After Mary’s escape from Lochleven her troops were defeated at Langside by the Regent Moray, and she fled to seek her cousin’s support. Instead of offering protection, however, Elizabeth consigned Mary to nineteen years’ incarceration in various gilded prisons, from Carlisle to Fotheringay. Since her presence created a potential rallying point for a Catholic restoration, she was a perpetual thorn in the English Queen’s side, but it was not until Mary was – fairly or unfairly – implicated in a plot to assassinate Elizabeth that her execution was ordered. This letter to her brother-in-law Henri III, King of France, was written in the early hours of the morning of her execution. The original is in French.
Monsieur my brother-in-law, having by God’s permission – for my sins as I think – come to throw myself into the arms of this Queen my cousin, where I have had many weary troubles and passed near twenty years, I am at last, by her and her Estates, condemned to death: and having claimed my papers, by them removed, in order to make my will, I have not been able to recover anything which would serve, nor to win leave to make one freely, nor that after death my body should be borne, as I desire, into your kingdom, where I have had the honour to be Queen, your sister, and your ally from of old.
Today, after dinner, my sentence has been announced to me, of being executed tomorrow as a criminal, at eight in the morning. I have not had leisure to give you a full account of all that has happened: but if you will please to believe my physician and these others my forlorn servants, you will hear the truth: as, thanks be to God, I despise death, and faithfully protest that I receive it innocent of all crime, even supposing I were in their jurisdiction. The Catholic religion, and the upholding of the right to this Crown which God has given me, are the two causes of my condemnation: none the less they will not let me say that it is for the Catholic religion I die, but for fear of a change in theirs: and for proof of this they have taken away my chaplain, whom, though he is in the house, I could not make them let me have to confess me, or to give me the Last Sacrament: but they have strongly urged me to receive the consolation and doctrine of a minister of theirs brought here on purpose. The bearer of this, and his companions, mostly your own subjects, will witness to you how I bear myself in this my last action.
It remains for me to beg you, as Most Christian King, my brother-in-law and old ally, who have always protested your affection for me, that you now make proof in all these points of your goodness, as much in Christian charity, easing my mind in the discharging of my conscience, which without you I cannot achieve: which is to reward my forlorn servants, leaving them their wages, and further to obtain prayers for a Queen who has once borne the title of Most Christian, and who dies a Catholic, stripped of all her goods. As for my son, I recommend him to you as he shall deserve, for I cannot answer for him. I have ventured to send you two rare stones, good for the health, desiring that for you with long and happy life. You will accept them as from your most affectionate good-sister, who dying bears witness of her good heart to you. Once more I recommend to you my servants. You will order, if you please, that for my soul’s good I shall be paid a part of what you owe me, and that in honour of Jesus Christ, Whom tomorrow, at my death, I shall pray for you, you will leave me as much as will found an obit [as will create a legacy], and will make the needful alms.
This Wednesday, at two hours after midnight.
Your most affectionate and good sister,
MARIE R.