When the queen asked at what hour she was to die, Shrewsbury replied in a faltering voice: ‘Tomorrow morning at eight o’clock.’* Mary remarked that the time was very short since it was already late. She then made a series of requests, all of which were denied to her: she applied for her papers and account books, which were refused on the grounds that they were still in London in the hands of Wade; once more she begged vainly for her chaplain; thirdly she asked that her body might be interred in France at either St Denis or Rheims, only to be told that Elizabeth had ruled against it. Her last questions were on the subjects of Nau and Curle, and whether they were already dead; on hearing that Curle was in prison, and that Nau had gone to France, Mary exclaimed sadly that she was about to die for him who had borne false witness against her. Mary’s servants, in a state of hysteria, tried to get some sort of reprieve or at least a stay of execution, weeping and crying and protesting that the time was too short. Bourgoing pleaded with Shrewsbury, recalling not only how he had cured him of his illness, but also all the mercies which Shrewsbury himself had shown to Mary in the past. Shrewsbury either was not or dared not be moved. He said there was to be no delay.24
The queen of Scots was left alone to spend the last evening of her life with her servants, some of whom like Jane Kennedy had spent a whole generation in her service. She tried to rally them. ‘Well, Jane Kennedy,’ said the queen. ‘Did I not tell you this would happen? … I knew they would never allow me to live, I was too great an obstacle to their religion.’ Mary then asked for her supper to be served as speedily as possible, in order that she might have time to put her affairs in order. It was a heart-breaking meal, the servants outdoing themselves in the assiduousness of their service, as though there was some comfort to be had in making each little gesture as perfect as possible: Bourgoing, acting as steward in Melville’s absence, presented the dishes to his mistress and, as he did so, he could not control the tears from pouring down his cheeks. The queen herself ate little. She sat in a sort of dream, from time to time referring to Kent’s outburst on the subject of her death and her religion: ‘Oh how happy these words make me,’ she murmured. ‘Here at last is the truth.’ When the meal was over, the queen asked her servants to drink to her, and as they did so, kneeling before her, their tears mingled with the wine.
Mary now seated herself and went through the contents of her wardrobe in detail. Her remaining money she sorted personally into little portions, and placed in packets, on which she wrote in her own hand the name of the servant for whom they were destined. From belongings she divided off certain mementoes for royalties and her relations abroad, such as the king and queen of France, Queen Catherine, and the Guises; from the rest she bestowed numerous little personal objects on all her servants: * Bourgoing received rings, silver boxes, her musicbook bound in velvet to remind him of the many musical evenings of the captivity, as well as the red hangings of Mary’s bed; Elizabeth Curle received miniatures set in gold and enamelled tablets of Mary, Francis II and James; Melville received a little tablet of gold set with another portrait of James. Having thus disposed of those actual physical possessions which remained within her sphere, the queen drew up an elaborate testament25 of which Henry, Duke of Guise, Beaton, the bishop of Ross, and du Ruisseau, her chancellor in France, were to be executors. She asked for Requiem Masses to be held in France, and made elaborate financial arrangements for the benefit of her servants, whether of her household or superior rank such as Beaton in France: Curle, for example, was to receive the marriage portion which had been promised him but never paid, and even the graceless Nau was to be allowed his pension, if he should manage to prove his innocence. Beyond that, there were charitable bequests for the poor children and friars of Rheims, and instructions that her coach was to be used to convey her women to London, when the horses were to be sold to defray their expenses, and her furniture likewise, that they might be able to afford to return to their countries of origin.*
Having completed these detailed dispositions for the welfare of those she would leave behind, Mary considered her own spiritual welfare in the shape of a farewell letter to be handed to the chaplain de Préau. Deprived of his physical presence, she used the medium of the letter as a general confession of her sins, in which she asked him to spend the night in prayer for her.26 Mary’s last letter of all was to her brother-in-law, King Henry of France: she related the abrupt circumstances in which her sentence had been broken to her, and her conviction that it was her religion, coupled with her place in the English succession, which was the true cause of her death, as it had been with Francis of Guise; she begged him to listen to the personal testimony concerning her execution which her physician should give to him so soon as he could reach France, and not trust to her letter alone; her last thoughts were the faithful servants who had served her for so long – she asked that their pensions and wages might be paid throughout their lives, and in particular that de Préau her chaplain might be awarded some little benefice in France from which he could spend the rest of his days in prayer for his dead mistress.27 When these elaborate dispositions were finally completed, it was already two o’clock in the morning. Mary’s letter to the king of France was thus dated Wednesday, 8th February, 1587, the day of her execution.
