Mary Stuart QUEEN OF SCOTS LED TO EXECUTION BEHEADING ~ 1882 Art Print Engraving

Description: MARY STUART LED TO EXECUTION A HIGH QUALITY STEEL ENGRAVING BOOKPLATE FROM THE 1880'S!! PERFECT FOR FRAMING AS AN ART PRINT FOR YOUR DEN !! VERY ANTIQUE & OLD WORLD LOOKING. ITEM(s) OVER 135 YEARS OLD!! Mary, Queen of Scots, also Mary Stuart was the daughter of James V, king of Scotland. Born in Linlithgow in December 1542, Mary became queen before she was a week old. Raised in France, in 1558 she was married to the Dauphin, who succeeded to the French throne as Francis II in 1559 but died the next year. Mary returned to Scotland in 1561. A Roman Catholic, when she became an adult she attempted to rule her mostly Protestant country, but court intrigues caused her to flee to England. There she became involved in plots to unseat her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I Though Mary maintained her innocence, a court found her guilty. The conspiracy was discovered, and Mary was brought to trial in October 1586. She was sentenced to death on October 25, but not until February 1, 1587, did Elizabeth sign the warrant of execution, which was carried out a week later. On 11 August 1586, after being implicated in the Babington Plot, Mary was arrested while out riding and taken to Tixall. In a successful attempt to entrap her, Walsingham had deliberately arranged for Mary's letters to be smuggled out of Chartley. Mary was misled into thinking her letters were secure, while in reality they were deciphered and read by Walsingham. From these letters it was clear that Mary had sanctioned the attempted assassination of Elizabeth. Mary was moved to Fotheringhay Castle in a four-day journey ending on 25 September. In October, she was put on trial for treason under the Act for the Queen's Safety before a court of 36 noblemen, including Cecil, Shrewsbury, and Walsingham. Spirited in her defence, Mary denied the charges. She told her triers, "Look to your consciences and remember that the theatre of the whole world is wider than the kingdom of England". She protested that she had been denied the opportunity to review the evidence, that her papers had been removed from her, that she was denied access to legal counsel and that as a foreign anointed queen she had never been an English subject and thus could not be convicted of treason. She was convicted on 25 October and sentenced to death with only one commissioner, Lord Zouche, expressing any form of dissent. Nevertheless, Elizabeth hesitated to order her execution, even in the face of pressure from the English Parliament to carry out the sentence. She was concerned that the killing of a queen set a discreditable precedent and was fearful of the consequences, especially if, in retaliation, Mary's son, James, formed an alliance with the Catholic powers and invaded England. Elizabeth asked Paulet, Mary's final custodian, if he would contrive a clandestine way to "shorten the life" of Mary, which he refused to do on the grounds that he would not make "a shipwreck of my conscience, or leave so great a blot on my poor posterity". On 1 February 1587, Elizabeth signed the death warrant, and entrusted it to William Davison, a privy councillor. On 3 February, ten members of the Privy Council of England, having been summoned by Cecil without Elizabeth's knowledge, decided to carry out the sentence at once. At Fotheringhay, on the evening of 7 February 1587, Mary was told she was to be executed the next morning. She spent the last hours of her life in prayer, distributing her belongings to her household, and writing her will and a letter to the King of France. The scaffold that was erected in the Great Hall was draped in black cloth. It was reached by two or three steps, and furnished with the block, a cushion for her to kneel on, and three stools for her and the earls of Shrewsbury and Kent, who were there to witness the execution. The executioner Bull and his assistant knelt before her and asked forgiveness, as it was typical for the executioner to request the pardon of the one being put to death. Mary replied, "I forgive you with all my heart, for now, I hope, you shall make an end of all my troubles." Her servants, Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curle, and the executioners helped Mary remove her outer garments, revealing a velvet petticoat and a pair of sleeves in crimson brown, the liturgical colour of martyrdom in the Catholic Church, with a black satin bodice and black trimmings. As she disrobed Mary smiled and said she "never had such grooms before ... nor ever put off her clothes before such a company". She was blindfolded by Kennedy with a white veil embroidered in gold, knelt down on the cushion in front of the block on which she positioned her head, and stretched out her arms. Her last words were, In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum ("Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit"). Mary was not beheaded with a single strike. The first blow missed her neck and struck the back of her head. The second blow severed the neck, except for a small bit of sinew, which the executioner cut through using the axe. Afterwards, he held her head aloft and declared, "God save the Queen." At that moment, the auburn tresses in his hand turned out to be a wig and the head fell to the ground, revealing that Mary had very short, grey hair. Cecil's nephew, who was present at the execution, reported to his uncle that after her death "Her lips stirred up and down a quarter of an hour after her head was cut off" and that a small dog owned by the queen emerged from hiding among her skirts—though eye-witness Emanuel Tomascon does not include those details in his "exhaustive report". Items supposedly worn or carried by Mary at her execution are of doubtful provenance; contemporary accounts state that all her clothing, the block, and everything touched by her blood was burnt in the fireplace of the Great Hall to obstruct relic hunters. When the news of the execution reached Elizabeth, she became indignant and asserted that Davison had disobeyed her instructions not to part with the warrant and that the Privy Council had acted without her authority. Elizabeth's vacillation and deliberately vague instructions gave her plausible deniability to attempt to avoid the direct stain of Mary's blood. Davison was arrested, thrown into the Tower of London, and found guilty of misprision. He was released nineteen months later, after Cecil and Walsingham interceded on his behalf. Mary's request to be buried in France was refused by Elizabeth. Her body was embalmed and left in a secure lead coffin until her burial in a Protestant service at Peterborough Cathedral in late July 1587. Her entrails, removed as part of the embalming process, were buried secretly within Fotheringhay Castle. Her body was exhumed in 1612 when her son, King James VI and I, ordered that she be reinterred in Westminster Abbey in a chapel opposite the tomb of Elizabeth.[234] In 1867, her tomb was opened in an attempt to ascertain the resting place of James I. He was ultimately found with Henry VII. Many of her other descendants, including Elizabeth of Bohemia, Prince Rupert of the Rhine and the children of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, were interred in her vault. SIZE: Image size in inches is 5 1/4" x 7 1/2", overall page size is 7" x 10". CONDITION: Condition is clean, no foxing, stains or tears. very beautiful and elegant. Nothing on reverse. SHIPPING:Buyers to pay shipping/handling, domestic orders receives priority mail, international orders receive regular mail. We pack properly to protect your item! An engraving is an intaglio process of printing, with the design to be produced is cut below the surface of the plate (made of copper, steel or wood), and the incised lines are filled with ink that is then transferred to paper. The portraits on our currency are good examples of engraved images. A Photogravure is an intaglio process in which the plate is produced photographically. The item(s) being sold is an image on paper made from the original master and IS NOT a block of wood or steel. IMAGE IS MUCH SHARPER AND CLEARER THAN SCAN SHOWS !! THIS IS AN ACTUAL ENGRAVING FROM THE 1880's! NOT A REPRODUCTION!

Price: 13.99 USD

Location: New Providence, New Jersey

End Time: 2024-02-14T13:18:29.000Z

Shipping Cost: 7.95 USD