Random historical chatter about Scotland, Scottish or British history, the sixteenth century, the Reformation, or Mary, Queen of Scots. I may also throw in a thing or two about the Middle Ages.
Hi everyone! I just wanted to do a quick post, inspired by Louise’s challenge on Instagram at Ahellaloadofhistory. I’ve been participating in her 30 day history challenge and Day 10 asks for you to share an obscure history fact.
I don’t know how “obscure” this fact is that I wanted to share, but I thought it was kind of neat so, here it is.
For the Love of Dogs
Mary Stuart was taken to France when she was five years old with the intention that she would one day marry the French Dauphin, Francis. It has been said that when she first arrived at the French court, she stuck closely to her maids that had accompanied her, and was content with a group of about 20 dogs that lived at court.
Mary always kept dogs, and it appears that the Maltese was one of her favorite breeds. She also favored terriers, and it was a terrier that made it into the (obscure) history books on the day of her execution.
A Faithful Friend
Mary was taken prisoner in England in 1568, and was held for 19 years. She was allowed to keep dogs throughout her captivity.
One eyewitness account tells of her tiny dog that had hidden within the folds of her skirt on the day of her execution. Of the event, Robert Wingfield wrote:
Then one of the executioners, pulling off part of her dress, espied her little dog, which was under her clothes, which could not be gotten forth but by force, and afterwards would not depart from her dead corpse, but came and laid between her head and shoulders (a thing diligently noted: ) the dog being imbrued with her blood, was carried away and washed, as all things else were that had any blood, except those things that were burned.
Wingfield’s account does not clarify the color or type of dog that wouldn’t leave Mary’s side. And many tales have grown up around this little detail of Mary’s death. Some had said it was a white dog, others say it was black. Some say it was a Skye Terrier. Although some professional dog breeders claim that the Skye Terrier didn’t come into existence until the 19th century, leaving people to believe that perhaps it was a Scottish Terrier that was so devoted to her.
The cutest Skye Terrier you will ever see! (no photo credit available)
Scottish Terrier (product/photo credit to creator thanhdang at Redbubble.
Mary’s Dog in Literature and Pop Culture
I came across a really cute book that I want to get for my 4th grade classroom library. The Dog Who Loved a Queen, by Jackie French tells the story of Folly, Mary’s canine companion that accompanied her to the executioner’s block. This is a fictional book, told from Folly’s point of view. I am always on the lookout for ways to incorporate the time periods that I love to study and read about into my classroom. I enjoy sharing other historical time periods with my students that do not fall within the confines of our standard curriculum.
Click on the book cover if you’d like to check out this book.
You will also find a fuzzy little canine appearance in The Queen’s Almoner. You can read about Tom Tom the pup here.
Maltese puppy and inspiration for Tom Tom in The Queen’s Almoner. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia under the Creative Commons license.
I am not a big fan of Reign, but I found this lovely picture on Pinterest of Adelaide Cane, dressed as Mary Stuart alongside her deerhound, Stirling.
Pinterest. No photo credit available.
Mary, Queen of Scots with her Maltese. Drawn by J.W. Wright, based on image by Zuccero.
Until next time, Long May She Ever Live in Our Memories.
The celebrated poet, T.S. Eliot may have penned these famous words in his poem, “East Coker”, however, he was not the first person to use them. Mary, Queen of Scots took this phrase as a motto sometime during her long captivity in England. Embroidering the words on her canopy of state, they served as a sort of prophetic epitaph of her life, that ended so tragically at the hands of the Queen of England, Elizabeth I.
Some scholars speculate that she
may have been referring to her late grandfather-in-law, Francis I’s symbol of
the salamander with these words. In medieval times the salamander had an
allegorical element that symbolized a righteous person’s ability to withstand
fire, just as the three Hebrew children in the Biblical story, emerged unharmed
from the fiery furnace.
Medieval manuscript depicting a salamander enduring the flames. National Library of France, Department of Manuscripts, French 2286, fol. 10r.
Mary was an unrepentant Catholic.
She never swayed from her religious beliefs, even though it caused heartache
for her for most of her life. It is no secret that she considered herself a
martyr for her Catholic faith (even going so far as to wearing a red petticoat,
the martyr’s color, at her execution). She is known to have told her
cousin, the Duke of Guise:
“For myself, I am resolute to die for my religion. . . With God’s
help, I shall die in the Catholic faith and to maintain it
constantly. . .without doing dishonor to the race of
Lorraine, who are accustomed to die the sustenance of the faith.”
In her Essay on Adversity, written in 1580, Mary wrote of the
lives of rulers:
“Tribulation has been to them as a furnace to fine gold—a means
of proving their virtue, of opening their so-long blinded eyes, and
of teaching them to know themselves and their own failings.”
Perhaps Mary saw herself emerging victorious on the other side of this mortal life with that everlasting life promised to believers that can only come after death.
Mary’s
words can also be a bit predictive. They are a sort of foretelling of the
immortal, romanticized life that she has taken on since her death. She is,
beyond a doubt, one of the most controversial figures in Scottish history.
