The Trial of Mary Queen of Scots

Mary Stuart is one of history’s most memorable figures, with myriad compelling chapters in her life. The Babington Plot was a convoluted bit of intrigue that she’s tied to, and it ultimately led to her execution.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. Earlier this year,
the folks that Focus Features came to us about doing
a podcast related to Mary, Queen of Scott's to coincide

(00:24):
with their new film, also called Mary Queen of Scott's.
Mary Stewart, as she is also known, has made several
appearances on our show before previous host talked about the
death of her husband, Lord Darnley, as well as her
lengthy rivalry with Queen Elizabeth the First But Mary is
such a memorable figure and there's so many parts of
her life that we haven't talked about. But it was

(00:45):
very very easy for us to find something that we
wanted to cover, and that is the Babington plot, which
ultimately led to her execution. So we're gonna set the
stage with a little bit about her youth and a
little about that rivalry with Elizabeth, but our focus today
is really on the plot and the trial that followed.
And since this is an episode about the Stewart's, Mary's

(01:08):
beheading is only one of the gruesome executions that were
going to discuss. Yeah, there was definitely a trend uh
in those stories where there is a lot of violence,
there's a lot of killing each other in very grisly ways. Yeah,
this is one of those times any pretty much any time,
but especially when we talk about the Stewarts and the Tutors. Uh.

(01:30):
I kind of have that thing of like, who would
want that job because no one saves, Like it's one
thing to have a stressful job, and I guess if
you really want power, there's a draw. But I would
be like, no, I'm I'm not part of the royal family,
thank you. I would completely excommunicate myself. But that is
neither here nor there, So we will get into Mary's story.
Mary Stewart was born on December eight, forty two in

(01:53):
Lennlithgow Palace in Scotland, and her parents were James the
fifth of Scotland and Marie of Gys. She was their
only surviving child, and less than a week after Mary
was born, her father died. Mary became Queen of Scotland
at the age of six days old, with her mother
acting as regent. Mary spent most of her childhood and

(02:14):
young adulthood in France, not in Scotland. She was sent
there to be fostered and to escape an unwanted marriage
to Henry the eighth son Edward, and then on April
fifty eight she married Francis, the Dauphin of France. He
was the son of Alri the second and Catherine de Medici.
At the time, she was seventeen and he was fourteen,

(02:35):
and they do seem to have been genuinely fond of
each other, but their relationship was also more like siblings
than spouses. A November seventeenth of that same year, Elizabeth
the First ascended to the English throne, and that put
Mary next in the line of succession after Elizabeth, which
was the focal point of the rivalry between the two
of them. There was a lot more than just this

(02:58):
one issue tangled up in this rival though, including religion, politics,
family dynamics, ongoing tensions between England and Scotland, and ongoing
tensions between England and France. Consequently, the next decade of
Mary's life was increasingly chaotic and turbulent. Aria the second
tried to make a claim to the English throne on

(03:19):
her behalf, but he died not long after that. That
made Francis the King of France, and Mary was the
Queen consort. But then Francis died on December five of
fifteen sixty, just a couple of years into their marriage.
Earlier that same year, Marie of Gys had also died,
so suddenly Mary was the Queen of Scotland, the dowager
Queen of France, a widow, and an orphan, all at

(03:40):
the same time. She was eighteen. Maria of guss death
also meant that Scotland no longer had its regent, and
Mary returned to Scotland to take the throne in fifteen
sixty one, but she immediately ran into all kinds of problems.
Her upbringing and manners and education were all very French,
so some Scots considered her to be an outsider. She

(04:04):
was also Catholic, but Scotland at that point had become
a Protestant country, and returning to Scotland had amped up
the tension between her and Elizabeth even more, since it
meant that Mary and her claim to the English throne
were right there on the same island with Elizabeth, instead
of somewhat out of the way in France. In fifteen
sixty five, things got even more dramatic, Mary married her

(04:26):
cousin Henry Stewart, the Earl of Darnley. Since Darnley was
both Catholic and a Stewart, Elizabeth was highly suspicious of
this match and of the motivations for it. It really
was just an impulsive marriage that Mary made for love,
but it did not go well at all. Case in point,
Darnley and his men murdered David Rizzio, who was Mary's

