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4 | <meta name="content" content="Primary Sources: The execution of Mary, queen of Scots, 1587">
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9 | <title>Primary Sources: The execution of Mary, queen of Scots, 1587</title>
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21 | <p align="center"> <br>
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23 | <img border="0" src="exmary.gif" width="321" height="110"><p align="center"> </td>
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31 | <td valign="top" width="48%" bgcolor="#FFFFE8">
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32 | <font size=-1>
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33 | <img border="1" src="relative/maryqos1565cr.jpg" align="left" width="175" height="236">Mary Stuart
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34 | was executed on 8 February 1587 at Fotheringhay Castle, after a trial
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35 | whose outcome forever troubled Queen Elizabeth I.</font><p>
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36 | <font size=-1>This famous account of the execution was written by Robert
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37 | Wynkfielde.</font></p>
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38 | <p><font size="-1">Accounts such as these, and woodcuts of the scene, were
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39 | very popular throughout Europe. The great scandals of Mary's life
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40 | were forgotten and she was mourned as a Catholic martyr. The truth
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41 | of her demise was not so simple. Mary <i>did</i> plot against
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42 | Elizabeth's life; and Elizabeth did consistently reject petitions to
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43 | execute Mary over the 19-year course of her imprisonment.
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44 | Eventually, however, the Catholic threat was deemed too great and
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45 | Elizabeth reluctantly signed the warrant for execution.</font></p>
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46 | <p><br>
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50 | <td valign="top" width="48%">
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53 |
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54 | Her [Mary queen of Scots] prayers being ended, the executioners, kneeling,
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55 | desired her Grace to forgive them her death: who answered, 'I forgive you
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56 | with all my heart, for now, I hope, you shall make an end of all my troubles.'
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57 | Then they, with her two women, helping her up, began to disrobe her of
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58 | her apparel: then she, laying her crucifix upon the stool, one of the executioners
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59 | took from her neck the <i>Agnus Dei</i>, which she, laying hands off it,
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60 | gave to one of her women, and told the executioner he should be answered
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61 | money for it. Then she suffered them, with her two women, to disrobe
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62 | her of her chain of pomander beads and all other her apparel most willingly,
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63 | and with joy rather than sorrow, helped to make unready herself, putting
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64 | on a pair of sleeves with her own hands which they had pulled off, and
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65 | that with some haste, as if she had longed to be gone.
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66 | <br>All this time they were pulling off her apparel, she never changed
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67 | her countenance, but with smiling cheer she uttered these words, 'that
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68 | she never had such grooms to make her unready, and that she never put off
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69 | her clothes before such a company.'
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70 | <br>Then she, being stripped of all her apparel saving her petticoat and
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71 | kirtle, her two women beholding her made great lamentation, and crying
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72 | and crossing themselves prayed in Latin. She, turning herself to
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73 | them, embracing them, said these words in French, 'Ne crie vous, j'ay prome
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74 | pour vous', and so crossing and kissing them, bade them pray for her and
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75 | rejoice and not weep, for that now they should see an end of all their
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76 | mistress's troubles.
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77 | <br>Then she, with a smiling countenance, turning to her men servants,
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78 | as Melvin and the rest, standing upon a bench nigh the scaffold, who sometime
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79 | weeping, sometime crying out aloud, and continually crossing themselves,
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80 | prayed in Latin, crossing them with her hand bade them farewell, and wishing
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81 | them to pray for her even until the last hour.
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82 | <br>This done, one of the women having a <i>Corpus Christi </i>cloth lapped
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83 | up three-corner-ways, kissing it, put it over the Queen of Scots' face,
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84 | and pinned it fast to the caule of her head. Then the two women departed
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85 | from her, and she kneeling down upon the cushion most resolutely, and without
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86 | any token or fear of death, she spake aloud this Psalm in Latin, <i>In
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87 | Te Domine confido, non confundar in eternam</i>, etc. Then, groping
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88 | for the block, she laid down her head, putting her chin over the block
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89 | with both her hands, which, holding there still, had been cut off had they
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90 | not been espied. Then lying upon the block most quietly, and stretching
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91 | out her arms cried, <i>In manus tuas, Domine</i>, etc., three or four times.
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92 | Then she, lying very still upon the block, one of the executioners holding
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93 | her slightly with one of his hands, she endured two strokes of the other
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94 | executioner with an axe, she making very small noise or none at all, and
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95 | not stirring any part of her from the place where she lay: and so the executioner
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96 | cut off her head, saving one little gristle, which being cut asunder, he
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97 | lift up her head to the view of all the assembly and bade <i>God save the
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98 | Queen</i>. Then, her dress of lawn falling from off her head, it
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99 | appeared as grey as one of threescore and ten years old, polled very short,
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100 | her face in a moment being so much altered from the form she had when she
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101 | was alive, as few could remember her by her dead face. Her lips stirred
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102 | up and down a quarter of an hour after her head was cut off.
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103 | <br>Then Mr Dean [Dr Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough] said with a loud voice,
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104 | 'So perish all the Queen's enemies,' and afterwards the Earl of Kent came
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105 | to the dead body, and standing over it, with a loud voice said, 'Such end
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106 | of all the Queen's and the Gospel's enemies.'
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107 | <br>Then one of the executioners, pulling off her garters, espied her little
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108 | dog which was crept under her clothes, which could not be gotten forth
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109 | but by force, yet afterward would not depart from the dead corpse, but
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110 | came and lay between her head and her shoulders, which being imbrued with
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111 | her blood was carried away and washed, as all things else were that had
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112 | any blood was either burned or washed clean, and the executioners sent
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113 | away with money for their fees, not having any one thing that belonged
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114 | unto her. And so, every man being commanded out of the hall, except
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115 | the sheriff and his men, she was carried by them up into a great chamber
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116 | lying ready for the surgeons to embalm her.<p> </p>
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117 |
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118 | <p align="center"><nt><font size="2">
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119 | <a href="relative/maryqos.html">to the Mary,
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120 | queen of Scots website</a></font><p align="center"><a href="primary.html">
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121 | <font size="2">to Primary Sources</font></a></td>
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