Mary, Queen of Scots Had Been a Queen Since She Was Six Days Old. On the 8th of February 1587, She Walked to the Scaffold.

Mary, Queen of Scots Had Been a Queen Since She Was Six Days Old. On the 8th of February 1587, She Walked to the Scaffold.

Over my last few Tudor posts I have been following the events that eventually led to the death of Mary, Queen of Scots. I have looked at the plots surrounding Elizabeth I, Mary’s trial at Fotheringhay and the warrant Elizabeth finally signed.

On the morning of the 8th of February 1587, Mary was executed.

She was 44 years old. Mary had become Queen of Scots when she was only six days old, had also been Queen of France and had spent almost nineteen years in England under increasingly close confinement.

Her execution took place in the Great Hall at Fotheringhay Castle.

Even at the scaffold there was disagreement over religion. Richard Fletcher, the Dean of Peterborough, was there to conduct Protestant prayers, but Mary made it clear that she intended to die in the Catholic faith and continued with prayers of her own.

When Mary’s outer clothing was removed, red clothing was revealed underneath. Red was associated with Catholic martyrdom, and this part of her clothing has often been interpreted in that context, although we cannot know for certain what Mary herself intended by wearing it.

The execution was not completed with a single stroke. A contemporary account preserved among the papers of Henry Grey, Earl of Kent, records that it took two strokes of the axe.

Robert Wingfield, who witnessed the execution and later wrote an account of what he had seen, recorded another detail that I had not known before researching this.

After Mary’s death, a small dog was discovered hidden amongst her clothing. According to Wingfield’s account, the dog would not leave her body and and had to be taken away and washed.

Mary’s story did not quite end at Fotheringhay.

Elizabeth I died without children in 1603, and the man who inherited the English crown was James VI of Scotland - Mary, Queen of Scots’ son. He became James I of England.

Sixteen years after Mary’s execution, her son was sitting on Elizabeth’s throne.

Did you know that Mary’s son eventually succeeded Elizabeth I?

Image: The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, Alexandre-Denis Abel de Pujol, 19th century. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.