(04:49):
secretary and favorite, and they did this in front of
her at dinner while she was about six months pregnant.
Charmers everyone, uh, and then Darnley himself died it under
very mysterious and extremely suspicious circumstances. We have a previous
podcast on that as well, but the one sentence version,
UH is this. He was found strangled outside the house

(05:12):
he was staying in after it exploded. Mary then got
married again to James Hepburn, the fourth Earl of Bothwell,
who had been one of the prime suspects and Darnley's death.
There were also a lot of rumors that Mary and
Bothwell had been having an affair and had conspired together
to kill Darnley. Mary's marriage to Bothwell was also strange.

(05:34):
It wasn't totally clear whether he kidnapped her or whether
she willingly eloped with him, but regardless, immediately before their marriage,
he had divorced his wife, Jean Gordon, under very shady circumstances.
Mary's sudden marriage to Bothwell caused her to lose the
support of a lot of the Scottish nobility. Bothwell and
his opponents each raised armies, but the French ambassador arranged

(05:58):
peace terms before any of this could actually result in
a war, Mary surrendered on June fifteenth, fifteen sixty seven.
After she surrendered, Mary was forced to abdicate in favor
of her son James, making him James the sixth of Scotland.
James's father had been Lord Darnley, and since James was
a little over a year old, Mary's half brother, James Stewart,

(06:21):
Earl of Moray, was named as the regent. As for Bothwell,
he was eventually arrested and died after spending five years
in solitary confinement. Mary spent the next eleven months imprisoned
at Locke Leaving Castle. After one failed escape attempt, She
managed to leave the island on May second, fifteen sixty
eight Willie and George Douglas, ages sixteen and eighteen, were

(06:44):
involved in both escape attempts. In the second, they had
a set of fake keys to the castle made and
they swapped those for the real ones at dinner, taking
the real keys right off the table, concealed in a napkin.
This castle was on an island, and once she was
free of it, Mary rallied an army, She denounced her
half brother, and she announced that she had only abdicated

(07:06):
under Durest. She started planning to take back the throne
of Scotland by force. She didn't succeed, though, she was
defeated by Moray's forces at the Battle of Langside. At
this point, Mary was really out of options in Scotland,
so she fled to England. In spite of the ongoing
layered tensions between the two queens, Mary hoped that she

(07:28):
could take refuge with her cousin Elizabeth. This wasn't quite
as far fetched as the two queens incredibly contentious history
might make it seem. Elizabeth really was appalled at what
had happened in Scotland because Mary was, without question the
rightful ruler of Scotland. This was not how a monarch
was supposed to be treated, especially not a monarch who

(07:48):
was her cousin. At the same time, Elizabeth wasn't at
already to commit English troops to helping Mary take back
her throne, or to give Mary a pass for all
of those years of animosity between them. Instead, she agreed
to allow Mary to stay in England while she convened
a commission that would hold hearings into the matter of
Lord Darnley's death. If Mary was complicit in Darnley's death,

(08:11):
it would have been out of the question for Elizabeth
to help her at all. This commission ultimately determined that
England should not interfere in what was happening in Scotland,
but it also found that Mary was not involved in
Darnley's death. Elizabeth, though, was really sure that if she
just freed Mary, the result was going to be a
Catholic uprising against her in England. So Elizabeth had Mary

(08:35):
imprisoned for the next almost nineteen years. More on that
after a sponsor break. Even though Elizabeth was suspicious of Mary,
she didn't really have any legal grounds to imprison her.
Mary was a monarch of another country. Her son at

(08:57):
this point was the King of Scotland. England and Scotland
were not at war with each other, and for one
monarch to just imprisoned another one during peacetime wasn't really
within the bounds of international law, so Elizabeth's treatment of
Mary was more like keeping her under house arrest. Mary
spent her first night in England in Workington Hall, and
from that point on she was kept under guard at

