For years, Elizabeth I faced threats to her throne from both abroad and within England and Britain. Her reign was marked by numerous plots to overthrow her, many tied to religion.
Elizabeth had tried to manage religious divisions through the Religious Settlement, which aimed to calm the turbulence caused by Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I. But the settlement was controversial and deeply unpopular with Catholics.
Many leading Catholics wanted Elizabeth off the throne and looked to another monarch: Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary became one of the most serious threats to Elizabeth, and in the end the Virgin Queen had the final say, ordering her execution.
Mary was the only surviving legitimate child of James V of Scotland. She was just six days old when she became queen. Her marriages troubled her greatly throughout her life.
She married the Dauphin of France, Francis, and briefly became Queen Consort of France. But King Francis II died on December 5, 1560, when Mary was still around 18 years old. She then returned to Scotland.
Mary also had a possible claim to the English throne. When Henry VIII died, his last will and testament excluded the Stewarts from succeeding. But in the eyes of many Catholics, Elizabeth I was illegitimate because her mother was Anne Boleyn and Henry's marriage to Anne had caused great controversy, especially after Anne was beheaded on the king's orders.
From a very early age, many Catholics believed Mary Stuart was the rightful Queen of England, as the most senior legitimate descendant of Henry VII through her grandmother Margaret Tudor.
Mary's second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, was her half-cousin, and they fell in love upon her return to Scotland. Darnley was a weak man who suffered from alcoholism and had no real authority over Scotland.
He quickly became jealous of Mary's secretary and favourite, David Riccio, and murdered him in front of Mary at Holyrood House while she was six months pregnant. Her son James would later become king of both England and Scotland.
Darnley himself died under mysterious circumstances when his house was blown up in February 1567. His body was found in the garden, but he had been strangled.
Mary then became attracted to James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, the man accused of her second husband's murder. After his acquittal, he and Mary married. The Scottish laws of congregation did not approve of the relationship, and because of this she was imprisoned in a castle.
In May 1568 she escaped and fled to England. Upon arrival she was placed under protective guard at Carlisle Castle, and for the next 18 years she was imprisoned in a number of castles and locations.
Elizabeth placed Mary under guard throughout her time in England. She understood that Mary's presence caused many problems. With the help of Catholics, Mary could try to seize the English throne. But Elizabeth also feared that if Mary returned to Scotland, she would make the country a base for French and Catholic activities that could cause hostility toward England.
Many Catholics believed Mary should have been Queen of England, and Elizabeth grew suspicious of her throughout her reign. The two queens did not get on well. Elizabeth was aware that many English Catholics wanted her killed and removed from the throne.
Throughout her life she learned of many plots to kill her, and many were intertwined with Mary. These plots shared the same purpose: to kill Elizabeth and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. The Ridolfi Plot in 1571 planned this, as did the Throckmorton Plot in 1583.
But it was a plot in 1586 that caused the most outrage across England. The Babington Plot would be the final nail in the coffin for Mary, Queen of Scots.
Anthony Babington was an English Catholic nobleman who planned to restore the Roman Catholic religion across the country by replacing Elizabeth with Mary. Babington made Mary aware of his plans to kill Elizabeth and help Mary escape captivity.
Mary appeared to support the plan and wrote letters discussing it and replying to Babington. These letters were intercepted and found their way into the hands of the queen's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. Elizabeth now had the key evidence that Mary was plotting against her.
Mary's involvement in the Babington Plot was concrete, and Elizabeth initially hesitated to order her death. She did not want to seem responsible for the execution of a queen, one who was in fact related to her. But Elizabeth did not really have a choice. Although Mary had been held captive for almost two decades, she was still too much of a threat.
On August 11, 1586, after being implicated in the Babington Plot, Mary was arrested. The letters clearly showed that Mary sanctioned the execution of the Queen of England.
She was taken to Fotheringhay Castle on September 25 and placed on trial for treason before a court of 38 noblemen, including Walsingham himself. She defended herself and denied the charges.
She told the court, "Look to your consciences and remember that the theatre of the whole world is wider than the kingdom of England." She also protested that she had been denied the opportunity to examine the evidence herself and denied legal counsel.
Mary stated that as a foreign anointed queen she had never been a subject of the Queen of England, and therefore could not be convicted of treason. Nonetheless she was convicted on October 25 and sentenced to death, with only one commissioner expressing any opposition.
Elizabeth was hesitant to order the execution, but on February 1, 1587, she finally signed the death warrant. On February 7, 1587, representatives of Queen Elizabeth reached Fotheringhay Castle.
