Morbid Fact Du Jour For August 30, 2011
Today’s Perfectly Composed Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
In 1587, after Mary Queen of Scots had been nearly twenty years in prison, Elizabeth I was finally persuaded to execute her. The sentence was carried out in the great hall of Fotheringhay Castle before an audience of 300 knights and gentlemen. Mary entered the hall, her tall, majestic figure dressed in a black robe and white veil, a gold crucifix hanging from her neck. She mounted the scaffold and sat down to listen to her death sentence being proclaimed by Lord Shrewsbury. She appeared perfectly composed and looked around, smiling at those she recognized. The dean of Peterborough, officiating on behalf of the Church of England, was told, “I am a Catholic and shall die a Catholic. Your prayers will avail me little.” There then followed a contest not without humour, as Mary and the dean vied with each other in the volume and intensity of their prayers, until the exasperated dean gave up in despair.
When she had finished praying, Mary was helped to disrobe. The black cloak was shed to reveal crimson undergarments. Standing on the black scaffold, she was crimson from head to feet. Slowly she knelt and, still smiling, wished her ladies, “Adieu! Au revoir.” What followed evokes chills even today. The first blow missed the neck and cut into the back of the head. Mary remained perfectly still and was heard to whisper, “Sweet Jesus”. The second stroke severed the neck except for a small sinew which was cut by using the axe as a saw. The executioner held up the severed head, grasping it by the hair. At that instant the head separated from an unsuspected wig and fell to the floor. The audience gasped at the gruesome spectacle of a bald, wrinkled, care-worn old woman. It was claimed that her lips still moved and continued to do so for a quarter of an hour after her death. As the executioner was about to remove Mary’s stockings, her little Skye terrier scurried from under her discarded robe. After “… being put from hence [the dog] went and laid himself down betwixt her head and body, and being besmeared with her blood, was caused to be washed.”
Culled from: Death: A History Of Man’s Obsessions and Fears