(09:20):
a series of manners and castles. At first, many of
them were owned by George Talbot, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury.
He was Mary's custodian or jailer for much of her confinement.
He and his wife, Bess of Hardwick acted as Mary's
keepers and Elizabeth's informants for most of those nineteen years.
During those years of imprisonment, the Reformation and counter Reformation

(09:43):
we're playing out in Europe leading to ongoing religiously motivated violence.
Just as one example, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, in
which French Catholics murdered thousands of Huguenos, was in fifteen
seventy two while Mary was captive at Sheffield Castle. Religious
strife also escalated in England during this time, some of

(10:04):
it connected directly to Mary and Elizabeth, because many Catholics
didn't consider Elizabeth to be a legitimate monarch at all.
She was the daughter of Henry the eighth and his
second wife, Anne Boleyn. They had become secretly married in
fifteen thirty three while Henry was still married to Catherine
of Aragon. Henry had asked the Pope to annul his
marriage to Catherine, and when he didn't, Henry declared himself

(10:27):
head of the English Church and appointed an archbishop who
would do the annulment for him. Anne was already pregnant
with Elizabeth when Henry's marriage to Catherine was annulled, and
an archbishop, not the Pope, had done that annulment. So
a lot of people, Catholics especially, did not consider Elizabeth
a legitimate successor to the throne. They thought of her

(10:48):
as the illegitimate child of a king's concubine. In addition
to all of that, on April fifteen seventy, Pope Pious
the fifth had issued a bull that excommunicated Elizabe and
called her a heretic and quote the pretended Queen of
England and the servant of crime. The bull also absolved
the nobles, subjects and people of the said realm of

(11:11):
any oaths and duties towards Elizabeth, and made obedience to
Elizabeth punishable by excommunication. The Papal bull combined with the
existing questions about Elizabeth's legitimacy to spawn a whole series
of plots to depose or assassinate her and replace her
with Mary. The Ridolphi plot of fifteen seventy one was

(11:31):
named for one of the conspirators, Italian merchant Roberto Ridolfi.
This plot was connected to a Catholic uprising called the
Northern Rising, as well as to King Philip the Second
of Spain. Then there was the throck Morton plot of
fifteen eighty three, named for Francis throck Morton, who was
working with agents from France. It's possible that Mary was
connected to the throck Morton plot, or at least knew

(11:53):
about it. Throck Morton was writing a letter to her
in code when he was arrested. And then there was
the Perry plot of fifteen eighty five, which was named
for Welsh spy and Dr William Perry. None of these
plots was particularly likely to be successful, and it's not
clear whether Perry really ever plotted to kill the Queen
at all, but Elizabeth's advisers did encourage her to take

(12:17):
them seriously. Added to all this stress was the assassination
of William the Silent or William the First Prince of
Orange in fifteen eighty four, who had led the Netherlands
against Spanish rule and was ultimately assassinated by a Catholic fanatic.
In the face of all of this, in fifteen eighty five,
Mary was moved to Charlie Castle and assigned a new custodian,

(12:39):
Sir Am. The move and the changing custody are widely
reported to have been the work of Sir Francis Walsingham,
that was Elizabeth's secretary of State and spymaster. The move
to Charlie let Walsingham keep a closer eye on Mary.
It let Polly completely cut her off from communication with
the outside world. Arliament also passed a new law related

(13:02):
to all of this. It had started with an informal
agreement known as the Bond of Association in four which
was formalized as an Act for the Security of the
Queen's Royal person and the continuance of Peace in the Realm,
which was passed the following year. Under this Act, if
a person conspired and a plot against the Queen, or

(13:23):
if a plot against the Queen was concocted on a
person's behalf, that person was prosecuted. Whether they knew about
the plot or not. It was considered treason and it
was punishable by execution. The Act also specified that anybody
participating in such a plot, or having such a plot
carried out on their behalf, was permanently and irrevocably barred

(13:44):
from ever ascending to the throne of England. The Bond
of Association and the law that followed were clearly crafted
because of Mary. They set up a legal framework to
prosecute her if her supporters plotted to put her on
the throne, regardless of whether she was involved or even
knew about any of it. Okay, they might as well
have just called it the law to make it so

(14:05):
weaken behead Mary Stewart, because otherwise there's a logic breakdown
to it. There are several logical breakdowns. Yeah. That all
brings us finally to the Babington plot. Named for Anthony Babington.
He was Catholic, very well off and connected to several
other people who had been involved in previous plots to
try to depose or assassinate Elizabeth and replace her with Mary.

