Last Letters Of Mary Stuart

THE LAST LETTERS OF MARY STUART

On 19th November 1586 Mary Stuart was visited by Lord Brockhurst in her prison at Fotheringhay castle. He was Elizabeth’s envoy and he had come to deliver the news “that she had been pronounced guilty of death by the commissioners in the Star Chamber, which sentence had been approved and confirmed by both houses of Parliament, and that they had united in petitioning for her immediate execution.” The execution, however, did not take place immediately and it was not until the 6th February, the night before the execution, that she was told she was to die the following day. She was aware, of course, that the trial had had a foregone conclusion and that she would certainly die, but the stark announcement on the 19th November concentrated her mind and she spent the time that remained to her in putting her affairs in order, writing her will, making provision for her servants, and above all in writing letters. She knew that these would be the last letters she would write, that they would be retained by the recipients and would eventually be made known to the world. Therefore, what she wrote would be of the greatest importance in justifying her innocence of the charge of conspiring against Elizabeth’s life and in establishing her claim that she was dying in the cause of the Catholic religion. As she had said at her trial: “The theatre of the world is larger than the theatre of England.” Apart from some matters particular to each recipient, it was to this wider audience that she was now appealing.

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She wrote seven letters in all: one to the Pope, Sixtus V, and another to the Spanish ambassador in Paris – Bernardino de Mendoza. These were dated 23rd November. The next day she wrote to the Archbishop of Glasgow, James Beaton, who was her representative in Paris, and on the same day she wrote to her cousin the Duke of Guise. On 19th December she wrote to Elizabeth. (Although she wrote again to Elizabeth on 12th January, her keeper Amyas Paulet refused to send it). On 7th February, the eve of her execution, she wrote to her chaplain, de Préau. Finally, just a few hours before her execution, she wrote her last letter, to her brotherin-law Henry lll, king of France. She wrote all of these letters in French, even that to Elizabeth, as she felt she could express herself better in her mother tongue. She wrote with care and with great difficulty as her right hand was crippled with arthritis. In her letter to Mendoza she said: “Forgive me if I write with pain and trouble, having not even one solitary person to aid me to make my rough copies and to write from my dictation”. To the Duke of Guise earlier she had written: “My right hand is so swollen and gives me so much pain that I can scarcely hold the pen nor feed myself.” None of these letters, except that to Elizabeth, arrived at its destination until well after her death, as they had been given for safe delivery to her servants, her chaplain and physician, who were not released from confinement until several months later.

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Apart from matters particular to the recipients there are common threads running throughout these last letters. First, she emphasises her consolation in Christ and eternity and her firm adherence to the Catholic Church. She declares with firm conviction that it is for her religion that she is being killed. To Archbishop Beaton she says, “I have been told that the reason for my death is that while I live her religion cannot with safety exist in this kingdom.” More pertinently she says to the Duke of Guise, “If I should belong to them I should not receive this blow.” To the Pope: “The cause of my death is their dread of the subversion of their religion in this island.”, and to Mendoza, “They honour me so much as to say that their religion cannot exist while I live.” Finally, to Henry lll she says: “The Catholic Faith and the maintenance of the right which God has given me to this throne, these are the two points of my condemnation.” When she mentions her right to the throne, she is referring to her right to succeed Elizabeth, not, as many of her Catholic supporters insisted, her right to call herself Queen of England because of Elizabeth’s illegitimate usurpation of the throne. It was this right, to be recognised as Elizabeth’s successor, that she demanded throughout her captivity. The second motif that runs through all of these letters is her rebuttal of the charge that she was party to the plot to assassinate Elizabeth. She denied throughout her trial that her letters to Babington encouraged the removal of Elizabeth from the throne and insisted that her only objective was her liberty after nineteen years of unjust imprisonment. Knowing that she

