1500s: Streets were empty for this Queen's visit

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Harold Richardson describes the extraordinary measures taken when Mary, Queen of Scots, stayed for one night in Derby.

To get some idea of what Derby was like in 1585 you would have to bring to mind narrow streets, unpaved except for the cobbled main thoroughfares, some with names that are familiar today; the meaner streets being either dust-blown or quagmires of winter mud.

Many of the houses would have been timber-framed with protruding upper storeys and, with a population of fewer than 4,000, Derby was just another insignificant little town.

It spread from St Alkmund’s in Bridge Gate, now part of the inner ring road, southwards to Babington Lane and westwards from the river to what is now Cathedral Road.

An extended arm of the town crossed the Markeaton Brook and stretched both sides of Friar Gate to what is now Uttoxeter Old Road.

Mary, Queen of Scots

The brook had a change of name to Odde Brook as it coursed through where now exist The Strand, Victoria Street and Albert Street.

An altogether dull place where, except for on market days, nothing ever happened.

Understandable then the astonishment of the populace on the morning of January 13 that year when the town criers ordered all to stay indoors on the tolling of the town bell.

Under threat of severe punishment, they were to keep to their houses and off the streets until a further peal was to be heard from the tower of All Hallows (now the cathedral).

Rumours were rife but no-one really knew why.

As it turned out, the second tolling of the town bell was not until the following morning.

The winter afternoon light was fading when the first reverberations from the great bell spread over the houses, the signal for the parish constables and militia to begin clearing the streets.

Then, over the humped bridge of St Mary came a posse of mounted guards preceding a closed coach pulled by six mud-spattered horses, followed by more mounted militia.

At the tollgate across the bridge, the leading horseman, Sir Ralph Sadler, saluted Sir John Zouch, who was to supply the new escort for the coach.

To the incarcerated townsfolk who waited, wondered and feared, came the clip-clopping noise of hooves and rumble of iron-clad wheels over cobbles as the procession continued through the emptied streets.

Through Queen Street, down Iron Gate and Rotten Row to the Market Place, on through the Cornmarket and over St Peter’s Bridge, it seemed the coach was heading for open countryside. But, where two lanes converged (now London and Osmaston roads), the company made a sudden wheel to the right through a gateway at the end of Babington Lane, and to a stop in the courtyard of Babington Hall.

From the coach alighted a small figure entirely clad in black and on whom had been centred all the secrecy.

It was Mary, Queen of Scots, on her way back to incarceration in the hated Tutbury Castle.

The Queen’s hostess for her one night stay at Babington Hall was a Widow Beaumont who the Queen greeted, saying she, too, was a widow and trusted they should agree well together, having no husbands to trouble them.

It is said that the Queen was kept awake by the patrols around the hall and nearby lanes, notably Blood Lane (now Gower Street).

The next morning, Thursday, Queen Mary thanked Sir Ralph and Sir John, as well as her hostess, before moving off once again in her coach, accompanied by a new escort, bound for Tutbury Castle.

She always complained of the draughts and smells of Tutbury Castle but was permitted some luxury as befitted her Royal status.

According to An Illustrated History of Derby by John Heath, these included two secretaries, five gentlemen in waiting, 14 servants, three cooks, four pages, three valets, a doctor, a surgeon, an apothecary and an embroideress.

Her sad story, so mixed with intrigue and treachery, ended two short years later on the scaffold at Fotheringay Castle.