Scotland's Mary Queen of Scots

Mary was the daughter and only child of James V of Scotland by his second wife, a French woman called Mary of Guise. While James lay on his deathbed at Falkland, Mary was born at Linlithgow Palace, Scotland. She became queen upon his death when she was a week old, and Henry VIII attempted to betrothe her to his son, Prince Edward of England, in order to establish control of her and Scotland, (known as 'The Rough Wooing').
The betrothal was annulled by the Scottish parliament, precipitating war with England. After the Scots' defeat at Pinkie (1547) she was sent by her mother to France. There she was brought up at the glittering French court of Henry II, where she excelled at hunting and dancing, and was carefully educated in the manner of a Frenchwoman.
She was one of the most fascinating and controversial monarchs of 16th century Europe.  At one time, she claimed the crowns of four nations - Scotland, France, England and Ireland.  Her physical beauty and kind heart were acknowledged even by her enemies.  Yet she lacked the political skills to rule successfully in Scotland.  Her second marriage was unpopular and ended in murder and scandal; her third was even less popular and ended in forced abdication in favor of her infant son.  She fled to England in 1568, hoping for the help of her cousin, Elizabeth I.  Her presence was dangerous for the English queen, who feared Catholic plotting on Mary's behalf.  The two queens never met and Mary remained imprisoned for the next fourteen years, under the Earl of Shrewsbury and Sir Amias Paulet, at Sheffield Castle, Tutbury, Wingfield, and Chartley. But she had so many sympathizers that notes were frequently smuggled in, despite all precautions, and Mary's hopes of eventual release never quite died.  She was executed in 1587, only forty-four years old.  By orders of the English government, all of her possessions were burned.  In 1603, upon Elizabeth's death, Mary's son became king of England as James I.

 

This famous account of the execution was written by Robert Wynkfielde.

Her [Mary queen of Scots] prayers being ended, the executioners, kneeling, desired her Grace to forgive them her death: who answered, 'I forgive you with all my heart, for now, I hope, you shall make an end of all my troubles.'  Then they, with her two women, helping her up, began to disrobe her of her apparel: then she, laying her crucifix upon the stool, one of the executioners took from her neck the Agnus Dei, which she, laying hands off it, gave to one of her women, and told the executioner he should be answered money for it.  Then she suffered them, with her two women, to disrobe her of her chain of pomander beads and all other her apparel most willingly, and with joy rather than sorrow, helped to make unready herself, putting on a pair of sleeves with her own hands which they had pulled off, and that with some haste, as if she had longed to be gone.
All this time they were pulling off her apparel, she never changed her countenance, but with smiling cheer she uttered these words, 'that she never had such grooms to make her unready, and that she never put off her clothes before such a company.'
Then she, being stripped of all her apparel saving her petticoat and kirtle, her two women beholding her made great lamentation, and crying and crossing themselves prayed in Latin.  She, turning herself to them, embracing them, said these words in French, 'Ne crie vous, j'ay prome pour vous', and so crossing and kissing them, bade them pray for her and rejoice and not weep, for that now they should see an end of all their mistress's troubles.
Then she, with a smiling countenance, turning to her men servants, as Melvin and the rest, standing upon a bench nigh the scaffold, who sometime weeping, sometime crying out aloud, and continually crossing themselves, prayed in Latin, crossing them with her hand bade them farewell, and wishing them to pray for her even until the last hour.
This done, one of the women having a Corpus Christi cloth lapped up three-corner-ways, kissing it, put it over the Queen of Scots' face, and pinned it fast to the caule of her head.  Then the two women departed from her, and she kneeling down upon the cushion most resolutely, and without any token or fear of death, she spake aloud this Psalm in Latin, In Te Domine confido, non confundar in eternam, etc.  Then, groping for the block, she laid down her head, putting her chin over the block with both her hands, which, holding there still, had been cut off had they not been espied.  Then lying upon the block most quietly, and stretching out her arms cried, In manus tuas, Domine, etc., three or four times.  Then she, lying very still upon the block, one of the executioners holding her slightly with one of his hands, she endured two strokes of the other executioner with an axe, she making very small noise or none at all, and not stirring any part of her from the place where she lay: and so the executioner cut off her head, saving one little gristle, which being cut asunder, he lift up her head to the view of all the assembly and bade God save the Queen.  Then, her dress of lawn falling from off her head, it appeared as grey as one of threescore and ten years old, polled very short, her face in a moment being so much altered from the form she had when she was alive, as few could remember her by her dead face.  Her lips stirred up and down a quarter of an hour after her head was cut off.
Then Mr Dean [Dr Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough] said with a loud voice, 'So perish all the Queen's enemies,' and afterwards the Earl of Kent came to the dead body, and standing over it, with a loud voice said, 'Such end of all the Queen's and the Gospel's enemies.'
Then one of the executioners, pulling off her garters, espied her little dog which was crept under her clothes, which could not be gotten forth but by force, yet afterward would not depart from the dead corpse, but came and lay between her head and her shoulders, which being imbrued with her blood was carried away and washed, as all things else were that had any blood was either burned or washed clean, and the executioners sent away with money for their fees, not having any one thing that belonged unto her.  And so, every man being commanded out of the hall, except the sheriff and his men, she was carried by them up into a great chamber lying ready for the surgeons to embalm her.