(14:28):
He had also served as a page to George Talbot,
sixth Earl of Shubury, who had been Mary's custodian, and
during that service he had become quite fond of her.
One of his connections was to a Catholic priest named
John Ballard, who also wanted Elizabeth off the throne and
helped put him in touch with even more people who
had similar goals. Babington and several co conspirators started plotting

(14:51):
in early fifteen eighty six, using an inn as their
meeting place, and they were not all that discreet about
any of this. They even come assianed portraits of themselves,
either because they thought that they would live and be
famous for it, or because they thought they would die
but be remembered as murders. Either way, portraits of themselves
were going to come in very handy. It's like they

(15:14):
were writing their own history books before they did the
thing that was going to become historically significant. Yeah, they
are often described as being arrogant and full of hubrists,
as sort of a pattern among them all. So meanwhile,
Walsingham learned about this plot pretty quickly, and he saw
it as an opportunity. He concluded reasonably, but as long

(15:34):
as Mary was alive, they were going to be ongoing
attempts to get rid of Elizabeth and put Mary on
the throne. Just as reasonably, he concluded, there was no
way Elizabeth was going to sign off on Mary's execution
without some real concrete proof that she was involved in
a plot to kill the monarch and take the throne
for herself. So he allowed the Babington conspirators to continue

(15:57):
with their plotting, and even took steps to a allow
them to do it. When Gilbert Gifford, an English Catholic
who had been in France, returned to England, Walsingham arrested
him and got him to work as a double agent. Now,
in some accounts Gifford volunteered, and in others this is
more of a situation where Walsingham convinced him, and we're
using the air quotes around Convince threatened. Maybe Gifford's mission

(16:22):
wasn't just to gain the conspirators trust and provide intelligence
back to Walsingham. It was also to actively encourage and
enable this entire plot. At Walsingham's instruction. Gifford went to
Babington and told him he had learned about this plot
from another of the conspirators, a man named Thomas Morrigan.
Gifford said he had worked out a way to get

(16:43):
messages to and from Mary, even though all that communication
with outside world had been cut off for months. He
said he had a friend who was a brewer, and
that they could smuggle messages into and out of Charlie
Castle in beer barrels with false bottoms. At this point,
we don't know who this brewer might have been. He
was always referred to only as the honest man. Babbington

(17:05):
approved of this plan, but he did not entirely trust
Gifford with his secret correspondence, so he used a cipher
to encode all his letters. Mary already had the code
book she'd need to decipher the letters and encode her reply,
apparently thanks to an emissary from France. But Gifford didn't
take these letters straight to his brewer friend. He took

(17:26):
them to Walsingham, who was working with a forger to
replicate the seals that were used on all the letters,
so Walsingham and his forger would open up the letter,
make a copy of it, reseal the original, and send
it on his way, and then keep the copy. Walsingham
would take that copy to his codebreaker, Thomas Phillips, to
try to work out the code, and at one point

(17:47):
he even had Phillips housed at Charlie Castle to do
this work more efficiently, right there where Mary also was.
Babington's cipher included replacing letters of the alphabet with symbols
and use other symbols to represent specific words and phrases,
and he thought this cipher was secure, so he wrote
a clear account about what he was doing. But Phillips

(18:10):
quickly cracked this code, or more likely, they had actually
already intercepted the key and Phillips was just using it
to decipher what was in front of him. Mary and
Babington exchanged a few letters that were mostly about Mary
getting access to all the mail that had been withheld
from her, and then Babington sent her a letter that
referenced quote a great preparation by the Christian Princes, your

(18:33):
Majesty's allies for the deliverance of our country from the
extreme and miserable fate, wherein it hath too long remained
that letter went on to describe a plan to be
carried out in the wake of such a deliverance. When
these other Christian princes invaded, they would dispatch the usurping competitors,

