After almost five centuries, the legendary Queen Mary of Scotland is now again in the spotlight. The last letter she penned just six hours prior to her execution is on display in Perth, Scotland. The exhibit is on display at the Perth Museum until April 26, 2026, and the letter is expected to attract thousands of visitors before it is removed for safekeeping.
Why does the name of Mary Stewart, so shrouded in mystery, still attract the attention of scholars, historians and the Scottish people? The answer to this question can be found in her royal lineage and the way she left this world. She was the daughter of James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise. She was also the granddaughter of Henry VIII’s sister Margaret. As a cousin of Elizabeth I of England, she had a strong right to the thrones of both countries.
There were controversial episodes in her troubled life. Though never proven, some theories hold that she had a part in the assassination of her husband, Lord Darnley. Marrying the prime suspect in that death, James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, on May 15, 1567, did not help her cause. The uproar over this affair led her to abdicate the throne of Scotland in favor of her son James. Her half-brother ruled as regent.
After losing the Battle of Langside against her half-brother to regain the throne of Scotland, she fled to England, hoping to find assistance and asylum from her cousin Elizabeth I. Instead, Elizabeth held her under house arrest for the next 19 years. During this time, Mary lived through several attempts from English and Scottish nobles to rescue her and put her on the throne. Her complicity and involvement in any of those plots have never been proven entirely. During her captivity, her strong Catholicity could not have been more evident. She never compromised any of her Catholic beliefs and practiced her religion faithfully. For a time, Jesuit priests and other clergy would come disguised and celebrate Mass for her in secret.
Some accounts relate a special permission from Pope Saint Pius V for her to administer the Eucharist to herself in the absence of a Catholic clergyman. Depictions of Mary made during her imprisonment frequently show her holding a rosary, a symbol of her Catholic devotion. The cause of her execution was her involvement in the Babington plot of 1586. In this last episode of her life, she supposedly consented to a plot to assassinate Elizabeth I. Coded letters intercepted were used to prove her guilt. At her trial, she denied involvement in plotting the murder of the English Queen. Historians debate the extent of her involvement in this plot to the present day. After being found guilty, Mary was sentenced to death, but Elizabeth took four agonizing months to sign the death warrant for her execution.
Once the warrant was secured, officials announced to her that she was to be executed the next morning. Her last letter, now on display in Perth, was written at two o’clock in the wee hours of the morning on which she was executed. The letter that Mary penned was to her former brother-in-law, Henry III of France. It is a testament to her staunch Catholicity. The most beautiful part of the relatively short letter and subject of the Scottish exhibition states, “I scorn death and vow that I meet it innocent of any crime, even if I were their subject. The Catholic faith and the assertion of my God-given right to the English crown are the two issues on which I am condemned, and yet I am not allowed to say that it is for the Catholic religion that I die, but for fear of interference with theirs. The proof of this is that they have taken away my chaplain, and although he is in the building, I have not been able to get permission for him to come and hear my confession and give me the Last Sacrament, while they have been most insistent that I receive the consolation and instruction of their minister, brought here for that purpose.”1
On February 8, 1587, at eight on the same morning, Mary Queen of Scots left this valley of tears. Her executioner turned the beheading into a gruesome affair by taking three strikes of his axe before severing Mary’s noble head. It was this way that Mary ended her sorrowful and troubled life. Mary had a beautiful and noble death. Clearly, her Catholicity played a role in the persecution she received in her last 19 years.
Was she a martyr? At present, there is no canonical process in the Catholic Church to answer this question. Though many martyrs in the history of the Church did not have such a process, they were, in fact, true martyrs. Saint Thomas Aquinas refers to these in a special way. He says these unrecognized souls are not martyrs in the “Heart of the Church” but in the “Heart of God.” Considering her last letter and what she symbolized, one would think Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, would be one of those.
First published on TFP.org.