Mary allotted the minutes of her remaining hours with far more thoughtfulness and circumspection than had been her wont in ordinary life. As a great princess, she wished to die a great death, and, with the immaculate sense for style which had always characterised her, with her native artistry and her inborn talent for seemly behaviour on solemn occasions, Mary prepared for her exit from life as one prepares for a festival, a triumph, a grand ceremony. Nothing was to be improvised, nothing was to be left to chance. Every effect was to be calculated; all was to be regal, splendid and imposing. The details were to be as carefully thought out as the words of one of those heroic sagas that depict the exemplary death of a martyr. She ordered her evening repast for a somewhat earlier hour than usual, wanting time in which to write a few necessary letters and to compose her mind for the solemn occasion. The meal was to symbolise the Last Supper. Having herself eaten, she summoned the members of her domestic staff and, having drunk to their welfare, enjoined them to remain faithful to the Catholic religion and to live at peace one with another. As in a scene from the Lives of the Saints, she asked each of them for forgiveness for any wrong she might have done to them. Then she gave to each a memento, distributing among them the rings and other jewels, the lace and whatever valuables were left to her. On their knees, silent or sobbing, they accepted the gifts, and the Queen, against her will, was herself moved to tears by their signs of devotion.
At length she retired to her private apartments, where wax candles had been lit on the writing table. She had still much to do before the morning: to read her will once more, to make arrangements for the hour of doom and to write the last letters. The first of these was to Préau, her chaplain, begging him to pray for her throughout the night. He was sequestered in another part of the castle—the Earl of Kent, who was pitiless, having forbidden him to leave his room lest he should administer to Mary Stuart the “papistical” extreme unction. There were sentinels in all the corridors, and it does not seem that this letter can have been conveyed to the chaplain. Perhaps Kent did not know that the prisoner had a gold and jewelled ciborium containing a consecrated wafer sent her by the Pope, with a unique dispensation to administer the Eucharist to herself, if denied the attendance of a priest! Next the queen wrote to her relatives, Henry III and the Duke of Guise. It is an honour to her that, during this last dreadful night, she had tender thoughts for others. She knew that at her death the cutting-off of her widow’s pension would leave her domestics un-provided for. Consequently she begged the King of France to make it his business to see that none of them should suffer want, to distribute her legacies and to have Masses read “for a Christian queen, who dies as a Catholic and has been despoiled of all her worldly goods.” She had previously written to Philip II and to the Pope. There was only one of the rulers of this world to whom it might still have been expedient to write—Elizabeth. But to her Mary Stuart had no further words to say. She would ask Elizabeth for nothing, nor thank her for anything. Only by a proud silence could she still put her long-time adversary to shame; by that, and by a dignified death.
It was long after midnight when Mary went to bed. She had done all that she could during the brief span of life that was allotted her. Only a few hours more and her soul would leave her weary frame. In a corner of the bedroom the maids were kneeling, praying silently, for they did not wish to disturb the Queen’s slumbers. Mary could not sleep. Her eyes were wide open in the darkness. Still, she could rest her limbs for a while, so that refreshed in mind and body she would have strength to meet Death, who was stronger than herself.
Mary had robed herself for many festal occasions, coronations, baptisms, weddings, chivalric sports, war and the chase, receptions, dances and tourneys—always splendidly, fully aware of the power which beauty wields on earth. But never did she dress more carefully than for the greatest hour of her life, which was to be her last. She had thought out every detail of her attire on this unprecedented occasion weeks in advance, as if wishing, in a final display of vanity, to show the world how perfectly a queen could present herself on the scaffold. For two hours the tire women were at work. She would not go to the block clad as a sinner, in drab array. She chose a robe of state for this last formal appearance—black velvet, stamped with gold, and a black stomacher. The dress had a train so long that Andrew Melville, her master of the household, carried it as she walked. She wore two rosaries and a number of scapularies. After her wig had been adjusted, a wired white veil reaching to her feet was clipped to it. The shoes were of white Spanish leather, soft leather which would not creak when she mounted the scaffold. She took out of a drawer the kerchief with which her eyes were to be bound; it was made of the finest lawn with a gold fringe, probably embroidered by her own hands. Each article of her apparel had been most purposively selected, every detail, down to her underclothing, being combined to form a harmony, and with full knowledge that on the scaffold she would be partially disrobed before the eyes of strange men. The petticoat and camisole were of crimson velvet, and she had scarlet sleeves to match, that when her neck was severed the spurting blood should not contrast too crudely with her underwear and her arms. Never had a woman condemned to death made herself ready for execution with more artistry and dignity.