(18:53):
being Elizabeth, and then quote, myself, with ten gentlemen and
a hundred of our followers, will undertake the delivery of
your royal person from the hands of your enemies. For
the dispatch of the usurper from the obedience of whom
we are by the excommunication of her made free. There
be six noble gentlemen, all my private friends, who, for

(19:14):
the zeal they bear to the Catholic cause, and your
Majesty's service, will undertake that tragical execution. Mary's response to
this letter, which was intercepted, is dated July sevent and
it was also intercepted, and it's said, in part quote,
when all is ready, the six gentlemen must be set
to work, and you will provide that on their design

(19:37):
being accomplished, I may be myself rescued from this place
and being safe keeping till our friends arrive. That will
be hard to fix the day for the execution. You
must have a party therefore in readiness to carry me
off and you will keep four men with horses saddled
to bring word when the deed is done, that they
may be here before my guardian hears of it. Mary

(20:00):
response didn't really get into the idea of assassinating Elizabeth.
It rested on the idea of a foreign invasion. If
that invasion were successful, she might logically become queen. But
she really left the question of who should be monarch
of England in the hands of God and the invasion's outcome.
Her letter expressed clear support for the conspirators freeing her

(20:21):
from her confinement, but not for the idea of assassinating
the Queen. Yeah, people hang on the word execution a lot,
but in the context of this, she was talking about
executing the plan in the sense of to do a
thing right, not to assassinate the monarch. So, of course
Wassingham intercepted this letter and all of these other letters,

(20:43):
and even though he had Babington's outline of the plot
and Mary's support for at least part of it, he
didn't have the names of all the conspirators or a
clear statement that Mary hoped for or planned the assassination
of Queen Elizabeth. So before passing Mary's letter onto Babbington's.
Walsingham had his forger at a PostScript. So in this

(21:05):
fake PS, Mary asked to know the names of the
six men, under the grounds that she might have some
information about one or more of them that could let
her give him further advice. His hope with adding this
fake PS was that Babbington would reply and name more names.
But before his correspondence with Mary got much further, Babington

(21:26):
learned that Walsingham had discovered the plot. He fled, but
was captured on August four. In his confession, he implicated
all his other co conspirators and also said he had
gotten a letter from Mary saying that she had supported
the entire plot. Here's the thing about those letters, though
the originals don't exist, and this is not a recent development,

(21:49):
by the time the case came to trial, all the
originals had been burned or otherwise destroyed, as his common
practice when you get some secret correspondence from somebody. So
all that was left of the letters were copies, copies
made by a forger employed by Walsingham while trying to
ferret out a plot to overthrow the queen. So this
raises some questions about their authenticity. In fact, Walsingham played

(22:13):
such a key role in all of this that the
Babington plot has been described as a double conspiracy, with
Walsingham conspiring against Mary and Babbington and his crew conspiring
against Elizabeth. Each plot could only exist in conjunction with
the other. The conspirators had no way to communicate with
Mary without Walsingham's double agent and that honest man with

(22:36):
the beer barrels, and Walsingham had no plot to use
against Mary without Babbington and his crew. Okay, One of
the articles that I read about this was basically like,
this whole thing is so convoluted that even now, hundreds
of years later, it's sometimes hard to tell who is
tricking who. At which point we will talk about the
trials of Babington, his co conspirators, and Mary. After another

(22:58):
sponsor break based on his confession and the copies of
all this correspondence, Anthony Babington and twelve co conspirators were
put on trial on September six. Initially, the men all

(23:19):
pleaded guilty to everything except plotting to kill Elizabeth, although
they all changed they're not guilty please on that charge
to guilty under pressure from the prosecution. There's portraits that
they had commissioned of themselves were also brought up as
part of the evidence. The method of execution was gruesome.
Babington and the first seven conspirators were executed on September six.

