Page 38 - All About History - Issue 72-18

Royal rivalry
Mary’s final moments as
she is led to her execution
It soon arrived in the form of a young English
nobleman – Anthony Babington. On the same
daythattheTreatyofBerwickwassigned,
Babington wrote to Mary seeking approval for
his plot to free her from imprisonment while
his accomplices assassinated Elizabeth. Waiting
11 days before choosing to reply, Mary offered
no resistance to the “accomplishing of their
design” and suggested that they would need
foreign help to secure her the English throne.
WhatMaryandBabingtondidn’trealisewas
that Walsingham and his spy network had
known about this plot for some time,
waiting for concrete evidence that would
force Elizabeth to finally execute her cousin.
Sending in a double agent to infiltrate the plot,
Walsingham ensured that he could intercept
Mary’s correspondence with Babington, waiting
for the moment she would incriminate herself.
As Walsingham had hoped, Mary’s response
to Babington was everything he needed.
The moment that Elizabeth read the letter,
her lingering sympathies for Mary and her
predicament finally disappeared – it was the
final, ultimate betrayal.
38
With Babington and his conspirators
rounded up by Walsingham, the queen decided
to make an example of them to deter future
plots against her life.
Hanged,drawnandquartered,Babington
and his men were brutally
disembowelled and forced
to watch their entrails burnt “Elizabeth
before their very eyes before
they died. úQDOO\ SXW KHU
Arrested in August
andtriedbeforeaspecial pen to paper and
commission, Mary was
found guilty of treason on signed Mary’s
25 October 1586 despite her
protestations of innocence.
While her advisors death warrant”
clamoured for Mary’s
execution, Elizabeth remained reluctant to
condemn Mary, a fellow anointed queen, to
death, fearing retribution at God’s hands. After
weeks of indecision, Elizabeth succumbed to
the pressure and had Mary’s unsigned death
warrant drawn up on 4 December 1586. The
following month, James wrote to Elizabeth to
Mary’s
death
mask
ask for mercy on behalf of his mother but he
didn’t threaten their alliance, considering his
own position as Elizabeth’s likely heir.
On 1 February 1587, Elizabeth finally put her
pen to paper and signed Mary’s death warrant
but left it unsealed, ordering her secretary
and privy council member, William Davison,
not to send it. However, Cecil, on the cusp
of achieving his long-awaited goal, ignored
Elizabeth’s wishes.
Sealing the warrant, he sent it before the
queen had an opportunity to change her mind.
Exactly one week later Mary was executed at
Fotherinhay Castle.
Her dignified composure, clasping a prayer
book and a rosary, transformed Mary into a
Catholic martyr.
Upon hearing the news, Elizabeth flew into a
rage. Placing the blame squarely at the feet of
her council, she banished Cecil from the court
for weeks and threw Davison in the Tower for
handing over the warrant without her consent.
Elizabeth wrote a pleading letter to James
and protested her innocence in Mary’s death.
James accepted Elizabeth’s version, with his
path to the English throne
clearer now that his mother was
gone. For the rest of her life,
Elizabeth could never escape
the memory of her cousin and
it was said that Mary’s ghost
continued to haunt her for
until the end of her days – even
on her deathbed Elizabeth
supposedly uttered her cousin’s
name. Although Mary lost her
battle against Elizabeth, in the
end she won the war with James’s
accession to the English throne.
While awaiting her execution, Mary famously
embroidered the phrase ‘In my end is my
beginning’, a prophecy that has come true – her
rivalry with Elizabeth has ensured that she will
always be remembered, entangled in a
bitter fight to the end.