On this day, 8th February 1587, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland and Dowager Queen of France was led to her execution on a scaffold in Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire, hundreds of miles away both from Linlithgow Palace where she was born and also her beloved France. The unfortunate Queen had endured a terrible journey from the pampered luxury of her youth to her current dire situation and there are few historical personages who have suffered such devastating reversals of fortunate and appalling tragedy in such a relatively short space of time.
I’ve often been accused of being unsympathetic towards poor Queen Mary and I will admit that in my younger days I was rather dismissive of what I percieved to be her weakness of both character, morals and intellect as well as her stupid dependency on the awful men in her life. As I have aged, however, I have started to understand and sympathise with her a lot more and recognise that she was a victim not just of circumstance but also her own insecurities.
Things that I have in common with Mary, Queen of Scots:
1. We are both half Scottish.
2. We were both born in Scotland to a Scottish father and a foreign mother. In my case English, which isn’t half so romantic as French but you can’t have everything.
3. We have the same colouring: red hair, pale skin and hazel eyes. Sadly, I do not have her height though – Mary was almost 6′.
4. We both love France. I too have been known to hang on to the railings of ferries in a sorrowful manner while trying to catch my last glimpse of the French coast.
5. We both left Scotland for England as young women, never to return. I moved with my grandparents in rather boring circumstances though as opposed to Mary who fled in the dead of night.
6. Mary once visited Forres, the town where I was born. I expect she played golf there. She seemed to play a lot of golf.
7. I once spent the night in one of her beds in a town called Jedburgh on the Scottish borders. It was absolutely enormous! I was about eight at the time and my grandparents thought it would be an enormous treat for me to sleep in Queen Mary’s bed, although they were also slightly concerned that I would find it terribly creepy. They need not have worried: a fire alarm went off during the night and I was so comfy that I managed to sleep through it.
RIP Marie Stuart, Reine d’Ecosse et de France.
I love the picture at the bottom its beautiful, Ive never seen that one of her before.
It is very sweet isn’t it? I need to do some proper posts about Mary, Queen of Scots as there are some amazing portraits out there! I couldn’t find my favourite in time for this, alas. :(
Yes, she commited many blunders but I’m rather sympathetic to women (and men) who are ruled by the heart.
Mary’s two major life blunders though, in my opinion, were leaving France in the first place, and not grasping the chance to return when she had the opportunity, entrusting herself to Elizabeth instead. I made the same (minus the Elizabeth thing of course)
Intersting blog you’ve created. Very.
Thank you very much. :)
Yes, she should have returned to France as soon as she had the opportunity but who knows what would have faced her there? She wasn’t popular with all of the French royal family and would probably have found herself humiliated and then forced into a political marriage to serve their ends. Poor Mary, she just doesn’t seem to have been welcome *anywhere*. :/
I find her letter (written six hours before her execution) really quite moving. I hadn’t seen the actual letter before, and somehow seeing her handwriting makes it all the move moving.
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/02/i-am-to-be-executed.html
It is very sad. I was a weird child and bought a large copy from a shop in Jedburgh and had it pinned on my wall for much of my childhood. I found her handwriting entrancing and it is one of the reasons that I learnt French as I had the French and English translations side by side! ;)