Posted on 02/20/2008 4:37:02 PM PST by BlackVeil
The warrant which authorised the execution of Mary Queen of Scots has been bought by the Church of England for $150,00.
Mary, the Catholic queen, who claimed both the Scottish and English crowns, was executed in 1587 on the order of her Protestant cousin Queen Elizabeth I.
Dressed in scarlet, a Catholic colour of martyrdom, with her pet dog hidden among her skirts, legend has it that it took two blows of the executioner's axe to kill her.
Reuters reports the warrant, a copy of the lost original, was purchased from a California auction house by the Lambeth Palace Library.
"We're delighted to have played a part in saving this document for the nation," said Richard Palmer, a librarian and archivist at the library.
"The warrant is now reunited with the papers with which it belongs and accessible for the benefit of all," he said.
The manuscript instructs Henry Grey, the sixth Earl of Kent and one of two commissioners tasked with the execution, to "repair to our Castle of Fotheringhaye where the said queene of Scottes is in custodie and cause by your commaundement execution to be don uppon her person."
GGG ping.
Only 150 dollars? Kind of a bargain for something historical.
They have the price purchased wrong. Rooters says it was purchased for 140,000 dollars.
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSL1986909720080219?sp=true
The Penguin on top of the Tellyvision set and The Death of Mary, Queen of Scots from Monty Python’s Flying Circus
(voice over) Number ninety-seven: a radio.
Radio Announcer: And now the BBC is proud to present a brand new radio drama series, “The Death of Mary, Queen of Scots.”
Part One: The Beginning.
(music)
Man’s voice: Yoo arrr Mary, Queen of Scots?
Woman’s voice: I am!
(sound of violent blows being dealt, things being smashed, awful crunching noises, bones being broken, and other bodily harm being inflicted. All of this accompanied by screaming from the woman.)
(music fades up and out)
Announcer: Stay tuned for part two of the Radio Four Production of “The Death of Mary, Queen of Scots”, coming up...almost immediately.
(music)
(sound of saw cutting, and other violent sounds as before, with the woman screaming. Suddenly it is silent.)
Man’s voice: I think she’s dead.
Woman’s voice: No I’m not!
(sounds of physical harm and screaming start again.)
(music fades up and out)
Announcer: that was episode two of “The Death of Mary, Queen of Scots”, specially adapted for radio by Gracie Fields and Joe Frazier. And now, Radio Four will explode.
(music)
The radio explodes.
Q: What did Mary, Queen of Scots, get one more of than all of King Henry VIII's wives combined?
A: Axe blows on the back of the neck.
Since Henry VIII regularly had people beheaded and his daughter Elizabeth I very rarely did, it is probable that Mary's botched execution was nothing more than a result of out-of-practice executioners.
I wouldn’t call it a botched execution. After all, when it was over she was dead, right? Remember The Green Mile?
The recreation of the execution of Mary was, to say the least, accurate. And gruesome. And I do not have a weak stomach for such things.
I just watched “Elizabeth the Golden Age”. It was a disappointing soap opera, but the costumes were fabulous.
Mary Queen of Scots - she had it coming...
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Thanks BlackVeil. |
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Anybody who looks this good after having her head chopped off must have been a REAL knockout in life . . . .
Well, it's tragic, really. By the rules of the time it had to be done. Elizabeth apparently had concluded she could not marry without destabilizing her kingdom, and so long as Mary was alive a Protestant succession was in jeopardy.
Add to it the fact that Mary was scheming to marry the (nominally Catholic) Duke of Norfolk, who stood pretty close in line to the throne, and frankly I can totally see where Elizabeth was coming from.
Yep.
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