8th February 2015
Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded this morning in 1587, having been found guilty of plotting to kill Elizabeth I and put herself on the English throne. She was 44, and had been imprisoned in England for nearly nineteen years.
A witness of the execution was George Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury, her keeper for fifteen years, who may have been in love with her. His wife, the indomitable Bess of Hardwick, did not attend. She and George had been rich and affectionate newlyweds when Mary became their compulsory guest. Their honeymoon period rapidly ended as Bess was obliged to live alongside a queen who was notoriously beautiful and around fifteen years her junior.
Mary was extremely expensive to keep. George was not strict with her, and failed to sufficiently curb her spending. Bess must have felt that she was losing her fortune and her husband to Mary, an enemy of her queen, her country, and her Protestant religion. Housing Mary ruined them financially, and ruined their marriage – the pair descended into financial recriminations and separated. There were even rumours that George and Mary were having an affair, which Mary accused Bess of spreading. I wrote about this fascinating love-triangle in my novel The Other Queen. Reader response has told me over and over again that many women identify with Bess, the powerful passionate entrepreneurial woman who cannot prevent her husband's blind and mistaken behaviour.
At the execution George lost his former companion, prisoner, and possibly beloved, having already lost his wife through her. Mary was a woman who inspired great devotion and great opposition. Her death was the end of the hopes of many who wished for a Catholic Queen of England.
Portrait from the National Portrait Gallery Collection.