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was soon to die and wishing to clear her conscience particularly to her old friend the Archbishop and to the Pope, she strongly denies the truth of the charges. To Beaton she says: “But to have contrived, counselled or commanded Elizabeth’s death, that I have never done, nor would I suffer, for my own sake, that the slightest blow should be given to her.” Also – “I would willingly die for obeying the Church but would not murder anyone to possess their rights.” To the Pope she wrote: “I have no ambition or desire to reign, nor to dispossess any other for my own personal advantage as by illness and by long afflictions I am so weakened that I have no desire any more to trouble myself in this world except with the service of His Church and to gain the souls of this island to God.” To Mendoza (who had himself enthusiastically embraced the idea of murdering Elizabeth and who would have welcomed Mary’s compliance) she wrote: “I have made no attempt nor taken any action to get rid of her who was in that place.” Also, in the same letter, “They told me that, do what I would, I should not die for religion, but for having wished to have their Queen murdered, which I denied to them as being very false, as I never attempted anything of the kind.” Finally, to Henry, in the letter she wrote in the middle of the night just before her execution, she said: “I faithfully protest that I suffer death innocent of all crime, even if I were their subject, which I can never be.”

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The third recurring theme is the matter of the future of her servants and attendants, of which there were about a dozen at the end. One of the most remarkable things about Mary’s long imprisonment was the loyalty and constancy of her servants, who chose to remain with her although they were kept in straiter circumstances than their mistress. Many of them, like the Mowbray sisters, had chosen to abandon a rich and comfortable life to attend on Mary. In all of these final letters Mary is concerned that after her death her servants will be cared for. To the Archbishop she writes: “I recommend my poor servants to you in the name of God. Console them of your charity, for in losing me they lose everything.” To Mendoza and Guise she uses the same expression – “my poor destitute servants”. On a more practical level she writes to the Pope: “I supplicate Your Holiness to obtain from the very Christian King (Henry) that my dowry should be charged with the payment of my debts and the wages of my poor desolate servants.” The payment of her debts was also of extreme importance to Mary and she expected that the income from her estates in France that had been given to her as a dowry on her marriage to the Dauphin François would be used to discharge her obligations both to her creditors and servants. To this end she adds a codicil to her last letter to Henry, asking him “to reward my desolate attendants by paying them their wages.” She appeals to Henry to pay her all that he owes her and

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for the enjoyment of her dowry for a year after her death to pay her servants. She also recommends to Henry her physician, her almoner, and an old servant, asking him to take them into his service. It is a sad fact that nothing she asked for was granted. A decree of the French Parliament in December 1587 (the letter would not have reached Henry until shortly before then) announced that there was not enough money from her dowry to grant her wishes. Also, there was so much contention between the creditors and debtors and disagreement even among the former servants with regard to the bequests made to them, that the Parliament passed the whole matter to the executors to sort out. The result was that the servants received only what Mary had given them by her own hand. These last requests were typical of her, generous and idealistic, but in the circumstances wholly impractical. Much has been written about Mary’s relationship with her son James whom she had last seen as a child over twenty years before. At the end her concern was for his soul. She prays for “my unfortunate and ill-advised child” (to Guise) and to the Pope “with a mortal regret for the perdition of my poor child.”. She asks the Pope to get Philip of Spain to assist him to find a good wife for James, preferably from the Spanish royal family and to Henry she writes: “Regarding my son I commend him to you inasmuch as he shall merit it, as I cannot answer for him.”

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The shortest and most personal of these last letters was that to her chaplain De Préau which she wrote the evening before the last day. He had been removed from her some weeks before, but was accommodated in a room not far from hers. Despite repeated requests that he should be with her at the end, at least to receive the sacrament and have her confession heard, her gaolers refused to grant what she most desired in these final moments. She makes a general confession of her sins and asks for his absolution and “to pray and watch with me this night.” She asks him for advice for the most appropriate prayers for that night and the following morning. She finishes, “Time is short. I have no more to spare. I will send you a last little token.” The letter that Mary wrote to Elizabeth on 19th December is the most moving of all those final letters. There is no bitterness, no self-pity, only a calm resignation and an appeal, not for mercy for herself, but for consideration for others. She thanks Elizabeth for certain favours -the return of her chaplain (although he was removed soon after and was refused permission to comfort her in her last hours) and the restoration of some of the money taken from her at Chartley several weeks before. She also, with gentle irony, thanks Elizabeth for the “agreeable tidings” brought to her by Buckhurst and Beale. Paulet, her harsh Puritan gaoler, was unwilling to send the letter, worried that it might sway Elizabeth to change her mind. He could not, however,

