Scotland to reclaim her rightful throne.
From then, she was immediately thrust into a cauldron of political turmoil containing a broiling mix:
- the long-standing enmity between Scotland and England,
- the fragility of the Tudor succession to the English throne
- England’s rivalry with France
- religious violence between Catholics and Protestants.
Violence, panic and bad decisions will dominate and pursue her.
As the great-granddaughter of England’s Henry VII (the first monarch of the House of Tudor), Mary was next in line to the crown of England after Henry VIII’s children – Edward, Mary and Elizabeth.
Elizabeth’s parents and siblings have died -only Elizabeth remains alive.
Despite her reputation as England’s greatest and most popular monarch, Elizabeth’s reign was a turbulent one, and she was the target of an almost constant series of over 17 confirmed rebellions and conspiracies designed to drive her from the throne.
The key political issue of the time was the legitimacy of the sovereign, but the Tudor dynasty had no unquestioned right to rule; its founder, Henry VII, was himself a usurper with only a dubious claim to the throne.
The Scots attempted to remove the threat posed to Henry’s succession, by pledging the new-born Mary to marriage with his son Edward.
This plan soon self-destructed and the Scots turned to their old ally (and England’s enemy) France.
However, Scotland and England fall under the rule of her cousin, Elizabeth I.
Each young Queen beholds her cousin in fear and fascination.
Rivals in power and in love, the two female regents reign in a masculine world with a shaky hold on their crowns. Now, they must decide how to play the game of marriage versus independence.
4 years later, Queen Mary of Scots married her first cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley and in June 1566, they had a son, James.
Mary had a secretary named David Rizzo, who came with the Count de Moretto in 1561, to lead an embassy to Scotland.
The Court in Scotland had no employment for Rizzio, and dismissed him, however he ingratiated himself with the Queen’s musicians, whom she had brought with her from France.
James Melville, a friend of Rizzio, said “Her Majesty had 3 valets in her chamber, who sung three parts, and wanted a bass to sing the 4th part”. Thus, Rizzo was drawn into the court of the cosmopolitan young Queen.
Rizzo by the end of 1564, had grown wealthy under the Queen’s patronage, then he became the Queen’s secretary for relations with France, after the previous occupant of the post retired. Rumors began to surface, that Mary was having an adulterous affair with Rizzio.
The Queen was 6 months pregnant (with James VI) at the time, and Rizzio was accused of having impregnated her.
Having burst into the Queen’s private dining room, the rebels, led by Patrick Ruthven, demanded Rizzio be handed over.
The Queen refused. Rizzio then hid behind Mary but was nevertheless seized and stabbed to death in the presence of the Queen.
After this violent struggle, Rizzio was stabbed an alleged 56 times, before being thrown down the main staircase and stripped of his jewels and fine clothes.
He was buried within two hours in the cemetery of Holyrood. Buchanan and Daniel state that shortly afterwards his body was removed by the Queen’s orders and deposited in the sepulcher of the Kings of Scotland; a measure most impolitic, as it strengthened the previous reports of her familiarity with him.
Rumors were thrown around, as to why this happened to Rizzio – most claim Darnley was jealous.
In February 1567, Darnley’s residence was destroyed by an explosion, and he was found murdered by strangulation in the garden. The fire was seen as a cover up gone wrong for his murder.
Robert Melville, a Scottish diplomat arrived in Edinburgh from London and reported back to Queen Elizabeth and Cecil, on the aftermath of the murder.
He noted that Morton, Lord Ruthven, and Patrick Lindsay, 6th Lord of Byres had fled, and William Maitland of Lethington, the Clerk Register James Balfour, the Justice Clerk John Bellenden, and some gentlemen of Lothian who were suspected of having knowledge of the plan had fled.
Mary had escaped from Edinburgh to Dunbar Castle, but Rizzio’s brother, Joseph, arrived in Scotland with Michel de Castelnau and was appointed secretary in David’s place, by the 25th of April 1566.
Joseph Rizzo and an Italian colleague, Joseph Lutyni, had some trouble over coins taken from the queen’s purse, and in April 1567 he was accused and acquitted with Bothwell of Darnley’s murder.
Though the suspected assassin James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, was acquitted of the charge in April 1567, the following month, he was said to have kidnapped Queen Mary and raping her, and in a very short time later they married, which enraged the nobility.
Mary brought an army against the nobles, but was defeated and imprisoned at Lochleven, Scotland, and on 24 July 1567, Mary was forced to abdicate in favor of her one-year-old son, James.
In 1568, Mary escaped from captivity and raised a substantial army but was defeated and fled to England.
After an unsuccessful attempt to regain the throne, Queen Mary fled southwards seeking the protection of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England.
Perceiving her as a threat, Elizabeth I, had imprisoned in various castles in the interior of England.
