"I think it were well, my
dears, that I should eat something and then retire, that on the morrow I may do
nothing undignified, or lack courage."
The queen rose before dawn at
Fotheringay Castle on February 8, 1587. She wanted to look her best. All eyes
would be on her. She would be the center of attention at the momentous event.
Her ladies-in-waiting helped her into a
vivid crimson petticoat and then into a black velvet gown. The final touch? A
black veil and headdress.
Today Mary, Queen of Scotland, would
be beheaded. Her cousin Queen Elizabeth I of England signed her death warrant a
week earlier. It would be the first legal execution of a European head of
state.
Mary had been held prisoner for a
score of years. Elizabeth came to her decision after great deliberation. She
and Mary had long been rivals for the throne of England. They were cousins,
both descended from Henry VIII.
Elizabeth was the daughter of
Henry's second wife Anne Boleyn who, incidentally, lost her head, as well. When
the bed-hopping Henry ended his first married to Catherine of Aragon, the
resulting furor with the Catholic Church was so calamatous that Henry left the
flock. As a result, Catholics never viewed Elizabeth, a Protestant, as a legitimate
heir to the throne.
Instead, they contended that Mary,
the queen of Scotland, should rightfully rule England. (In those days
Scotland and England were separate realms.) After all, Mary was the
granddaughter of Henry's sister.
Prove her undoing
Mary had ascended to the Scottish throne
after her father's death when she was only six days old. When she was five, her
mother sent her to France to be raised. She married the son of the French king.
When her father-in-law died, she also became queen of France.
Now queen of two countries, Mary's
claim to the English throne as Henry VIII's grand-niece would ultimately prove
her undoing, literally.
Soon after Elizabeth became queen in
1558, one of her ministers correctly saw that so long as Mary lived "this
quarrel [between Protestant and Catholics over rival queens] is undoubtedly
like to be a perpetual incumbrance of this kingdom."
Mary was still living in France in
1560 when Scottish rebels (with English military assistance) overthrew their
Catholic rulers backed by French troops stationed in Scotland. When they sailed
home, France's king formally recognized Elizabeth's authority over England.
With Protestants now ruling
Scotland, a humiliated Mary returned home. She attempted to make amends with
Elizabeth, writing her that they were "both in one isle, both of one
language, the nearest kinswoman that each other hand, and both queens."
Unfortunately, she gravely
complicated matters by asking Elizabeth to make her heir to the English throne.
This Elizabeth would not do.
Mary made her situation much worse
in 1565 when she wed Lord Darnley. This Catholic nobleman, like Mary, also
claimed direct lineage to Elizabeth's crown, thus threatening Elizabeth's
status further. Two years later they had a son, further strengthening their
presumed title.
In a bizarre turn of events, Darnley
died in a mysterious explosion. Three months later, Mary married the Earl of
Bothwell, the prime suspect in the murder. Mary's allies in Scotland had had
enough. They renounced her, forced her to abdicate, and imprisoned her. She escaped
and fled to England where Elizabeth held her in custody.
Elizabeth put Mary on trial to
determine whether she had abetted in the murder and, more important, to
determine her loyalty to England. Eight scandalous—and unsigned—letters were
put into evidence. Supposedly from Mary to Bothwell, they proved her adultery
and complicity in Darnley's murder.
Elizabeth thought the letters were
forgeries. While still feeling some sympathy for her cousin, she also feared that
if she accepted the correspondence as legitimate, some might regard them as
proof that no woman, including Elizabeth herself, was fit to rule.
Over the next few years, Elizabeth
uncovered several new Catholic plots swirling around Mary, all designed to
remove her from power. She beseeched Mary to admit her involvement in
treasonous acts. Mary refused, saying that because she was queen of a foreign
land, she could not be guilty of treason.
At her trial in August 1586, Mary
told the court, "Look to your consciences and remember that the theatre of
the whole world is wider than the kingdom of England."
Though the court found Mary guilty,
Elizabeth hesitated to put her to death. After all, if she ordered the
execution of one queen, it would legitimize the deed, thus weakening her
standing if she were later dethroned. At last, however, Elizabeth authorized
Mary's death, saying her acts had "compassed and imagined the hurt, death
and destruction of the royal person."
Elizabeth's men arrived at the castle the
day before Mary's execution. When they read the death warrant to her, she
seemed unsurprised and "thanked them for their good news." After
years of imprisonment, she had apparently wearied of its accompanying sorrows
and sufferings.