Between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, in the presence of her jailer Paulet, they read a commission regarding the execution of the prisoner. They said they would proceed with the execution the next morning between seven and eight o'clock. Paulet was ordered to have everything prepared.
Hearing this, Mary thanked them for her good news, saying nothing could be more welcome to her. She longed for an end to her miseries and had been prepared for death ever since she had been a prisoner in England.
Mary begged the envoys to give her more time to make herself ready, seek out her will, and place her affairs in order. But the Count of Shrewsbury rudely replied, "No, no, madam, you must die. Be ready between seven and eight in the morning. It cannot be delayed a moment beyond that time."
On her final day, Mary spent the rest of the day and the early hours of the morning writing farewell letters to friends and relatives, saying goodbye to her ladies-in-waiting, and spending time in prayer.
On the morning of February 8, 1587, Mary rose at Fotheringhay Castle for her execution. A scaffold had been erected in the great hall and was draped in black cloth. It was reached by two or three steps.
On the scaffold sat a block with a cushion for Mary to kneel on, and three stalls for her and the Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent, who had been sent to witness the execution.
Mary entered the room full of grace and majesty, as if she was coming to a ball rather than her execution. As she approached the scaffold she asked for help climbing the steps.
On the scaffold she asked the officers to allow her priest to be present, but this was refused. The Count of Kent told her that he pitied her greatly to see a victim of the superstition of past ages, and advised her to carry a cross of Christ in her heart rather than in her hand.
Her guards offered her a Protestant minister to give her comfort, but she reacted angrily. She asked that the queen spare her ladies-in-waiting, and prayed that Britain and Scotland would be converted to the Catholic Church.
She then summoned her ladies-in-waiting to help her remove her black veil, headdress, and other jewelry. When the executioner attempted to help her, Mary cried out, "Nay, my good man, touch me not."
Mary's ladies helped her reveal that she was wearing a velvet petticoat and a pair of sleeves in crimson brown, the liturgical colour of martyrdom in the Catholic Church.
Her executioner Bull and his assistant then knelt before Mary and asked for her forgiveness, which was custom for executions. Mary told him that she willingly forgave the executioner and all those responsible for her death, and hoped her sins would be forgiven by God.
Mary wore a golden cross made out of wood, believed to be from the true cross, with a picture of Jesus on it. She was about to give this to one of her companions, but the executioner banned this, even when Mary claimed she would give him three times its value in money.
She then reached out to her ladies once more, telling them to go, and made the sign of the cross to them. One of them was unable to keep from crying, and Mary quickly reassured her. The ladies were told to stand back quietly and pray to God for her soul.
One of her ladies-in-waiting, Jane Kennedy, gave her a white handkerchief embroidered in gold and blindfolded Mary. She then quickly knelt down with great courage, and many of the crowd of around 500 were moved to tears by Mary's bravery.
She positioned her head on the block and muttered her last words, "Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit," which she spoke in Latin. Mary then stretched out her arms to give the signal that she was ready to die.
Mary's execution was not straightforward. Inside the great hall of Fotheringhay Castle it was bloody and brutal. Mary was not beheaded with a single strike.
The first blow missed her neck and struck the back of her head. The second blow from the axe severed her neck except for a small part of sinew to which her head was still attached. The executioner then cut through this with his axe.
He then held Mary's head aloft and declared, "God save the queen." At this moment Mary's auburn hair turned out to be a wig. As the executioner gripped her hair, her head fell to the ground, revealing that she had very short gray hair.
Her head rolled off toward the edge of the scaffold. It was an incredibly barbaric sight. It was reported that after her death her lips stirred up and down for a quarter of an hour after her head was cut off.
Anything touched by the blood of Mary, Queen of Scots was burned in the fireplace of the great hall to prevent any relics being left of the queen.
Upon hearing the news of the execution, Elizabeth I became furious and regretted the decision. However, she rejected Mary's request to be buried in France. Her body was embalmed and left in a secure lead coffin, then buried in a Protestant service, one final humiliation for Mary, at Peterborough Cathedral.
Later her son James I would order her exhumation and have her interred in Westminster Abbey, in a chapel opposite the tomb of Elizabeth.
The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots was seen by many as an incredibly shocking event, with the Queen of England ordering the death of another monarch. It was seen at the time by Catholics as disgusting, and Elizabeth was viewed as a tyrant.
However, others believed she had no choice. Anyone else of any birth who plotted against a queen and consented to the queen's assassination would have been executed for treason in the same manner. Yet the way in which Mary was executed was incredibly bloody and shocking, especially as the executioner held up her head to the crowd.