Whether you believe she was complicit in her second husband’s death, and guilty
of plotting a treasonous over-taking of the English throne, one cannot deny
that she has had more than her fair share of 15 minutes of fame, and she
remains one of those characters in history that we non-participants either love
to love, or love to hate.
A little back history
After her disastrous second
marriage to Lord Henry Darnley ended in his death by strangulation, Mary was
kidnapped, raped and accepted a marriage proposal by another man accused in the
death of her husband (we’ll save that story for another day.) When Mary followed through with the marriage barely
two months after Darnley’s death, suspicions were heightened concerning Mary’s
involvement with Darnley’s murder.
Panel paintings of Mary, Lord Darnley, and James Bothwell on wall of the Mary Queen of Scots House in Jedburgh, Scotland~photo: Tonya U. Brown~2017
Soon Scottish lords were seeking
to implicate Mary in Darnley’s murder as well, and she was forced to abdicate
her throne to her one-year old son, James. When attempts to raise an army to
take back her throne failed, she ended up imprisoned at Loch Leven Castle where
she eventually miscarried Bothwell’s twins. She finally escaped ten months
later with the help of one of her sympathizes.
Surrender of Mary Queen of Scots at Carberry Hill, 1567. Illustration for the Historical Scrap Book (Cassel, c 1880).
Mary attempted a second time
to raise an army, trying in vain to defeat her leading opponent, her half-brother
James Stewart, Earl of Moray. When she was not successful, she fled to England,
hoping to obtain help from her cousin, Queen Elizabeth.
Any indications of sympathy
that Mary may have received from Elizabeth were short lived. She was quickly
taken into custody and remained so, moving from residence to residence under
house arrest for the next 19 years. Although records indicate that she led a
somewhat pampered life while in England (after all—she was a queen), the fact
remained that Mary was still a captive of Elizabeth’s. With her health
declining, she made it no secret that she would use any means necessary to
escape her situation. This was not a confession to treason, but merely an
admission that she had tried on more than one occasion to escape.
A victim of one scheming nobleman after
another, she continued to be a political pawn, having no control of her own
life. When her private letters were produced for Elizabeth to read, the
contents were condemning. Through plots originating at the hands of her
supporters in an attempt to rescue her, and plots formed at the hands of her
enemies in an effort to entrap her, Mary endured some of the most farcical
examples of court intrigue that have ever existed and rivals anything even
Hollywood could come up with.
The day finally came
On August 11, 1586, Mary was arrested for her part in another
murder plot to kill Elizabeth that would eventually come to be called the
Babington Plot. Mary’s long-time English
foe, Elizabeth’s Secretary of State, William Cecil, and another of Elizabeth’s
secretaries, Sir Francis Walsingham, had finally succeeded in scrounging up
something to pin on the Scottish queen.
Forged postscript to a letter by Mary Queen of Scots to Anthony Babington and alongside Babington’s record of the cipher used~The National Archives~United Kingdom
By this time, Mary was suffering from arthritis, making
movement in her arms and legs very painful. She could not walk without
assistance and was confined to a bed most of the time. She testified in court
that due to her illness, she had no desire to take the reins of government again.
She also complained that her letters and papers had all been taken from her,
and that she had not been given any counsel as to how to proceed in her trial. The
most adamant of her complaints, however, was the fact that since she was not an English subject, they had no
right whatsoever, to try her under English law.
Her pleas and complaints went unheard, and after Elizabeth’s attempts to end her Scottish problem with other means had failed, she finally signed the death warrant to execute Mary on February 1 the following year. She was executed seven days later. Mary was 44 years of age when she laid down her life in typical martyr fashion, her red petticoat announcing to the world the glorious death to which she had been called.
Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots~Robert Herdman~Glasgow Museums Notice the red petticoat peeping out at the bottom of her gown?
The following pictures were taken at the Mary Queen of Scots House in Jedburgh, Scotland when I was there in 2017. They depict examples of the high demand for relics pertaining to Mary and her fascinating story. There are many more relics at Jedburgh, but here I have posted only the ones that pertain to this post.
Copy of signed death warrant for Mary, Queen of Scots. You can see Elizabeth’s familiar signature right above the seal on the lower right hand side.
First piece of wood is part of a fireplace from the room in which Mary was confined at Lochleven Castle.
Second piece is a fragment of bark from a tree said to have been planted on the island during her captivity.
This scrap of silk is said to have come from the dress that Mary wore on the morning of her execution. It was acquired by the novelist Sir Walter Scott who was a keen collector of historical relics.
One final note of interest…
If you are interested in seeing some of the places that Mary stayed after her initial arrest in Scotland in 1567, or if you want to start at the beginning of her life in 1542, this is an excellent book. The author is Andrew Burnet.
Mary Was Here by Andrew Burnet
Mary Queen of Scots~Unknown Artist~Hermitage Museum~St. Petersburg, Russia
The Rose and the Thistle 