Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1587) at Fotheringhay

The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots took place on 8 February 1587 in the great hall of Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire. After nearly nineteen years as a prisoner in England, the former Scottish queen was beheaded on the authority of her cousin Elizabeth I, having been convicted of approving a plot against Elizabeth’s life. The killing of an anointed queen shocked Catholic Europe and helped push Philip II of Spain into launching the Spanish Armada.

Background: from queen to prisoner

Mary Stuart was born at Linlithgow Palace on 8 December 1542 and became queen of Scotland when her father, James V, died six days later. Brought up at the French court, she married the heir to the French throne, who reigned briefly as Francis II. After his death in December 1560 she returned to Scotland in August 1561 as a Catholic ruler in a country that had just adopted Protestantism.

Her personal rule ended in disaster. Her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, was killed at Kirk o’ Field in Edinburgh in February 1567, an event covered in the article on the murder of Lord Darnley. Mary’s marriage three months later to the Earl of Bothwell, widely suspected of the murder, turned the Scottish nobility against her. She surrendered at Carberry Hill in June 1567, was forced to abdicate in favour of her infant son James, escaped in May 1568, and after defeat at Langside crossed the Solway Firth into England on 16 May 1568.

She expected Elizabeth’s help, but she was a dangerous guest. As a great-granddaughter of Henry VII she had a strong claim to the English throne, and many Catholics regarded Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, as illegitimate.

Eighteen years of captivity

Elizabeth neither restored Mary nor let her leave. An inquiry at York and Westminster in 1568–1569 examined the so-called Casket Letters, which supposedly linked Mary to Darnley’s murder, but reached no verdict. Mary was kept in a series of castles and manor houses, including Bolton, Tutbury, Sheffield, Wingfield and Chartley, mostly in the care of George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and later of the strict Sir Amias Paulet.

Throughout these years she was the focus of Catholic conspiracies. The Ridolfi Plot of 1571 led to the execution of the Duke of Norfolk, who had hoped to marry her. The Throckmorton Plot of 1583 revealed plans for a French and Spanish invasion. In response, Elizabeth’s councillors drew up the Bond of Association in 1584, and Parliament passed the Act for the Queen’s Safety in 1585, which provided for the trial of anyone on whose behalf a plot against the queen was made.

The Babington evidence

In 1586 Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s secretary of state, allowed Mary a secret postal channel that he secretly controlled. Through it she received a letter from Anthony Babington describing a plan for a foreign invasion, her rescue and Elizabeth’s murder. Her reply of 17 July 1586, deciphered by Walsingham’s code-breaker Thomas Phelippes, approved the scheme. The story is told in full in the article on the Babington Plot.

The conspirators were executed in September 1586. Mary was moved to Fotheringhay Castle, a royal fortress on the River Nene, where she arrived on 25 September.

The trial at Fotheringhay

A commission of more than thirty peers, privy councillors and judges assembled at Fotheringhay. Mary at first refused to recognise its authority, saying that as an anointed queen she was not subject to English law. She was persuaded to appear, and on 14 and 15 October 1586 she defended herself without counsel or access to her papers.

She denied plotting Elizabeth’s death and challenged the evidence, which rested on copies and on the testimony of her secretaries, Claude Nau and Gilbert Curle, rather than on original letters. The commission adjourned to the Star Chamber at Westminster, where on 25 October it found her guilty. Parliament petitioned for her execution, and the sentence was proclaimed on 4 December 1586.

Elizabeth’s dilemma and the warrant

Elizabeth hesitated for weeks. Executing a fellow monarch set a dangerous precedent and risked provoking France, Spain and Scotland. Mary’s son, James VI, sent envoys to plead for her life but did not threaten war, as he hoped to inherit the English crown.

On 1 February 1587 Elizabeth signed the death warrant and gave it to her secretary, William Davison. She also suggested, through her ministers, that Paulet might quietly kill Mary under the Bond of Association, which he refused to do as against his conscience. The Privy Council, led by Lord Burghley, decided to send the warrant to Fotheringhay without telling the queen again.

The execution on 8 February 1587

Mary was told on the evening of 7 February that she would die the next morning. She spent the night writing letters, including one to her former brother-in-law, Henry III of France, and distributing her possessions to her servants.