At eight o’clock in the morning there came a knock at the door. Mary Stuart did not answer, for she was kneeling at her prie-dieu, reading aloud the prayers for the dying. Not until her devotions were finished did she rise, and at the second knock the door was opened. The Sheriff of Northampton, carrying his white wand of office (soon to be broken), entered and, with a profound reverence, said: “Madam, the lords have sent me to you.” “Yes, let us go,” replied the Queen, as Bourgoigne, her French physician, stepped to her side.
Now began her final progress. Supported to right and to left by two of her servants, walking slowly because her legs were swollen with rheumatism, she went out through the door. She was triply armed with the weapons of the faith, that no sudden access of fear might overwhelm her. Besides the Agnus Dei hung round her neck, and the rosaries, she carried in one hand an ivory crucifix. The world was to see how a queen could die in the Catholic faith and for the Catholic faith. It was to forget the crimes and follies of her youth, and that she was now to suffer death as accessory before the fact to an intended murder. For all time to come she wished to be regarded as a martyr to the Catholic cause, a victim of her heretical enemies.
Only as far as the doorway leading out of the corridor was she accompanied by her own servitors. Paulet’s men-at-arms, acting under orders, barred the way to her staff. They might serve her while she was still in her own chamber, but not in the last minutes before her death. Down the great staircase, therefore, she was assisted by two of Paulet’s troopers. None but enemies were to join in the crime of leading an anointed queen to the block. On the last step, in front of the entrance to the hall where the execution was to take place, was kneeling Andrew Melville, her master of the household. To him, as one of the Scottish gentry, would be entrusted the duty of acquainting her son that the execution had taken place. The Queen lifted him from his knees and embraced him. His presence was welcome to her, for it strengthened her in her forced composure. When Melville said: “It will be the sorrowfullest message that ever I carried when I shall report that my Queen and mistress is dead,” Mary replied: “Not so. Today, good Melville, thou seest the end of Mary Stuart’s miseries, and that should rejoice thee. I pray thee carry a message from me that I die a true woman to my religion, like a true Queen of Scotland and France. But God forgive them that have long desired my end and thirsted for my blood, as the hart does for the water-brooks. Commend me to my dearest and most sweet son. Tell him I have done nothing to prejudice him in his realm, nor to disparage his dignity.” Then, turning to the Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent, she asked them “to permit her poor distressed servants to be present about her at her death, that their eyes and heart may see and witness how patiently their Queen and mistress will endure her execution, and so make relation,
when they come into their country, that she died a true constant Catholic to her religion.” To this the Earl of Kent objected. The women would make a scene. “Besides, if such an access might be allowed, they would not stick to put some superstitious popery in practice, if it were but dipping their handkerchiefs in Your Grace’s blood, whereon it were very unmeet for us to give allowance.”
“My lords,” rejoined Mary, “I will give my word that, although then I shall be dead, they will do nothing of the kind. I hope your mistress, being a maiden queen, will vouchsafe in the regard of womanhood that I shall have some of mine own people about me at my death. I know Her Majesty hath not given you any such strait charge or commission, but that you might grant a request of far greater courtesy than this is, if I were a woman of far meaner calling than the Queen of Scots.” Seeing that the Earl of Kent looked stubborn, she burst into tears, and said: “I am cousin to your Queen, and descended from the blood royal of Henry VII, and a married Queen of France, and an anointed Queen of Scotland.”
