Mary, Queen of Scots: historic trail

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On February 8, 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was finally executed by a reluctant Elizabeth I at Fotheringay Castle. She had been a prisoner for almost 20 years in various stately homes around the country, some of them in this area. Maxwell Craven has been following her odyssey around the county which he believes would make an excellent trail for enthusiasts.

Prison: Chartley Castle, one of the last places Mary stayed before returning to Fotheringay where she was executed

IF you go to see Fotheringay Castle, in Northamptonshire, you will be sadly disappointed. There is absolutely nothing left except a large grassy mound.

Yet it is a place of pilgrimage of sorts as it is the place where Mary, Queen of Scots was executed.

Indicted and convicted, albeit at a show trial, of plotting to kill her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, she is said to have entered the great hall at Fotheringay proudly, cloaked entirely in black, her dark hair with its reddish tints impeccably coiffed.

She then mounted the specially-erected dais clutching a crucifix, signalling for her cloak to be removed.

Not that the forthcoming spectacle was low key or in any way private. There were present almost 300 courtiers and other nobles, gentlemen and clergy packed into the hall and, spacious as it was, it cannot have been at all comfortable. Nor was everyone present there for ghoulish gratification. Many people had been summoned to test their loyalty or to be reminded of the fate that awaited traitors.

Mary was not bereft of a sense of theatre, despite her desperate situation. Beneath her cloak she was clad in a close-fitting dress of blood-red velvet. This was how she chose to be seen as she knelt at the block to die: twice a queen and regal to the last.

It was reported that it took the axeman three attempts to sever her head and that the first blow entirely failed to kill her. The headsman, like many witnesses, was shaken, and even more so when he finally picked up the head by the hair to display it, as required, to the multitude, and it slipped from his grasp. The ex-queen’s luxuriant hair was a wig. Underneath, her head was close shaven and entirely grey. She was barely 44.

Legend claims that her lips were still moving in prayer as her head was held aloft.

For the visitor looking for a reason to ramble our excellent county and its environs, what better excuse than to follow Mary’s trail?

She was, for 20 years, the guest of a very reluctant George Talbot, 5th Earl of Shrewsbury, and equally reluctant fourth husband of Bess of Hardwick. He was then the largest landowner in Derbyshire, much of which had come to his family through the heiress of the Lords Furnival of Sheffield.

So, a start to any tour should be made at Sheffield Manor, east of Sheffield, where a single brick tower remains and can be visited.

Mary occasionally needed therapeutic treatment and twice managed to wangle a trip to Buxton to take the waters.

So, from Sheffield Manor, move on to the Old Hall Hotel at Buxton, where, inside the early 18th-century structure, still lurk vestiges of Lord Shrewsbury’s original tower house. The stone, moulded Tudor doorcases can be seen on the upper floors.

Then travel to South Wingfield, for Mary spent much time in this huge, rather grim double courtyard house, originally built by Lord Cromwell in the 1440s. The residential portion where she lodged was the seven-storey tower, now, like much of the house, ruined, after being bombarded in the Civil War. The views from the best rooms near the top must have been stunning. From there, the tour needs to call at Derby, not only for a quick look at the lower end of Babington Lane, the site of Babington Hall, where the Scots Queen spent the single night of January 13, 1586, but also perhaps to visit the Bridge Chapel.

This incorporates parts of the old bridge, on the end of which the Catholic Padley Martyrs’ heads were stuck on spikes after their execution in the August of the year following Mary’s death.

After that, turn west and travel to a house Mary detested - Tutbury Castle - where one can enjoy the sight of the redoubtable Lesley Smith, castle curator, in regal costume.

From there, take the Stafford road and walk across the fields to examine the ruins of Chartley Castle, one of Mary’s last ports of call.

After that, it would be a straight run to eastern Northamptonshire and Fotheringay, scene of that final act of the drama.

The castle there has been described by Dr Anthony Emery as a “palace-fortress” built by Edmund of Langley, a brother of Richard II, and extended by Edward IV.

Leland, writing in the 16th century, called it “faire and meatley stronge (with) very fair lodggyns”, while a commentator, writing almost a century later, described the great hall as “…wonderful spacious…the great dining room and a large room at this present well garnished with pictures.”

Altogether it would have resembled Melbourne or Pontefract Castles.

It was granted in 1603 to Derbyshire-born Lord Mountjoy of Thurvaston, later 1st (and last) Earl of Devonshire, to replace Barton Blount, which had been sold by his father.

After about 1630 it was abandoned and later dismantled.

Today, the thing that strikes you, apart from the verdant desolation of the landscape, is the impressive surviving collegiate church, the last surviving element, apart from the castle mound and vestiges of two moats.

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