(23:44):
They were hanged, cut down while still alive, and then
again while still living, disemboweled and castrated in front of
throngs of spectators. Queen Elizabeth decided that this method of
execution was excessively cruel, so when the rest of the
co conspirators were executed the next day, they were hanged
until they were dead, and then their bodies were disembalid

(24:05):
and castrated. Mary was arrested on August eleventh, fifty six
while she was out riding. She was taken to fathering
Gay Castle, where she was held prisoner until her own trial,
which took place on October fourteenth and fifty six. It
was held before an assembly of forty six Commissioners, as
had been outlined in the law that had been passed
the year before. The evidence against Mary included the confessions

(24:29):
of Anthony Babington and John Ballard, confessions from her secretaries
Gilbert curl and Jacques now were included as well, but
both of the secretaries made their confessions under duress. They
were deceived into thinking that the prosecution had copies of
letters that they had written and ciphered, which was not true.

(24:49):
The letters between Mary and Babington were also part of
the evidence, but as we noted before, these were the copies,
not the originals. But Mary consistently and stridently denied all
in involvement in this plot. She said she had never
spoken to Babington's had never written or dictated those letters.
Mary said these copied letters used as evidence were forgeries

(25:11):
in their entirety. She also made the point that it
was not possible for her, the Queen of Scotland, to
be charged with treason against England, a nation of which
she was not a citizen. She said, quote, it seemeth
strange to me that the Queen should command me, as
a subject to appear personally in judgment. I am an
absolute queen and will do nothing which may prejudice either

(25:34):
mine own royalty, or other princes of my place and rank,
or my son. The laws and statutes of England are
to me most unknown. I am destitute of counselors and
who shall be my peers. I am utterly ignorant. My
papers and notes are taken from me, and no man
deareth stepped forth to be my advocate. I am clear

(25:55):
from all crime against the Queen. I have excited no
man against her, and I am not to be charged
but by mine own word or writing, which cannot be
produced against me. Yet I cannot deny that I have
commended myself and my cause to foreign princes. She also
argued that the power of a monarch came directly from God,
something that she and Elizabeth both believed. If Elizabeth's power

(26:19):
was bestowed by God, then so was Mary's, and that
meant that these proceedings were under God's jurisdiction, not the
jurisdiction of a bunch of men, who, while prominent and powerful,
were mere mortals. Although by all accounts, Mary bore herself
well and argued her own case impeccably, even though she
was denied her papers and any advisers or representation, and

(26:41):
then she was found guilty. She was convicted on October
without being present, without having any further chance to be heard,
and without even being told that these proceedings were concluding
that day, after the conviction, though it took Elizabeth months
to sign Mary's death warrant in spite of the law
that England had passed. It would set a dangerous precedent

(27:04):
for one monarch to execute another, especially a relative, in
this way, but Elizabeth knew. Secretary of State William Davison
did finally get her to sign the warrant on February one, seven,
although she told her counselors not to carry out the
order until she gave the final word. Her Privy Council
ignored that instruction, though, and decided to proceed with the

(27:27):
execution without waiting for her to finally okay it. Mary
got word that she was to be executed on February
seven seven. She responded, quote, as for the death of
the Queen, your Sovereign, I called to God to witness
that I never imagined it, never sought it, and never
consented to it. She asked for some more time to

(27:47):
put her affairs in order, but that was denied, so
she spent most of her remaining time that night writing
letters to loved ones, arranging gifts for her servants, and praying.
One of her final letters was to honor the third
brother of her late first husband, which said, in part quote,
tonight after dinner, I have been advised with my sentence,
I am to be executed like a criminal at eight

(28:09):
in the morning. I have not had time to give
you a full account of everything that has happened, but
if you will listen to my doctor and my other
unfortunate servants, you will learn the truth and how thanks
be to God. I scorned death and vow that I
meet it innocent of any crime, even if I were
their subject. In this letter, she also described how her

(28:31):
chaplain had been taken away from her and she had
been refused permission to have him come back and give
her the last sacrament. She also asked on read to
pay all of her servants for any wages that were
still owed to them, and towards the end of the
letter she wrote, as for my son, I commend him
to you in so far as he deserves, for I
cannot answer for him. She had actually been prevented from

(28:54):
keeping in touch with him in any way during her imprisonment.
Mary was beheaded in the Great Hall of buthering Gay
Castle on February seven, in front of an assembly of
at least three hundred people. She was forty four. As
was the case with her trial and the last days
of her imprisonment, she's consistently described as going to her