The two earls consulted together, and at length agreed that she might be accompanied to the scaffold by “six of her best beloved men and women.” Thereupon “of her men she chose Melville, Bourgoigne, the physician, Gourion, the surgeon and Gervais, the apothecary; and of her women, those two, Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curie, which did lie in her chamber.” With Melville carrying her train, she walked behind the sheriff and Shrewsbury and Kent into the great hall of Fotheringay Castle.
Throughout the night carpenters had been at work in this hall. The tables and chairs had been removed. At one end a scaffold had been erected, two feet high and twelve feet broad, “with rails round about, hanged and covered with black, with a low stool, a long fair cushion and a block covered also with black.” The cushion was in front of the block; on it the Queen was to kneel in order to receive the fatal stroke. To right and to left were seats for the Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent, as representatives of Queen Elizabeth. Against the further wall stood two men, masked and clad in black velvet, with white aprons, grim and silent, the executioner and his assistant. Spectators thronged the rest of the hall. Across the floor had been run a barrier, guarded by Paulet and his soldiers. Behind it were two hundred of the nobility and gentry who had assembled in haste from the neighbourhood to witness so unique a spectacle as the execution of a queen. Outside the castle-gates hundreds upon hundreds of the common folk were thronging, allured by the news, but none of them would be admitted to the castle. Only the blue-bloods might see the shedding of the blood royal.
With an unmoved countenance Mary entered the hail. A queen since she was but a few days old, she had early learnt to demean herself royally, and this exalted art did not forsake her in the supreme moment. Head erect, she mounted the two steps to the scaffold. Thus proudly, when a girl of fifteen, she had ascended the throne of France; thus proudly, the steps leading to the altar at Rheims. Thus proudly would she have mounted the throne of England if other stars had presided over her destiny. With mingled pride and humility she had kneeled beside a King of France, and later beside a King of Scotland, to receive priestly benediction; with mingled pride and humility she now bowed her head to receive the benediction of death. She listened unmoved while Beale read the death warrant aloud to her. So calm was her expression, friendly and almost joyful, that even Richard Wigmore, Cecil’s secret agent, declared in his report to his master that she listened to the document “with so merry and cheerful a countenance as if it had been a pardon from Her Majesty.”
But a hard trial still awaited her. Mary Stuart wished this ultimate hour to be a triumph, in which she could disclose herself to the world as a pillar of the faith, as a splendid flame of Catholic martyrdom. The Protestant lords were no less determined that the last gesture of her life should not be an impressive avowal of Catholicism, and they therefore did their utmost to diminish Mary Stuart’s dignity by acts of petty spite. Several times on the way from her bedchamber to the hall of execution, the Queen looked round to see whether her confessor was not among those present, that, if only by a sign from him, she could be assured of blessing and absolution. Vainly, however! Father Préau was imprisoned in his room. Now, when she had made up her mind to suffer the execution without ghostly counsel, there appeared on the scaffold the Dean of Peterborough, Dr Fletcher, a fanatical champion of the Reformed creed, who, to the final moment of her life, was to embody for her the war of religions which had troubled her youth and wrecked her career. The magnates in charge of the execution had thrice been sufficiently informed that Mary, a devout Catholic, would rather die without priestly aid than accept the ministrations of a heretic. But just as Queen Mary wished, on the scaffold, to make the most of her own religion, so did the Protestants wish to bring theirs to the front; it was their God who was to be honoured on this occasion, not hers. Under the pretext of care for her salvation, the dean began an evangelical exhortation, which Mary, in her impatience, several times tried to cut short. Again and again she interrupted Dr Fletcher by assuring him that she persisted, that she was “settled”, in the ancient Catholic and Romaine religion, in defence whereof, by God’s grace, she was that day to spend her blood. But Fletcher was a paltry creature, with scant respect for the will of a dying woman, and inflated by vanity. Having carefully prepared his sermon, he was delighted with the chance of delivering it before so distinguished a congregation. He went on with his oration until Mary found no other means for deafening her ears than to throw herself on her knees, crucifix in one hand and missal in the other, to pray aloud in Latin, that she might drown the unctuous outpourings of the dean. The two religions, instead of joining forces to pray on behalf of the victim, were still at grips upon the scaffold, hatred being always stronger than reverence for distress. Shrewsbury and Kent, and with them most of those assembled, prayed aloud in English, while Mary and her servitors prayed aloud in Latin. As soon as Fletcher’s oration came to an end, and when the silence had healed up again, Mary rose, kneeled down once more and prayed in English for Christ’s afflicted Church, for a surcease of her troubles, for her son and for the Queen’s Majesty. Pressing the crucifix to her breast, she desired the saints to make intercession for her to the Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ. Again the Earl of Kent, likewise a Protestant fanatic, interfered with her devotions, urging her to lay aside these “popish trumperies”. But the dying woman was by now far beyond earthly contentions. She uttered no sound, made no sign, in answer; her voice pealed through the hall saying that she forgave her enemies with all her heart, those who had long sought her blood, and begged God to lead them to the truth. Silence was restored. Mary knew that the end was near. For the last time she kissed the crucifix and crossed herself, saying: “Even as Thy arms, O Jesu Christ, were spread here upon the cross, so receive me into the arms of mercy, and forgive me all my sins. Amen.”
