| 1 | <html>
|
|---|
| 2 |
|
|---|
| 3 | <head>
|
|---|
| 4 | <meta name="content" content="Primary Sources: The execution of Mary, queen of Scots, 1587">
|
|---|
| 5 | <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0">
|
|---|
| 6 | <meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">
|
|---|
| 7 | <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
|
|---|
| 8 | <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
|
|---|
| 9 | <title>Primary Sources: The execution of Mary, queen of Scots, 1587</title>
|
|---|
| 10 | <style fprolloverstyle>A:hover {color: #0000FF; font-weight: bold}
|
|---|
| 11 | </style>
|
|---|
| 12 | </head>
|
|---|
| 13 |
|
|---|
| 14 | <body link="#0000FF" vlink="#0000FF" alink="#0000FF">
|
|---|
| 15 |
|
|---|
| 16 | <div align="center">
|
|---|
| 17 | <center>
|
|---|
| 18 | <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="4" width="94%">
|
|---|
| 19 | <tr>
|
|---|
| 20 | <td valign="bottom" colspan="3">
|
|---|
| 21 | <p align="center"> <br>
|
|---|
| 22 | <p align="center">
|
|---|
| 23 | <img border="0" src="exmary.gif" width="321" height="110"><p align="center"> </td>
|
|---|
| 24 | </tr>
|
|---|
| 25 | <tr>
|
|---|
| 26 | <td></td>
|
|---|
| 27 | <td></td>
|
|---|
| 28 | <td></td>
|
|---|
| 29 | </tr>
|
|---|
| 30 | <tr>
|
|---|
| 31 | <td valign="top" width="48%" bgcolor="#FFFFE8">
|
|---|
| 32 | <font size=-1>
|
|---|
| 33 | <img border="1" src="relative/maryqos1565cr.jpg" align="left" width="175" height="236">Mary Stuart
|
|---|
| 34 | was executed on 8 February 1587 at Fotheringhay Castle, after a trial
|
|---|
| 35 | whose outcome forever troubled Queen Elizabeth I.</font><p>
|
|---|
| 36 | <font size=-1>This famous account of the execution was written by Robert
|
|---|
| 37 | Wynkfielde.</font></p>
|
|---|
| 38 | <p><font size="-1">Accounts such as these, and woodcuts of the scene, were
|
|---|
| 39 | very popular throughout Europe. The great scandals of Mary's life
|
|---|
| 40 | were forgotten and she was mourned as a Catholic martyr. The truth
|
|---|
| 41 | of her demise was not so simple. Mary <i>did</i> plot against
|
|---|
| 42 | Elizabeth's life; and Elizabeth did consistently reject petitions to
|
|---|
| 43 | execute Mary over the 19-year course of her imprisonment.
|
|---|
| 44 | Eventually, however, the Catholic threat was deemed too great and
|
|---|
| 45 | Elizabeth reluctantly signed the warrant for execution.</font></p>
|
|---|
| 46 | <p><br>
|
|---|
| 47 |
|
|---|
| 48 | </td>
|
|---|
| 49 | <td width="4%"></td>
|
|---|
| 50 | <td valign="top" width="48%">
|
|---|
| 51 |
|
|---|
| 52 |
|
|---|
| 53 |
|
|---|
| 54 | Her [Mary queen of Scots] prayers being ended, the executioners, kneeling,
|
|---|
| 55 | desired her Grace to forgive them her death: who answered, 'I forgive you
|
|---|
| 56 | with all my heart, for now, I hope, you shall make an end of all my troubles.'
|
|---|
| 57 | Then they, with her two women, helping her up, began to disrobe her of
|
|---|
| 58 | her apparel: then she, laying her crucifix upon the stool, one of the executioners
|
|---|
| 59 | took from her neck the <i>Agnus Dei</i>, which she, laying hands off it,
|
|---|
| 60 | gave to one of her women, and told the executioner he should be answered
|
|---|
| 61 | money for it. Then she suffered them, with her two women, to disrobe
|
|---|
| 62 | her of her chain of pomander beads and all other her apparel most willingly,
|
|---|
| 63 | and with joy rather than sorrow, helped to make unready herself, putting
|
|---|
| 64 | on a pair of sleeves with her own hands which they had pulled off, and
|
|---|
| 65 | that with some haste, as if she had longed to be gone.
|
|---|
| 66 | <br>All this time they were pulling off her apparel, she never changed
|
|---|
| 67 | her countenance, but with smiling cheer she uttered these words, 'that
|
|---|
| 68 | she never had such grooms to make her unready, and that she never put off
|
|---|
| 69 | her clothes before such a company.'
|
|---|
| 70 | <br>Then she, being stripped of all her apparel saving her petticoat and
|
|---|
| 71 | kirtle, her two women beholding her made great lamentation, and crying
|
|---|
| 72 | and crossing themselves prayed in Latin. She, turning herself to
|
|---|
| 73 | them, embracing them, said these words in French, 'Ne crie vous, j'ay prome
|
|---|
| 74 | pour vous', and so crossing and kissing them, bade them pray for her and
|
|---|
| 75 | rejoice and not weep, for that now they should see an end of all their
|
|---|
| 76 | mistress's troubles.
