Mary, Queen of Scots - Death Warrant

This image - click on it, for a greatly enhanced view - depicts a segment of the only surviving copy of the death warrant of Mary, Queen of Scots. The original was lost soon after Mary's death.

Although Mary was found guilty and sentenced to death - in October of 1586 - she could not be executed until Queen Elizabeth I signed her cousin's warrant of execution.

Elizabeth finally signed the warrant on February 1, 1587. Her signature appears at the top of the document.

A key part of the order commands Henry Grey, the Sixth Earl of Kent, to:

...repair to our Castle of Fotheringhaye where the said queene of Scottes is in custodie and cause by your commaundement execution to be don uppon her person.

Those are the words which authorized Mary's beheading. See this BBC video for more about the writ of execution.

Days after Elizabeth signed the death warrant, Mary learned about it. Surviving records indicate her brief response to Elizabeth's representatives:

I did not think that the Queen, my sister, would ever have consented to my death; but, God's will be done. He is my principal witness, that I shall render up my spirit into His hands innocent of any offence against her, and with a pure heart and conscience clear before His divine majesty of the crimes whereof I am accused. That soul is fair unworthy of the joys of heaven, whose body cannot endure for a moment the stroke of the executioner. (Quoted in Fotheringhay, and Mary, Queen of Scots, by Cuthbert Bede, pages 111-12.)

Lambeth Palace Library, which now owns the document, tells us about the provenance of this copy:

The original warrant disappeared in the recriminations which followed Mary's execution. This copy was delivered to Robert Beale, principal clerk to the Privy Council by Henry Grey, 6th Earl of Kent, one of the two commissioners tasked with organising the execution. It was accompanied by a covering letter to the Earl from the Privy Council which has long been part of the Library's collections.

Both the cover letter, and the death warrant, are now in the safekeeping of the Library.