The traveller was now ready for her last journey on earth. The queen lay down on her bed without undressing. She did not try to sleep. Her women gathered round her already wearing their black garments of mourning, and Mary asked Jane Kennedy to read aloud the life of some great sinner. The life of the good thief was chosen, and as the story reached its climax on the cross, Mary observed aloud: ‘In truth he was a great sinner, but not so great as I have been.’ She then closed her eyes, and said nothing further. Throughout the night the sound of hammering came from the great hall where the scaffold was being erected. The boots of the soldiers could be heard ceaselessly tramping up and down outside the queen’s room, for Paulet had ordered them to watch with special vigilance in these final hours, lest their victim escape her captors at the last. The queen lay on her bed without sleeping, eyes closed and a half smile on her face.
So the short night passed. At six o’clock, long before light, the queen rose, handed over the will, distributed her purses, and gave her women a farewell embrace. Her men servants were given her hand to kiss. Then she went into her little oratory and prayed alone. She was extremely pale but quite composed. Bourgoing handed her a little bread and wine to sustain her. The day now dawned fine and sunny; it was one of those unexpected early February days when it suddenly seems possible that the spring will come. It was between eight and nine when a loud knocking was heard at the door, and a messenger shouted through it that the lords were waiting for the queen. Mary asked for a moment to finish her prayers, at which the lords outside in a moment of panic feared some sort of last-minute resistance might be planned; unable to believe in the courage of their captive, they had given credit to reports that the queen of Scots had said she would not come to the block of her own accord, but would have to be dragged thither. But when the sheriff of Northampton, Thomas Andrews, entered, he found Mary kneeling quietly in prayer in front of the crucifix which hung above her altar.
It was this crucifix which her groom Hannibal Stuart now bore before her as she was escorted towards the great hall. The queen was totally calm, and showed no signs of fear or distress. Her bearing was regal, and some of the contemporary observers afterwards even described her as cheerful and smiling.28 The last moment of agony came in the entry chamber to the hall, when her servants were held back from following her and the queen was told that she was to die quite alone, by the orders of Elizabeth. Melville, distracted at this unlooked-for blow, fell on his knees in tears and exclaimed: ‘Oh Madam, it will be the sorrowfullest message that I ever carried when I shall report that my Queen and dear mistress is dead.’ The queen dashed away her own tears and said gently: ‘You ought to rejoice and not to weep for that the end of Mary Stuart’s troubles is now done. Thou knowest, Melville, that
all this world is but vanity and full of troubles and sorrows. Carry this message from me and tell my friends that I died a true woman to my religion, and like a true Scottish woman and a true French woman. …’ And commending Melville to go to her son, and tell him that her dearest wish had always been to see England and Scotland united, that she had never done anything to prejudice the welfare of the kingdom of Scotland, she embraced Melville and bade him farewell. Mary now turned to Paulet and the lords and pleaded with them to allow at least her own servants to be with her at the death, so that they could later report the manner of her death in other countries. Kent replied that her wish could not well be granted, for before the execution her servants were sure to cry out and upset the queen herself, as well as disquieting the company, while afterwards they might easily attempt to dip their napkins in her blood for relics which, said Kent grimly, ‘were not convenient’. ‘My Lord,’ replied Mary, ‘I will give my word and promise for them that they shall not do any such thing as your Lordship hath named. Alas poor souls, it would do them good to bid me farewell.’ As for her women she refused to believe that these were the instructions of Queen Elizabeth herself, for surely Elizabeth, herself a maiden queen, would not condemn a fellow-woman to die without any ladies about her to attend her, besides which, added Mary, ‘You know that I am cousin to your Queen and descended from the blood of Henry VII, a married Queen of France, and the anointed Queen of Scotland.’ She then appealed to history where she had read in chronicles that other gentlewomen had had their ladies with them at their execution. After a hurried whispered consultation, the lords decided that Mary might have after all the choice of six of her servants to accompany her. Thus Melville, Bourgoing, Gervais, and the old man Didier who had been for many years Mary’s porter, were allowed to go forward, together with the two dearest of Mary’s women, who shared her bed, Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curle. Mary then went to follow the sheriff, having first bestowed a small gift (probably a seal) on Sir William Fitzwilliam, the castellan of Fotheringhay: he, unlike Sir Amyas Paulet, had shown especial courtesy to her in the carrying-out of his office.