That was a cruel and violent age, but it was not therefore wholly unspiritual. In many of its customs it remained more keenly aware of its own inhumanity than we are aware of our own inhumanity today. At every execution, however barbarous the method, there was a moment of human greatness amid the horror. Before the executioner stretched forth his hand to slay or to torture, he asked the victim’s pardon for the wrong he was about to commit. The two masked men, Bulle, the executioner and his assistant kneeled in front of Mary and begged forgiveness since it was their duty to put her to death. She answered: “I forgive you with all my heart. For I hope this death shall give an end to my troubles.” The two black-robed men rose to their feet once more and made ready for their work.
Simultaneously, Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curie began to disrobe Mary. She helped them by removing from her neck the chain with the Agnus Dei. She made these preparations firmly and, as Wigmore reported, “with such speed as if she had longed to be gone out of the world.” When the black gown had been removed, her red velvet underclothing shone forth and, thus robed, with her long scarlet sleeves to match, she looked like a flame of blood, splendid and unforgettable. Now came the fa
rewells. The Queen embraced her assistants and exhorted them not to weep too loudly: “Ne cry vous, j’ay preye pur vous”—Do not cry, I have prayed for you. Then, kneeling on the cushion which had been spread for her, she intoned the Latin psalm: “In te, domine, confido, ne confundar in aeternum”—O Lord, in you I confide, let me not be eternally confounded.
Little remained to be done. She laid her head on the block, which she embraced with both arms, as one in love with death. To the end Mary Stuart maintained her royal dignity. With neither sign nor word did she show any fear. The daughter of the Stuarts, of the Tudors and of the Guises made ready to die worthily. But what help is human dignity, what help is acquired or inherited poise, against the horror which necessarily surrounds murder? On no one (however much the books and reports may lie about the matter) can the execution of a human being produce a romantic and touching impression. Always death by the executioner’s axe must be a horrible spectacle of slaughter. The first blow fell awry, striking the back of the head instead of severing the neck. A hollow groan escaped from the mouth of the victim. At the second stroke, the axe sank deep into the neck, and the blood spurted out copiously. Not until a third blow had been given was the head detached from the trunk. Now came a further touch of horror. When Bulle wished to lift the head by the hair and show it to those assembled, he gripped only the wig, and the head dropped onto the ground. It rolled like a ball across the scaffold, and when the executioner stooped once more to seize it, the onlookers could discern that it was that of an old woman with close-cropped and grizzled hair. For a moment, the spectators were overcome by their feelings, so that all held their breath in silence. At length, however, when the executioner lifted up the head and shouted: “God save the Queen!” the Dean of Peterborough summoned up courage to say: “Amen! Amen! So perish all the Queen’s enemies.” The Earl of Kent came up to the dead body and, with lowered voice, said: “Such end happen to all the Queen’s and Gospel’s enemies!”