Most beheadings in England were done without incident. Unfortunately for Mary, Queen of Scots, hers was not most.
Wikimedia CommonsA 19th century illustration of Mary being led to her execution .
Elizabethan England was a punic space . Although the nation experience a golden years under the eponymous queen of the era , she was constantly faced with threats from France , Spain , and within her own boundary line . One of these threats was her first cousin once removedMary , king of Scots .
Mary Stuart Becomes Mary, Queen Of Scots
Elizabeth I was the girl of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn , who had famously sack the Spanish Catherine of Aragon as queen of England and convert the king to break open from the Catholic Church in the process . Many see Elizabeth ’s title to the throne as illegitimate , since King Henry had annul his marriage to Anne before taking a raw married woman .
Enter Mary Stuart : a queen in her own right viewed by Catholic party as the perfect contender for the can of England .
have a bun in the oven toKing James V of Scotlandand his Gallic married woman , Mary inherited her father ’s throne when she was just six sidereal day former . Eager to create an alliance with France , the Scots promised Mary to the heir of the Gallic king and sent her to be raised in his court .
Wikimedia CommonsA 19th century illustration of Mary being led to her execution.
The 18 - year - old was concisely queen of both Scotland and France when her married man ascended the throne in 1559 . However , when he died of an ear contagion only a year later , she was place back to her aboriginal state .
Wikimedia CommonsMary as a young girl in the French court .
After 19 twelvemonth as a virtual prisoner in England , Mary was implicate in a secret plan to overthrow Elizabeth and the English poof consecrate her full cousin sentenced to destruction .
Wikimedia CommonsMary as a young girl in the French court.
decapitation seem in particular gruesome by modern standards , but in Elizabethan times this method acting of execution was much preferred to beinghanged , drawn , and quartered . Elizabeth ’s female parent , Anne Boleyn , had herself been decapitate by a Gallic swordsman squall in especially to execute a former queen .
Wikimedia CommonsThe slaying of Anne Boleyn , mother of Elizabeth I.
A Horrific Beheading
Of course , if not carried out correctly , beheadings could also go horribly wrong . harmonise to the eyewitness chronicle ofRobert Wynkfield , Mary ’s writ of execution went anything but smoothly .
After being pressure to strip to her underclothes in front of all the witnesses , Mary enjoin farewell to her crying handmaiden and approached the executioners . One of her peeress - in - waiting tied a kerchief to cover Mary ’s eyes , then leave her kneeling and pray in Latin on a cushion . Blindfolded , the former world-beater was thrust to grope around for the block before she was able to position her chin upon it in preparation for the mortal reversal .
Unfortunately for Mary , her life story would not end with one light stroke of the blade . As one public executioner held her in place , the other raise his axe and land it down onto her cervix .
Wikimedia CommonsThe execution of Anne Boleyn, mother of Elizabeth I.
But the executioner had miss his target , and the blade did not go clean through . Quickly , he raise his ax again and struck once more , and Mary , Queen of Scots made “ very small dissonance or none at all , and not evoke any part of her from the place where she lie down ” throughout the terrible appendage .
Yet , even after two blow the royal head had still not been totally break up ; the public executioner was forced to swing again to cut the “ one trivial cartilage ” attaching it to the body . He then lifted the flaming prize up before the cumulate witnesses and solemnly proclaimed “ God deliver the Queen . ”
Wynkfield gruesomely noted that the queen ’s head was almost unrecognizable and that her rim remained moving for “ a quarter of an hour ” after her beheading .
A Scottish copy of Mary’s tomb in Westminster.
In one final macabre scene , when the public executioner go to murder Mary ’s garter he noticed that her bantam pet dog had been hidden under her dress the whole clip . They could not get the beast to abandon his dead mistress ; it ran out from her apparel to lay down in the puddle of blood between her severed head and cervix .
A Scotch copy of Mary ’s tomb in Westminster .
Mary , Queen of Scots was forget in Peterborough Cathedral , although when her son James I succeeded Elizabeth as the ruler of England , he had her dead body disinter and buried in Westminster Abbey . She rest there today , right across from her cousin .
Next , get wind about history’sworst methods of execution . Then interpret about thetrue story of “ Bloody Mary . ”