The night before her execution, Mary wrote out her confession, as she was not permitted to see a priest, and penned farewell
letters to various nobles. She invited her ladies-in-waiting into her chambers,
and upon opening her chests of jewelry and riches, distributed them to her
court, saying that she was sorry she had so little to share with them,
according to French historian Pierre deBrantome. He heard the story of her
execution from two of Mary's "trustworthy serving-women, who were faithful
to the promise they made their mistress to bear witness of her constancy."
They said that on her last night, Mary prayed for two hours. Before going to bed, she told her servants, "I
think it were well, my dears, that I should eat something and then retire, that
on the morrow I may do nothing undignified, or lack courage."
Doing me a great favor
After a fitful night's sleep, Mary
arose and was dressed. A loud knocking came at the door. Her final escort had
arrived. She told Elizabeth's men, "I am ready to meet my death. I
feel that the Queen, my sister, is doing me a great favor."
An account by Robert Wynkfielde, a witness
of the day's events, reported that Mary also said "All
this world is but vanity, and full of troubles and sorrows; carry this message
from me, and tell my friends that I die a true woman to my religion, and like a
true Scottish woman and a true Frenchwoman.
"But
God forgive them that have long desired my end; and He that is the true Judge
of all secret thoughts knoweth my mind, how that it ever hath been my desire to
have Scotland and England united together."
She
walked with her escorts to a large room in the castle where more than 100
witnesses had gathered. A two-foot high platform had been built in the middle
of the chamber, and a black cloth had been thrown over it.
To everyone's amazement, Mary had such dignity, she looked as though she were making a grand entrance to a formal ball. When one of her ladies broke down crying, Queen Mary put her finger over her lips, signaling her to be quiet.
Upon mounting the scaffold, the
executioner grabbed her. With the aid of two of her servants, he pulled down
her dress to her waist. Everyone now saw her petticoat—It was brilliant red, the
traditional color of a Catholic martyr. Abashed, she told her audience that "she
never had such grooms to make her unready, and that she never put off her
clothes before such a company."
When one of Elizabeth's noblemen asked her if she would repent,
according to Wynkfielde, she replied, "I am settled in the ancient
Catholic Roman religion, and mind to spend my blood in defense of it."
"Madam,
change your opinion," he implored her. "Repent you of your former
wickedness, and settle your faith only in Jesus Christ, by Him to be
saved."
"Trouble not yourself any more, for I am settled and resolved in this my
religion, and am purposed therein to die," she replied.
Other nobles followed suit saying, "We will pray for your Grace, that it
stand with God's will you may have your heart lightened, even at the last hour,
with the true knowledge of God, and so die therein."
"If you will pray for me, my Lords, I will thank you," she said.
"But to join in prayer with you I will not, for that you and I are not of
one religion."
Now the executioner knelt at her
feet, as was the custom, and begged her for forgiveness.
"I forgive you with all my heart,
for now," she said "I hope you shall make an end of all of my
troubles."
Mary laid down her Catholic prayer
book and crucifix. She took out a gold-embroidered white veil and gave it to
her servant, instructing her to fasten it as blindfold.
"Sweet Jesus"
She began praying aloud in Latin. Kneeling
on a black cushion that had been provided, she lay her head on the
chopping block. As she said "In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum
("Into Thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit."), the ax slammed down.
But it barely grazed her head.
"Sweet Jesus," Mary moaned.
Down thundered the ax again. It left
the head dangling "saving one little gristle."
A
third stroke, and the head rolled free.
Standing before the scaffold, the
Earl of Kent cried, "Such end of all the Queen's and the Gospel's enemies."
"God save Queen
Elizabeth!" the executioner cried, holding up Mary's head. "May all
enemies of the true Evangel perish thus!"
To everyone's horror, when he picked
up her head by her red hair, the head fell. Mary had been wearing a wig. She
had cut off all almost all her hair. Everyone saw that what hair she had left
had turned white due to the grief and stresses of her long imprisonment.
"Her lips stirred up and down a quarter
of an hour after her head was cut off," Wynkfielde reported.
The executioner lifted the hem of
Mary's floor-length dress to take her garters. This was the custom, and in
those days women tied garters at their knees. Under her skirts he got a second surprise— Mary's pet dog Geddon, a white skye terrier, was cowered under her hems.
At the sight of his bloody, lifeless
mistress, the dog howled and lay in front of her shoulders where her head should have been. One of the
noblemen grabbed the dog and pressed its face into the blood. The dog bit
his hand.
So that none of her effects would be
treasured as relics, her crucifix, prayer book, and clothes were burned.
History does not record the fate of
her dog.
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