Elizabeth wanted Mary assassinated, but was forced to sign the death warrant
Elizabeth I did not want Mary executed in public; she hoped someone would kill her privately under the Bond of Association. The Privy Council insisted on legal process, and in the end, even after the Queen had signed, they defied her wishes and rushed the warrant through the night to Fotheringhay.
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What arrived for Mary was not freedom but bait in a beer barrel
Gifford's scheme used beer deliveries to carry letters: correspondence for Mary went into a waterproof container, the container was pushed through the bunghole of a beer barrel, the barrel was carted to Chartley, and Mary's steward retrieved it. The channel ran both ways, so Mary could write back. But Gifford had already been turned by Walsingham, and the whole ‘French embassy channel’ was watched from behind by Phelippes. Mary believed she was rebuilding contact with the outside world; in fact every letter was opened, read, deciphered and resealed exactly as it had been. What arrived for her was not freedom. It was carefully engineered bait.
— TomThe decipherer drew a gallows on the transcript to mark evidence, not to predict
Mary's dictated reply contained the coded reference to the six gentlemen, which was precisely what Phelippes wanted. After deciphering Mary's letter he copied it into English and drew a gallows on the transcript, calling it the ‘bloody letter’. He was not predicting the outcome; he was marking the decisive link in the chain of evidence. Babington and his fellow conspirators were kept in the dark throughout. When Mary was taken out of Chartley on 11 August to hunt deer, she still thought the riders approaching might be her rescuers; in fact it was Walsingham closing the net. Letter, decipherment, gallows: that sequence turned Mary from someone implicated in a plot into the person who had authorized the assassination of a queen.
— TomAn empty throne exerts more pressure than a queen in the room
In the presence chamber at Fotheringhay, Elizabeth was not there, but her empty throne sat high beneath a canopy of state, looking down on the whole trial. Lord Burghley took the presiding seat; he had waited decades for this moment. Mary had very little room to maneuver in how she framed her position: she was not an English subject, she was an anointed monarch, and she refused to recognize the court's legitimacy. Burghley sent delegation after delegation to persuade her, and in the end it was Christopher Hatton, with a line to the effect that if she were innocent, avoiding trial would only damage her reputation, who got her to walk in. The moment she entered she found that what faced her was not law but a stage of power whose ending had already been written.
— TomWalsingham's answer denied everything and addressed nothing
In court Mary accused Walsingham of tampering with her letters, which is exactly what had happened. His reply was diplomatic craft of a high order: he swore before God and the world that as a private man he had done nothing unbecoming, and as Secretary of State nothing unworthy of his duty. In principle the sentence denies everything, and yet it answers not one specific charge. Stephen Alford calls it a masterpiece of wording that says everything and nothing at once. Mary then turned to Burghley and said that he truly was her enemy, to which Burghley shot back that he was the enemy of Queen Elizabeth's enemies. By that point the exchange was no longer legal argument. It was a showdown over power.
— TomThe Puritans refused assassination because justice has to be seen
Even after signing, Elizabeth did not want the death warrant carried out. What she wanted was for someone, under the oath of the Bond of Association, to privately ‘shorten Mary's life’. Walsingham, though ill, wrote to Mary's keeper Paulet conveying the Queen's displeasure. Paulet's refusal is the crucial moment: he would not make so foul a shipwreck of his conscience, nor leave so great a blot on his posterity, as to shed blood without law and warrant. Elizabeth called him dainty for it. This explains why the Privy Council did not opt for assassination: hardline Puritans though these men were, they believed justice had to be visible, that an execution had to run through legal process and carry God's sanction. Assassination was politically cheap, but in matters of faith it was unacceptable.
— TomElizabeth won the law, Mary won the narrative
Mary removed her black velvet outer garment to reveal a crimson silk petticoat and undergarments, the color of Catholic martyrdom. The Protestants present lost their composure entirely; not one official report mentions this moment, and only the six Catholic waiting women around her spread the detail. The night before, she had written a final letter to Henri III saying she was condemned for her Catholic faith and her claim to the succession, but after her death she was forbidden to declare that she died for Catholicism. The red beneath the black was the visual version of that letter: it turned the execution, in the court of public opinion, into religious persecution. Elizabeth won the law. Mary won the narrative.
— TomThree strokes, a wig and a dog under the skirts: the execution became farce
The executioner's first stroke landed on the back of Mary's head, and in agony she cried out for the Lord Jesus to receive her soul; the second stroke reached the neck but still did not sever it, and the executioner had to work the blade like a butcher to part the head from the body. When he lifted the head by custom to display it, all he was holding was a wig, and Mary's head had rolled to the edge of the scaffold. Her women were then led away, and the executioner found under Mary's skirts a Skye terrier she had kept, howling in the pool of blood. These turns made the execution into an excruciating farce, and they also show that Mary played her own script right to the moment of death: what she wanted was not only martyrdom, but to leave her enemies with no dignified way out.
— TomIn their own words · checked verbatim
Look to your consciences and remember that the theatre of the whole world is wider than the kingdom of England.
Tom40:00
I call God in all the world to witness that as a private person, I have done nothing unworthy of an honest man and as secretary of state, nothing unbefitting my duty.
Tom45:00
I am the enemy.Of the enemies of Queen Elizabeth.
Tom46:10
God forbid that I should make so foul a shipwreck of my conscience.Or leave so great a blot to my poor posterity.
Tom53:59
this will be the last trouble I shall give you.And the most agreeable service.You have ever done me.
Tom1:01:01
the black velvet gown fell below her knees, revealing under bodice and petticoat of crimson silk.
Tom1:03:03
Figures
| Mary's daily diet at her height | 32 dishes per meal, 64 dishes a day | 17:17 |
| Execution of Babington and his fellow conspirators | 20 September 1586 and the following day | 30:58 |
| Opening of Mary's trial | 14 October 1586 | 38:39 |
| Year the Bond of Association was signed | 1584 | 49:40 |
| Date of Mary's execution | 8 February 1587 | 59:52 |
Glossary
- Bond of Association
- A 1584 pledge signed by English Protestants committing them to put Mary to death if she took part in an attempt to assassinate Elizabeth.
- Act for the Queen's Safety
- A 1585 parliamentary act providing that a claimant to the throne implicated in rebellion, invasion or assassination could be tried and executed for treason.
- presence chamber
- The room in which a monarch receives subjects; at Mary's trial an empty throne stood in the chamber to signify the sovereign's presence.
- Star Chamber
- The Privy Council's judicial body at Westminster, which handled the final stage of Mary's case and pronounced her guilty.
- cipher
- The encrypted writing Mary used to correspond with the outside world; Phelippes deciphered the letters and resealed them exactly as found.
How to listen
History writers, people working in politics and intelligence, and readers who want to understand the two competing logics of rule: public execution versus private assassination.
The first 21 minutes are series recap and background; you can skip them. The substance starts at 21:56 with the beer-barrel channel.