Reacting to the growing threat posed by Catholics, urged on by the pope and other Catholic monarchs in Europe, Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth’s Secretary of State and spymaster, together with William Cecil, Elizabeth’s chief advisor, realised that if Mary could be implicated in a plot to assassinate Elizabeth, she could be executed and the papist threat diminished.
They came up with the Babington Plot.
Despite this assurance of this foreign support, Babington was hesitant, as he thought that no foreign invasion would succeed for as long as Elizabeth remained, to which Ballard answered that the plans of John Savage would take care of that.
After a lengthy discussion with friends and soon-to-be fellow conspirators, Babington consented to join and to lead the conspiracy.
After the Throckmorton Plot, Queen Elizabeth had issued a decree in July 1584, which prevented all communication to and from Mary.
However, Walsingham and Cecil realized the decree also impaired their ability to entrap Mary.
They needed evidence for which she could be executed based on their Bond of Association tenets.
Thus Walsingham established a new line of communication, one which he could carefully control without incurring any suspicion from Mary.
Gifford approached the French ambassador to England, Guillaume de l’Aubespine, Baron de Châteauneuf-sur-Cher, and described the new correspondence arrangement that had been designed by Walsingham.
Gifford and jailer Paulet had arranged for a local brewer to facilitate the movement of messages between Queen Mary and her supporters by placing them in a watertight casing inside the stopper of a beer barrel.
Thomas Phelippes, a cipher and language expert in Walsingham’s employ, was then quartered at Chartley Hall to receive the messages, decode them and send them to Walsingham. Gifford submitted a code table (supplied by Walsingham) to Chateauneuf and requested the first message be sent to Mary.
All subsequent messages to Mary would be sent via diplomatic packets to Chateauneuf, who then passed them on to Gifford.
Gifford would pass them on to Walsingham, who would confide them to Phelippes.
The cipher used was a nomenclator cipher. Phelippes would decode and make a copy of the letter.
The letter was then resealed and given back to Gifford, who would pass it on to the brewer. The brewer would then smuggle the letter to Mary.
If Mary sent a letter to her supporters, it would go through the reverse process. In short order, every message coming to and from Chartley Hall was intercepted and read by Walsingham.
After 19 years of imprisonment, Queen Mary of Scots , was found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth I in 1586.
Although Mary was found guilty—at a trial where she was not allowed to have a lawyer)—and subsequently sentenced to death—in October of 1586—she could not be executed until Queen Elizabeth I signed her cousin’s warrant of execution.
Months passed while Elizabeth considered whether she should sign the warrant. During those months, the Tudor Queen’s advisers urged her to sign it.
Elizabeth finally signed the warrant on February 1, 1587. Her signature appears at the top of the document.
A key part of the order commands Henry Grey, the Sixth Earl of Kent, to:
…repair to our Castle of Fotheringhaye where the said queene of Scottes is in custodie and cause by your commaundement execution to be don uppon her person.
Those are the words which authorized Mary’s beheading. See this BBC video for more about the writ of execution.
Days after Elizabeth signed the death warrant, Mary learned about it. Surviving records indicate her brief response to Elizabeth’s representatives.
I did not think that the Queen, my sister, would ever have consented to my death; but, God’s will be done. He is my principal witness, that I shall render up my spirit into His hands innocent of any offence against her, and with a pure heart and conscience clear before His divine majesty of the crimes whereof I am accused. That soul is fair unworthy of the joys of heaven, whose body cannot endure for a moment the stroke of the executioner. (Quoted in Fotheringhay, and Mary, Queen of Scots, by Cuthbert Bede,pages 111-12.)
Lambeth Palace Library, which now owns the document, tells us about the provenance of this copy:
The original warrant disappeared in the recriminations which followed Mary’s execution. This copy was delivered to Robert Beale, principal clerk to the Privy Council by Henry Grey, 6th Earl of Kent, one of the two commissioners tasked with organising the execution. It was accompanied by a covering letter to the Earl from the Privy Council which has long been part of the Library’s collections.
Both the cover letter, and the death warrant, are now in the safekeeping of the Library.
She was beheaded the following year at Fotheringhay Castle.
Correspondence held at the National Library of Scotland
Execution Day
Mary’s execution took place at Fotheringhay Castle.
Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantome was a member of the French nobility who accompanied Mary during her internment.
He provides us with a sympathetic account of Mary’s execution that begins with the arrival of a delegation from Queen Elizabeth announcing that the former Queen of the Scots is to be executed the next day:
“On February 7, 1587, the representatives of the English Queen, reached the Castle of Fotheringay, where the Queen of Scotland was confined at that time, between two and three o’clock in the afternoon.
In the presence of her jailer, Paulet, they read their commission regarding the execution of the prisoner, and said that they would proceed with their task the next morning between seven and eight o’clock.
The jailer was then ordered to have everything in readiness.
Without betraying any astonishment, the Queen thanked them for their good news, saying that nothing could be more welcome to her, since she longed for an end to her miseries, and had been prepared for death ever since she had been sent as a prisoner to England.
