Today is the anniversary of the commencement of trial proceedings that would see the conviction and sentencing to death of none other than Mary, Queen of Scots.
Mary, Queen of Scots looking like she’s up to somethingMary had, in her final years, become quite a thorn in the side of the English Queen, Elizabeth I, and several of her plots were uncovered over her years imprisoned in Scotland and England. The entire time, Mary was fighting for what she believed to be her legitimate birthright: theEnglish throne. Mary–and her numerous supporters–believed that Mary was the rightful heir to Mary I (Bloody Mary—a different Mary) because Elizabeth was born to Anne Boleyn, who was not married in the eyes of Mary’s Catholic church. Nevertheless, Elizabeth retained her throne.
A weary-looking Elizabeth has had just about enough of Mary
Among the supporters of Mary were the Spanish, who were extremely powerful in the 16th century (until about 1588). Together with the Spanish and the Duke of Norfolk, Mary conspired to remove and replace Elizabeth as the Queen of England. Sir Francis Walsingham and William Cecil uncovered the plot and thwarted the effort. Mary was then presented with the charge of violating the “Act for the Queen’s Safety” (i.e., planning Elizabeth’s assassination) and placed in custody.
Her trial began on this day in 1586, and by most accounts was basically a Kangaroo Court. She was convicted on October 25 and sentenced to die at the hands of the axeman. The execution was an even greater cock-up. According to Antonia Frasier (a descendant and biographer of Mary), Mary wore the tradition Catholic colors of martyrdom (bright red). She strolled self-sure to the block, pulled her hair aside and exposed her neck to the executioner.
Copy of Mary’s death mask, clearly a sanitized versionThe rest would be comical if it weren’t so tragic: The axeman missed the neck on the first swing and caught Mary in the back of the head, leaving her still alive. A second swing hit the mark, but the axe failed to cut completely through, and Mary’s head dangled freely by the remaining neck tissue. The executioner then simply sawed away at the strip of flesh until the head fell to the deck. When the head was lifted to the cry of “God save the Queen!”, the head fell to the deck again, revealing that Mary had been wearing a wig; the head lolling around on the deck had short, gray hair.Mary’s son, James, inherited the Scottish throne as James VI of Scotland. Sixteen years later, on the death of Elizabeth I, he inherited the English throne also as James I of England, finally uniting all of Great Britain under one ruler (but still, technically, two crowns).