|
|---|
| 77 | <br>Then she, with a smiling countenance, turning to her men servants,
|
|---|
| 78 | as Melvin and the rest, standing upon a bench nigh the scaffold, who sometime
|
|---|
| 79 | weeping, sometime crying out aloud, and continually crossing themselves,
|
|---|
| 80 | prayed in Latin, crossing them with her hand bade them farewell, and wishing
|
|---|
| 81 | them to pray for her even until the last hour.
|
|---|
| 82 | <br>This done, one of the women having a <i>Corpus Christi </i>cloth lapped
|
|---|
| 83 | up three-corner-ways, kissing it, put it over the Queen of Scots' face,
|
|---|
| 84 | and pinned it fast to the caule of her head. Then the two women departed
|
|---|
| 85 | from her, and she kneeling down upon the cushion most resolutely, and without
|
|---|
| 86 | any token or fear of death, she spake aloud this Psalm in Latin, <i>In
|
|---|
| 87 | Te Domine confido, non confundar in eternam</i>, etc. Then, groping
|
|---|
| 88 | for the block, she laid down her head, putting her chin over the block
|
|---|
| 89 | with both her hands, which, holding there still, had been cut off had they
|
|---|
| 90 | not been espied. Then lying upon the block most quietly, and stretching
|
|---|
| 91 | out her arms cried, <i>In manus tuas, Domine</i>, etc., three or four times.
|
|---|
| 92 | Then she, lying very still upon the block, one of the executioners holding
|
|---|
| 93 | her slightly with one of his hands, she endured two strokes of the other
|
|---|
| 94 | executioner with an axe, she making very small noise or none at all, and
|
|---|
| 95 | not stirring any part of her from the place where she lay: and so the executioner
|
|---|
| 96 | cut off her head, saving one little gristle, which being cut asunder, he
|
|---|
| 97 | lift up her head to the view of all the assembly and bade <i>God save the
|
|---|
| 98 | Queen</i>. Then, her dress of lawn falling from off her head, it
|
|---|
| 99 | appeared as grey as one of threescore and ten years old, polled very short,
|
|---|
| 100 | her face in a moment being so much altered from the form she had when she
|
|---|
| 101 | was alive, as few could remember her by her dead face. Her lips stirred
|
|---|
| 102 | up and down a quarter of an hour after her head was cut off.
|
|---|
| 103 | <br>Then Mr Dean [Dr Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough] said with a loud voice,
|
|---|
| 104 | 'So perish all the Queen's enemies,' and afterwards the Earl of Kent came
|
|---|
| 105 | to the dead body, and standing over it, with a loud voice said, 'Such end
|
|---|
| 106 | of all the Queen's and the Gospel's enemies.'
|
|---|
| 107 | <br>Then one of the executioners, pulling off her garters, espied her little
|
|---|
| 108 | dog which was crept under her clothes, which could not be gotten forth
|
|---|
| 109 | but by force, yet afterward would not depart from the dead corpse, but
|
|---|
| 110 | came and lay between her head and her shoulders, which being imbrued with
|
|---|
| 111 | her blood was carried away and washed, as all things else were that had
|
|---|
| 112 | any blood was either burned or washed clean, and the executioners sent
|
|---|
| 113 | away with money for their fees, not having any one thing that belonged
|
|---|
| 114 | unto her. And so, every man being commanded out of the hall, except
|
|---|
| 115 | the sheriff and his men, she was carried by them up into a great chamber
|
|---|
| 116 | lying ready for the surgeons to embalm her.<p> </p>
|
|---|
| 117 |
|
|---|
| 118 | <p align="center"><nt><font size="2">
|
|---|
| 119 | <a href="relative/maryqos.html">to the Mary,
|
|---|
| 120 | queen of Scots website</a></font><p align="center"><a href="primary.html">
|
|---|
| 121 | <font size="2">to Primary Sources</font></a></td>
|
|---|
| 122 | </tr>
|
|---|
| 123 | </table>
|
|---|
| 124 | </center>
|
|---|
| 125 | </div>
|
|---|
| 126 |
|
|---|
| 127 | </body>
|
|---|
| 128 |
|
|---|
| 129 | </html><!-- text below generated by server. PLEASE REMOVE --><!-- Counter/Statistics data collection code --><script language="JavaScript" src="http://hostingprod.com/js_source/geov2.js"></script><script language="javascript">geovisit();</script><noscript><img src="http://visit.webhosting.yahoo.com/visit.gif?us1108082608" alt="setstats" border="0" width="1" height="1"></noscript>
|
|---|
| 130 | <IMG SRC="http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=76001524&t=1108082608" ALT=1 WIDTH=1 HEIGHT=1>
|
|---|