The queen now entered the great hall in silence.* The spectators gathered there – about 300 of them by one account – gazed with awe and apprehension at this legendary figure whose dramatic career was about to be ended before their eyes. They saw a tall and gracious woman, who at first sight seemed to be dressed entirely in black, save for the long white lace-edged veil which flowed down her back to the ground like a bride’s, and the white stiffened and peaked head-dress that too was edged with lace, below which gleamed her auburn hair. Her satin dress was all in black, embroidered with black velvet, and set with black acorn buttons of jet trimmed with pearl; but through the slashed sleeves could be seen inner sleeves of purple, and although her shoes of Spanish leather were black, her stockings were clocked and edged with silver, her garters were of green silk, and her petticoat was of crimson velvet. She held a crucifix and a prayer book in her hand, and two rosaries hung down from her waist; round her neck was a pomander chain and an Agnus Dei. Despite the fact that Mary’s shoulders were now bowed and stooping with illness, and her figure grown full with the years, she walked with immense dignity. Time and suffering had long ago rubbed away the delicate youthful charm of her face, but to many of the spectators her extraordinary composure and serenity had its own beauty. Above all, her courage was matchless, and this alone in many people’s minds, whatever honours and dignities had been stripped from her by Paulet, still gave her the right to be called a queen.
In the centre of the great hall, which lay on the ground floor of the castle, directly below the room in which Mary had been tried, was set a wooden stage, all hung with black, about twelve feet square and two feet high off the ground. Within the precincts of the stage were two stools for Shrewsbury and Kent. Beside them was placed, about two feet high, also draped in black, the block, and a little cushioned stool on which it was intended that the queen should sit while she was disrobed. The great axe was already lying there – ‘like those with which they cut wood’, said Bourgoing later. Outside the stage were two other seats for Paulet and Drury, and a rank of soldiers enclosing it; behind them gathered the ordinary people who had been given the privilege of watching the execution, as well as some local dignitaries including Shrewsbury’s eldest son Lord Talbot, Sir Edward Montagu, and his son and brother, Sir Richard Knightly, and Mr Thomas Brudenell. A huge blaze had been lit in the fireplace against the cold of the great hall.
Once led up the three steps to the stage, the queen listened patiently while the commission for her execution was read aloud. Her expression never changed. Cecil’s own official observer, Robert Wise, commented later that from her detached regard, she might even have been listening to a pardon, rather than the warrant for her own death. The first sign of emotion was wrung from her when Dr Fletcher, the Protestant dean of Peterborough – he who afterwards described the fine weather as a sign that Heaven looked with favour on the execution – stepped forward, and proposed to harangue the queen according to the rites of the Protestant religion. ‘Mr Dean,’ said the queen firmly, ‘I am settled in the ancient Catholic Roman religion, and mind to spend my blood in defence of it.’ Shrewsbury and Kent both exhorted her to listen to him, and even offered to pray with the queen, but all these proposals Mary resolutely rejected. ‘If you will pray with me, my lords,’ she said to the two earls, ‘I will thank you, but to join in prayer I will not, for that you and I are not of one religion.’ And when the dean, in answer to the earls’ direction, finally knelt down on the scaffold steps and started to pray out loud and at length, in a prolonged and rhetorical style as though determined to force his way into the pages of history, Mary still paid no attention but turned away, and started to pray aloud out of her own book in Latin, in the midst of these prayers sliding off her stool on to her knees. When the dean was at last finished, the queen changed her prayers, and began to pray out loud in English, for the afflicted English Catholic Church, for her son, and for Elizabeth, that she might serve God in the years to come. Kent remonstrated with her: ‘Madam, settle Christ Jesus in your heart and leave those trumperies.’ But the queen prayed on, asking God to avert his wrath from England, and calling on the Saints to intercede for her; and so she kissed the crucifix she held, and crossing herself, ended: ‘Even as thy arms, O Jesus, were spread here upon the cross, so receive me into Thy arms of mercy, and forgive me all my sins.’