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hold back the letter indefinitely as Elizabeth had ordered that Mary should be allowed to write. He did delay sending it, hoping that it would arrive after the execution which he expected very soon. He even took great pains to ensure that the letter contained no enclosure that might be injurious to Elizabeth, insisting that Mary close and seal the letter in his presence. Further precautions were taken. Paulet writes to Walsingham “I had forgotten to signify unto you that this Queen, taking her letter in both her hands, and holding the leaves open, did wipe her face with every part of both the leaves; which no doubt she did in despite that I had told her there might be as great danger within the letter as without.” This was done to prove that the fabric of the letter had not been impregnated with poison. The letter was received by Elizabeth some time in December. The Earl of Leicester records the fact to Walsingham: “There is a letter from the Scottish Queen that hath wrought tears but I trust shall do no further hurt therein, albeit the delay is too dangerous.” Elizabeth never answered the letter. Her main requests in the letter are, first, to be buried in holy ground in France near her mother as there is the danger of her grave being insulted and profaned in Scotland. This request was denied, as, after her death, her body was eviscerated, crudely embalmed and lay neglected and forgotten in a lead coffin in Fotheringhay castle for six months. Secondly, she pleads that she will be put to death publicly. She was afraid that Elizabeth or her ministers, to avoid the consequences of a public execution, would have her killed secretly. This suspicion was

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justified as the Earl of Leicester and the Master of Gray had earlier recommended that Mary be poisoned, and Elizabeth herself had expected Paulet to put her away privately. Mary’s dearest wish now was to die on an executioner’s scaffold in the presence of witnesses where she could confess her faith publicly and for all to hear. She was constantly obsessed with the fear of assassination. “I expect to be poisoned or some other secret death”, she wrote. She did not fear death itself, but was worried that a private death would be declared as suicide. Her third request was that her servants be allowed to keep the things she will leave them in her testament and be allowed to depart without hindrance. There is a subtle reminder of Elizabeth’s earlier promises to her when she says: “Do you wish me to return a jewel which you gave to me, or do you want to have it sooner?” This was a jewel sent to her while a prisoner at Lochleven with assurances that Elizabeth would work for her release. In spite of these pleas her servants were kept imprisoned at Fotheringhay for another eight months, even beyond the lavish state funeral in Peterborough cathedral that Elizabeth had ordered, either to salve her conscience or to pacify Mary’s son James. The servants had refused to take part in the farce of a service inside the cathedral and to attend the ceremonial banquet afterwards. For this they were punished by being imprisoned for another two months. Mary finishes her letter with this parting shot: “I remind you that one day you will have to answer for

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your charge as well as those who are sent before.” The letter is signed “Your sister and cousin wrongfully imprisoned.” As Mary received no reply to this letter, she wrote another on 12th January, but Paulet refused to send it. Mary begged him several times to come to her and read it, but he pleaded sickness and his inability to rise out of bed. In it she implores Elizabeth not to keep her “in this miserable suspense which is more cruel than any final punishment.”. She then asks for the return of the papers that were taken from her at Chartley five months previously. They would be of no use to anybody but her and she needed them to make her will. They included books of accounts and inventories of what she possessed as well as details of her income and holdings in France. She had certain debts and she was anxious that these should be settled by her executers after her death. She sets great store by paying her creditors and mentions it in almost all these final letters. She refers again to the sufferings of her servants who are losing their time and their health. She finishes by forgiving all those who have conspired against her and insulted her and makes a further reference to the consanguinity she shares with Elizabeth and their common ancestry. Finally she avers that her condemnation is being used as a pretext for the furtherance of the designs of others, surely a reference to the malice of Elizabeth’s ministers, Burghley, Leicester and Walsingham who, since the first day of her imprisonment nineteen years before, had conspired her death in order to be sure of a Protestant succession.

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