When she approached the executioner’s axe inside the walls of Fotheringhay Castle, Mary
Queen of Scots was calm.
She was one of the most interesting women of the Tudor period, and of the 16th century,
and her life was one which was tragic and also rather fascinating.
She would be married to the young King of France who would die early on, and she then
married a man who was assassinated who was blown up.
Her third husband was allegedly the man behind the blowing up of husband number 2, but she
would plot against her cousin Elizabeth I. Mary was forced to leave Scotland and she
then was imprisoned by Elizabeth for almost 2 decades by the English Queen.
This frustration led to Mary consenting to be involved in a number of plots that planned
to assassinate Elizabeth and then put the former Scottish Queen on the throne of England.
But for this she was sentenced to death, and her execution did not go well.
But following losing her head, Mary’s body was not treated well and was not treated in
the way that she wanted to.
But she was dug up and her tub was broken into a number of times.
But what is the story of breaking into the tomb of the executed Mary Queen of Scots?
Mary Queen of Scots was not executed with one single swing of the axe.
It was considered skilled if an executioner could do this, but the first blow missed her
neck and the axe embedded in the back of her head which would have been incredibly painful
and even knocked her out.
The second strike of the axe almost did the job, as it was swung onto her neck but a small
piece of sinew held her head to her body.
The executioner then used his axe to saw through this, and when he picked up her head he exclaimed
in the great hall of Fotherinhay Castle ‘God Save The Queen.’
When he held her head up, the wig she was wearing came loose and then her head fell
onto the floor showing the Queen with short grey hair, but following her execution there
was a huge clean up effort.
Anything that was touched by the blood of Mary was burned in the fire of the great hall,
and this included the scaffold and the block used in her execution and also any cloths
and clothes that had her blood on them.
This was to prevent Catholic relic hunters claiming they had something from Mary’s
execution.
But the execution of Mary would plague Elizabeth I until the day she died, and she would even
imprison one of her advisors inside the Tower of London for his council on this matter.
She believed that ordering this execution would prevent her from getting into heaven
after her death as she claimed that she had killed another anointed Queen who had been
sent by God to rule.
But Mary Queen of Scots before her death had given strict instructions as to what was to
happen to her body and remains, and she wanted to be sent to France and for her body to then
be buried with her first husband, the deceased King of France.
But this was refused by Elizabeth I and her body was embalmed inside of a chamber in the
same castle where she was executed, and it was placed in a secure lead coffin and then
was left inside of a presence chamber for some time.
Mary Queen of Scots’ body was left unburied for a number of months and for a significant
amount of time.
The reason for this was that Elizabeth would not sign off on her burial, and authorities
debated the burial site.
Eventually they came to the conclusion of burying Mary in Peterborough Cathedral, the
closest cathedral to her execution site.
Her heart and entrails which were removed during the embalming process were then buried
inside of Fotheringhay Castle somewhere, and the burial register at Peterborough Cathedral
wrote that, ‘‘The Queen of Scots was most sumptuously buried in ye Cathedral Church
of Peterborough the first day of August 1587, who was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle, the
eight of February before.’
Queen Elizabeth’s household officers and heralds arrived a few weeks before to choose
the burial site, and they picked directly opposite the first wife of Henry VIII, Catherine
of Aragon.
For her funeral a large hearse was made near to the first steps of the quire, and the cathedral
was decorated with black cloth.
On the 30th July between 1 and 2am, the body of Mary was brought from Fotheringhay under
a torchlit procession on a chariot hung with black velvet.
The Bishop and Dean of Peterborough were part of this along with many other members of Mary’s
household and her friends.
The body was then placed in the cathedral and was then laid into a vault.
The next day a group of lords and ladies arrived at the Bishop’s palace, and the day after
members of the clergy gathered in the cathedral for a sermon by the Bishop of Lincoln.
This was ultimately not what Mary Queen of Scots wanted, and she was given a protestant
burial when she was catholic, which was in her opinion rather offensive, but she also
was prevented being buried where she wanted to.
In 1603 though, Elizabeth I died.
Mary’s son James then succeeded to the throne and wa known as King James I, and he united
the Scottish and English thrones.
But three years after becoming the King of England, he had drawn up plans for his mother
Mary Queen of Scots to be buried in a more dignified place and in a better and more lavish
tomb befitting her place in history.
Mary Queen of Scots would be reburied in 1612 in a huge tomb that took 6 years to finish.
Her remains were then dug up, with grave diggers breaking into her vault and tomb, and they
then removed her body from Peterborough Cathedral and it went on a procession to Westminster
Abbey.
A royal warrant was granted for her burial, and King James I’s huge marble tomb for
his mother was found on the south aisle of the lady chapel, right at the heart of English
religion.
Her effigy on the tomb shows her wearing a dignified close fitting coif a laced ruff
and a long mantle and a crowned Scottish lion stands at her feet.
She was also chosen to be buried opposite Elizabeth alluding to their rivalry, but Mary’s
tomb was slightly larger and grander than Elizabeth’s.
However this would not be the last time that Mary Queen of Scots’ tomb and remains would
be disturbed.
She was laid to rest for over 2 centuries, but then in 1867, Arthur P Stanley the curious
dean of Westminster would oversee a search of her vault.
HE was a man who was interested in completely documenting the burials of the Kings and Queens
inside Westminster Abbey, and Stanley was on the hunt for the lost tomb of King James
I, Mary’s son.
James would be found later interred in the same vault as Henry VII and Elizabeth of York,
the founders of the Tudor dynasty.
However there was a rumour that his body may have been buried in the same vault as his
mothers, but Stanley then took part in the exhumation and lifting of Mary Queen of Scots’s
coffin.
He found that when he broke into the tomb, that Mary’s lead coffin had been placed
along the north wall of the vault, but Mary was not alone in this large vault.
In fact there were many other burials inside this vault too, and this meant that over the
years the vault and tomb of Mary had been broken into the bury further members of the
royal family.
Mary’s coffin was actually found beneath that of Lady Arbella Stuart’s coffin and
inside the vault also was Henry the Prince of Wales, Anne Hyde the Duchess of York, and
the mother of two Stuart Queens, Mary II and Anne, Elizabeth the Winter Queen of Bomeia.
Prince Rupert of the Rhine, and also many children of James II were also held here.
Interestingly, many of those inside this vault were descendants of the stuarts, the very
dynasty that Mary was the head of.
Queen Anne and her surviving child the Duke of Gloucester were also found there.
Following the complete documentation of this vault by Stanley, it was then covered back
up and it’s not believed to have been broken into since.
But as the centuries passed on, the intrigue around Mary Queen of Scots and her bloody
fate continued.
Her coffin was disturbed a number of times and she was even exhumed and then buried around
100 miles away.
But her body was buried in a large ceremony inside of Westminster Abbey, and she was placed
in a tomb befitting her place in history and her place as a Queen.
But 200 years after this her vault was disturbed by officials who worked inside of Westminster
Abbey who were actually looking for the remains and coffin of her son James.
But Mary’s death was very shocking, and it was performed poorly but still today one
cannot help but feel sorry for the fact she still is laid to rest in a place not where
she wanted to be buried.
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