(29:15):
execution with a stoic and graceful perseverance, and the account
of Pierre de Boorde quote After kissing her women once more,
she bade them go with her blessing. As she made
the sign of the Cross over them. One of them
was unable to keep from crying, so that the queen
had to impose silence upon her by saying she had
promised that nothing of the kind would interfere with the

(29:36):
business at hand. They were to stand back quietly, pray
to God for her soul, and bear truthful testimony that
she had died in the bosom of the Holy Catholic religion.
One of the women then tied the handkerchief over her eyes.
The queen quickly and with great courage, knelt down, showing
no signs of faltering. So great was her bravery that

(29:58):
all present were moved, and they were a few among
them that could refrain from tears and their hearts. They
condemned themselves for the injustice that was being done. Walsingham
had Mary's clothing, crucifix and prayer book from the execution
destroyed so they wouldn't be made into relics of a
religious martyr. Her body was placed in a lead coffin

(30:18):
and buried in Peterborough Cathedral. After this execution, Elizabeth really
started to distance herself from it. She was outraged that
Davison and her counsel had carried out this execution without
waiting for her order, and she actually had Davison sent
to the tower. She also expressed that the manner of
the execution was sacrilegious, and she knew that Catholic monarchs

(30:40):
of other countries were going to see it as a
sacrilege as well. For a time, Elizabeth's behavior was interpreted
in a pretty cynical way, as though she were just
trying to cover herself with a show of anger over
an execution that she had actually secretly been eager for.
But letters unearthed in the nineteen sixties suggests that England's
nobility he was truly alarmed at her displeasure, which seemed

(31:03):
very genuine and not something that she was just performing
for the sake of appearances. Almost immediately this whole affair
became part of literature and art. There are so many
paintings of the trial and the beheading. There were ballads
written about the execution in the weeks immediately after it happened,
and from there they have been plays and novels and

(31:23):
poems and TV shows and movies, and many of them
approached Mary as a very doomed and romantic heroine. There
are certainly accounts and versions that do not take that perspective,
but she was very frequently depicted with like a stoic
grace and a sense of impending destruction that she couldn't

(31:44):
really control. And of course Mary's son, James, became James
the sixth of Scotland and first of England on March three.
After the death of Queen Elizabeth in sixteen twelve, he
had Mary's body exhumed and placed in Henry the Seventh
Chapel in West mr Abbey. He also had a white
marble tomb constructed that has an effigy of Mary on

(32:05):
the lid. Her hands are folded in prayer and there
is a crowned Scottish lion at her feet. And then
at the opposite end of that chapel there's the tomb
of her cousin, Elizabeth, the first do you have listener mail,
hopefully with a little less beheading. I do have listener mail.
It does not have any beheading in it, but it
it does still have a little bit of tragedy in it.

(32:26):
I don't think I've read this one before. It becomes
difficult sometimes to keep up with what we have and
haven't read when we're doing episodes kind of out in advance.
So this is an email about the sinking of the
S S Princess Sefia. It is a thing that we
got several emails about, so I picked one of them,
and it is from Chris. Chris says, good morning. My
name is Chris, and I live in Germany working for
the US government. I love listening to Stuffy miss in

(32:48):
history class during my daily runs to and from work.
This morning, I was playing your most recent podcast about
the S S Princess Sofia. I'm not sure if you
looked at the following news article, but it appears that
companies are still using the teen fifty one maritime law
to dispute liability. And then he includes an article that
came out shortly after that episode did that was about

(33:10):
a tragic duck boat sinking that happened in the United
States this past July. It was a kind of horrifying
incident where one of those duck boats that are popular
in tourist places for amphibious tours, it sank and seventeen
people died, and the companies that are being sued for it,

(33:31):
we're all drawing on that same eighteen fifty one maritime
law that we talked about capping uh, the amount of
um of settlement that the families could receive in the
sinking of the s S Princess Sofia. So yeah, that
is a case or a law that still exists that
still being brought up even now in the cases of
maritime disasters. So thank you to Chris and the other

(33:54):
folks who have written to us about that. If you
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(34:16):
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(34:36):
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