The execution took place in the great hall of the castle, with an audience of around 300 witnesses commonly cited. The Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent presided. Mary entered dressed in black, with a white veil, carrying a crucifix and a prayer book. She refused the ministrations of the Protestant Dean of Peterborough, Richard Fletcher, and prayed aloud in Latin and English for the Catholic Church, her son and Elizabeth.

When her women removed her black gown, she was wearing a petticoat and sleeves of deep crimson, the Catholic colour of martyrdom. Accounts record that the executioner needed two blows, with a final stroke to cut a remaining sinew. When he lifted the head, it fell from a wig, revealing short grey hair. A contemporary account also states that her small dog was found hidden among her clothes and refused to leave her body.

All items that might be kept as relics, including the block and her clothing, were burned. Her embalmed body was kept at Fotheringhay for months before burial in Peterborough Cathedral in the summer of 1587.

Key people

• Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587): queen of Scotland from 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567, and a prisoner in England from 1568.
• Elizabeth I (1533–1603): queen of England, who signed the warrant but later claimed she had not intended it to be carried out.
• William Davison (c. 1541–1608): Elizabeth’s secretary, made a scapegoat; he was fined 10,000 marks and imprisoned in the Tower of London.
• William Cecil, Lord Burghley (1520–1598): Elizabeth’s chief minister, who led the council’s decision to send the warrant.
• Sir Francis Walsingham (c. 1532–1590): the spymaster who secured the evidence used at the trial.

Consequences

When news reached London, bells were rung and bonfires lit. Elizabeth reacted with apparent fury and grief, insisting that the warrant had been sent against her wishes. Historians still debate whether her anger was sincere or a political performance designed to shift blame away from herself, particularly in the eyes of James VI and foreign rulers.

James protested but accepted the outcome. He kept his English pension, and in 1603 he succeeded Elizabeth as James I of England, uniting the two crowns, as described in the article on the Union of the Crowns.

The greatest impact was international. In 1586 Mary had written that she would pass her claim to the English crown to Philip II of Spain if her son remained Protestant. With Mary dead, Philip no longer had to fear that a conquest of England would simply benefit a Franco-Scottish queen. Pope Sixtus V promised a subsidy for the enterprise, and the Spanish Armada sailed against England the following year.

Legacy

Catholics across Europe portrayed Mary as a martyr, and accounts of her dignified death circulated widely in print. Protestant writers presented her as a dangerous plotter who had brought her end upon herself. The two images have shaped her reputation ever since.

In 1612 James had his mother’s remains moved to Westminster Abbey, where her tomb stands in the Henry VII Lady Chapel, near that of Elizabeth. Fotheringhay Castle was dismantled in the 1630s, and only the earthwork mound survives. Mary’s embroidered motto, “In my end is my beginning”, proved apt: every British monarch since 1603 has descended from her.

Myths and facts

“Elizabeth and Mary met face to face.” They never met, despite scenes in plays and films such as Schiller’s Mary Stuart.

“Mary was executed simply for being a Catholic.” She was convicted of approving a plot against Elizabeth’s life. Her religion and her claim to the throne made her dangerous, but the legal charge was conspiracy.

“Elizabeth knew nothing of the execution in advance.” She signed the warrant herself on 1 February 1587, even if the council chose the moment to send it.

Timeline

• 1542, 8 December: Mary is born at Linlithgow Palace.
• 1567, 24 July: Mary is forced to abdicate in favour of her son James.
• 1568, 16 May: Mary crosses into England.
• 1586, 17 July: Mary replies to Anthony Babington approving his plan.
• 1586, 14–15 October: Mary is tried at Fotheringhay Castle.
• 1586, 25 October: The commission finds her guilty at Westminster.
• 1587, 1 February: Elizabeth signs the death warrant.
• 1587, 8 February: Mary is beheaded in the great hall at Fotheringhay.
• 1612: Her remains are reburied in Westminster Abbey.

Why it matters

The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots set a startling precedent: an anointed queen tried and put to death under the authority of another monarch. It removed the main Catholic rival to Elizabeth I, paved the way for the union of England and Scotland under Mary’s son, and helped turn decades of tension between England and Spain into open war.