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Archive Spotlight:

THE EXECUTION OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS

John Crichton-Stuart, 4th Marquess of Bute (1881 – 1947), was an avid collector of important materials and artefacts connected with the Royal House of Stuart. Amongst his treasured collection is an interesting range of items relating to the most tragic of Scottish monarchs, Mary Queen of Scots.

The archive takes us back to Mary’s gruesome beheading at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, on 8 February 1587. It includes a manuscript of the key eyewitness account by Sir Robert Wingfield of Upton, who attended the execution as observer for his uncle William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Chief Minister to Elizabeth I of England.

In 2007 – some 420 years after the fateful execution – the Mount Stuart Trust published this eyewitness account in its entirety for the first time, together with a foreword by Mary’s celebrated biographer Antonia Fraser.