When the queen’s prayers were finished, the executioners asked her, as was customary, to forgive them in advance for bringing about her death. Mary answered immediately: ‘I forgive you with all my heart, for now I hope you shall make an end of all my troubles.’ Then the executioners, helped by Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curle, assisted the Queen to undress – Robert Wise noticed that she undressed so quickly that it seemed as if she was in haste to be gone out of the world. Stripped of her black, she stood in her red petticoat and it was seen that above it she wore a red satin bodice, trimmed with lace, the neckline cut low at the back; one of her women handed her a pair of red sleeves, and it was thus wearing all red, the colour of blood, and the liturgical colour of martyrdom in the Catholic Church, that the queen of Scots died.* According to their usual practice, the executioners stretched forth their hands for the queen’s ornaments which were their perquisites. When they touched the long golden rosary, Jane Kennedy protested, and the queen herself intervened and said that Bull would be compensated with money in its place, and the same promise had to be made regarding the Agnus Dei.* Yet all the time her belongings were being stripped from her, it was notable that the queen neither wept nor changed her calm and almost happy expression of what one observer called ‘smiling cheer’; she even retained her composure sufficiently to remark wryly of the executioners that she had never before had such grooms of the chamber to make her ready. It was the queen’s women who could not contain their lamentations as they wept and crossed themselves and muttered snatches of Latin prayers. Finally Mary
had to turn to them and mindful of her promise to Shrewsbury that they would not weep aloud if they were admitted to the hall, she admonished them softly in French: ‘Ne crie point pour moi. J’ai promis pour vous …’ Once more she bade them not mourn but rejoice, for they were soon to see the end of all her troubles; turning to her menservants, standing on a bench close by the scaffold, who also had tears pouring down their faces and were calling out prayers in French and Scots and Latin, and crossing themselves again and again, she told them to be comforted, with a smile on her lips to reassure them. She asked the men too to pray for her unto the last hour.
The time had come for Jane Kennedy to bind the queen’s eyes with the white cloth embroidered in gold which Mary had herself chosen for the purpose the night before. Jane Kennedy first kissed the cloth and then wrapped it gently round her mistress’s eyes, and over her head so that her hair was covered as by a white turban and only the neck left completely bare. The two women then withdrew from the stage. The queen, without even now the faintest sign of fear, knelt down once more on the cushion in front of the block. She recited aloud in Latin the Psalm In te Domino confido, non confundar in aeternum – In you Lord is my trust, let me never be confounded – and then feeling for the block, she laid her head down upon it, placing her chin carefully with both her hands, so that if one of the executioners had not moved them back they too would have lain in the direct line of the axe. The queen stretched out her arms and legs and cried, ‘In manus tuas, Domine, confide spiritum meum’ – ‘Into your hands O Lord I commend my spirit’ – three or four times. When the queen was lying there quite motionless, Bull’s assistant put his hand on her body to steady it for the blow. Even so, the first blow, as it fell, missed the neck and cut into the back of the head. The queen’s lips moved, and her servants thought they heard the whispered words: ‘Sweet Jesus.’ The second blow severed the neck, all but the smallest sinew, and this was severed by using the axe as a saw. It was about ten o’clock in the morning of Wednesday, 8th February, the queen of Scots being then aged forty-four years old, and in the nineteenth year of her English captivity.