However, she begged the envoys to give her a little time in which to make herself ready, make her will, and place her affairs in order.
It was within their power and discretion to grant these requests.
The Count of Shrewsbury replied rudely:
‘No, no, Madam you must die, you must die!
Be ready between seven and eight in the morning. It cannot be delayed a moment beyond that time.’ ”
Mary spent the rest of the day and the early hours of the next morning writing farewell letters to friends and relatives, saying goodbye to her ladies-in-waiting, and praying.
We rejoin de Bourdeille’s account as Mary enters the room designated for her execution and is denied access to her priest:
“The scaffold had been erected in the middle of a large room.
It measured twelve feet along each side and two feet in height, and was covered by a coarse cloth of linen.
The Queen entered the room full of grace and majesty, just as if she were coming to a ball.
There was no change on her features as she entered.
Drawing up before the scaffold, she summoned her major-domo and said to him:
‘Please help me mount this. This is the last request I shall make of you.’
Then she repeated to him all that she had said to him in her room about what he should tell her son.
Standing on the scaffold, she asked for her almoner, (chaplain) begging the officers present to allow him to come. But this was refused point-blank.
The Count of Kent told her that he pitied her greatly to see her thus the victim of the superstition of past ages, advising her to carry the cross of Christ in her heart rather than in her hand.
To this she replied that it would be difficult to hold a thing so lovely in her hand and not feel it thrill the heart, and that what became every Christian in the hour of death was to bear with him the true Symbol of Redemption.“.
“Nay, my good man, touch me not!”
Standing on the scaffold, Mary angrily rejects her captors’ offer of a Protestant minister to give her comfort. She kneels while she begs that Queen Elizabeth spare her ladies-in-waiting and prays for the conversion of the Isle of Britain and Scotland to the Catholic Church:
“When this was over, she summoned her women to help her remove her black veil, her head-dress, and other ornaments. When the executioner attempted to do this, she cried out:
‘Nay, my good man, touch me not!’
But she could not prevent him from touching her, for when her dress was lowered as far as her waist; the scoundrel caught her roughly by the arm and pulled off her doublet. Her skirt was cut so low that her neck and throat, whiter than alabaster, were revealed.
She concealed these as well as she could, saying that she was not used to disrobing in public, especially before so large an assemblage. There were about four or five hundred people present.
The executioner fell to his knees before her and implored her forgiveness.
The Queen told him that she willingly forgave him and alI who were responsible for her death, as freely as she hoped her sins would be forgiven by God.
Turning to the woman to whom she, had given her handkerchief, she asked for it.
She wore a golden crucifix, made out of the wood of the true cross, with a picture of Our Lord on it.
She was about to give this to one of her women, but the executioner forbade it, even though Her Majesty had promised that the woman would give him thrice its value in money.
After kissing her women once more, she bade them go, with her blessing, as she made the sign of the cross over them.
One of them was unable to keep from crying, so that the Queen had to impose silence upon her by saying she had promised that nothing of the kind would interfere with the business in hand.
They were to stand back quietly, pray to God for her soul, and bear truthful testimony that she had died in the bosom of the Holy Catholic religion.
One of the women then tied the handkerchief over her eyes.
The Queen quickly, and with great courage, knelt dawn, showing no signs of faltering.
So great was her bravery that all present were moved, and there were few among them that could refrain from tears. In their hearts they condemned themselves far the injustice that was being done.
The executioner, or rather the minister of Satan, strove to kill not only her body but also her soul, and kept interrupting her prayers.
The Queen repeated in Latin the Psalm beginning In te, Damine, speravi; nan canfundar in aeternum.
When she was through she laid her head on the block, and as she repeated the prayer, the executioner struck her a great blow upon the neck, which was not, however, entirely severed.
Then he struck twice more, since it was obvious that he wished to make the victim’s martyrdom all the more severe. It was not so much the suffering, but the cause, that made the martyr.
The executioner then picked up the severed head and, showing it to those present, cried out: ‘God save Queen Elizabeth! May all the enemies of the true Evangel thus perish!’
Saying this, he stripped off the dead Queen’s head-dress, in order to show her hair, which was now white, and which she had been afraid to show to everyone when she was still alive, or to have properly dressed, as she did when her hair was fair and light.
It was not old age that had turned it white, for she was only thirty-five when this took place, and scarcely forty when she met her death, but the troubles, misfortunes, and sorrows which she had suffered, especially in her prison.”
This is her last letter:
Queen of Scotland
8 Feb. 1587
Sire, my brother-in-law, 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 the 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
pg1
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 crown 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 them – this is a burden on my conscience that only you can relieve:
pg2
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 that 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 feeling for you. Again I commend my servants to you. Give instructions, 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.
This Wednesday, two hours after midnight.
Your very loving and most true sister, Mary R
pg3
To the most Christian king, my brother-in-law and old ally.
pg4
