Page 12 - Oundle Life Sept 2022

TO KILL
A QUEEN
Fotheringhay Castle
It’s not much to look at now; a grassy mound by the banks of the River Nene, grazed by sheep and lacking any trace of its former might – or the horror that took place there. For the same nondescript grassy knoll once ran red with the blood of a queen.
It was here, on the evening of February 7, 1587, that Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, and cousin of the English queen, Elizabeth 1, was informed that she was to be executed the following morning. It was here that she spent her final hours praying, writing her will, and awaiting her grizzly end.
As a staunch protestant, Queen Elizabeth 1 of England feared her cousin’s power in leading a multinational Catholic army to claim the throne of England. In the eyes of many Catholics,
Elizabeth was illegitimate, and Mary Stuart was the rightful queen, as the senior surviving legitimate descendant of Henry VII. It was a threat Elizabeth was not prepared to tolerate
When Mary was arrested for her part in the Babbington Plot (to overthrow the English queen) she was arrested and eventually held in Fotheringhay Castle – birthplace of Richard III in 1452
and an important royal fortress. After much deliberating – Mary was, after all, a queen in her own right – Elizabeth finally signed the death warrant for her cousin on February 1, 1587, ensuring Fotheringhay’s place in history.
It wasn’t a clean death. It took three swings of the executioner’s axe to severe Mary’s head from her body yet, even then, the life force was not completely extinguished. According to
Mary’s beloved dog had been hiding beneath her skirts
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