Was Mary Stuart a Martyr?

Irish Jesuit Province

Was Mary Stuart a Martyr?Author(s): John QuinlanSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 61, No. 725 (Nov., 1933), pp. 665-670Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20513645 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 14:10

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Irish Jesuit Province is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Irish Monthly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.205 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 14:10:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ijp

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20513645?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


THE IRISH MONTHLY. NOVEMBER, 1933.

Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, Ltd. Londoni: Burns, Oates & W'ashbourne. Melbourne: W. P. Linehan.

Editor's Office: 5, Great Denmark Street, Dublin, C16. Manager's Address,: 5, Great Denmark Street, Dublin, C16.

WAS MARY STUART A MARTYR?

By JOHN QUINLAN.

IN the lengthy list of those who sufferedi the supreme penalty for the Catholic religion during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the name of Mary Stuart, Queen

of Scotland, finds no place. By reason of many circum stances connected with Mary's death one may well ask

whether the Queen may be justly classed, historically though not devotionally, amongst those who have been accorded the glorious title of martyr. And if she may so be classed, what reasons prevented her beatification?

This enquiry has interested the Church as well as scholars. Moreover, it is of interest to the many hun dreds of people who, have discovered an attachment to the history of the sad and ever lovable Queen of Scots.

As a first point, What is a martyr according to the mind of the Church? All theologians agree that a martyr is one who, by laying down his life, voluntarily witnesses to, the divine mission of Christ and the truth

of His Church. It is essential that the martyr should die freely in the defence of the Church or of some part of her teaching or in defence of a virtue. Martyrdom also implies that the victim should die at the hands of those whose action is directed against the Church, her teaching, etc.

In deciding whether Mary Stuart died a inartyr's death in accordance with these conditions, we take it NOTE CHANGE OF ADDRESS:

Editor's Offlee: 5, Great Denmark Street, Dublin, C16. Manager's Office: 5, Great Denmark Street, Dublin, C16.



666 THE IRISH MONTHLY

for grtanted that she died at the hands of persecutors ol' the Church, for Elizabeth and the Cecil Governmenat were avowedly such persecutors. But did they kill Mary because of her Catholicity? If so, Mary was a martyr. Once again we approach the matter historically only there is no question of seeking to stir up devotion to o:ne who has not been beatified by the Church. With that clearly in mind we may lawfully decide the matter by a logical treatment of evidence which commences before Mary Stuart died.

The Queen had long been expecting death. She was well aware of the many reasons, political as well as religious, which made her death suitable to Elizabethan policy. She knew also that she had been accused of conspiring against Elizabeth. This charge was a per manent excuse for her execution. Yet death did not come anid at times was far enough from the royal

prisoner's maind. There was little thought of death in the Queen's mind

on, February 7th, 1587. She was siuffering fro-m a, slight

indisposition and late in the, afternoon she decided to retire to bed. Suddenly word came that the Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent had arrived with several of Elizabeth's Commissioners and were demanding immediate audience. Mary pleaded her illiness, but the visitors were inisistent. Donning her mantle the Queen sat by her embroidery table and the Earls were received.

The Eiarl of Shrewsbury requested the Queen to

listen to the reading of a, parchment. The reading was

done by a Mr. Beale and as the Queen listened she

knew that she heard her own death warrant.

At last it was over. 'The Queea 'made the Sign of

the Cross andi thanked her visitors for their news,

which heralded her release from "1 continual afflic tion."1 She added: " I have looked to this for eighteen

years. I never thought that my sister, the Queen of

England, would have consented to my death, seeing

that I am not subject to your law." Then laying her

hand on the New Testament, she swore that she never

had any part in any plot against Elizabieth's life. The



WAS MARY STUART A MARTYR? 667

bigoted Earl of Kent immediately declared the oath Nroid since it was taken on a Catholic version of the Scriptures. The Queen cleverly asked whether he would accept her oath if it were taken o91 a version of

the Scripture in which she did not believe, as he desired, rather than on one in which she did believe.

Then came the information that her execetlon ahad been fixed for eight o'clock next morning! But eighteen hours of life remained and Mary asked for her confessor. The Earl of Kent refused and offered the Dean of Peterborough. The sick and condemned

Queen underwent a long and bitter wrangle ensuing on Kent's attempt to turn her from her religion.

In his heat the man said more than had been

intended. The Queen seems to have assumed that her death was a political matter, but now she hears the

angry Kent blurt out: "I Your life would have been the

dea,th as your death will be the life, of olur religion.1> Here was consolation for the fact that she must, meet

God without preparation by a priest. "1 I was far

from thinking that I was worthy of such a death," she replied, not now doubting that she was to be killed for her Faith. " I must ask the mercy of God to excuse the want of the rites He has commanded."7 And, at supper that evening, after she had thouight of those

momentous words of the excited Earl, she said to her physician, Burgoin: "; Here comes the truth at last and I pray you to remember it. 'They told me I was to die because I have plotted against the Queen; but then arrives this Kent, whom they sent to convert me, and what says he? I am to die for my religion."

There is no need to describe the business of that night when Mary Stuart arranged her affairs, saw each of her servants and gave each a last gift, prayed! and

then rested on her bed, awaiting the morning. At an early hour she rose to pray a long while in her oratory. It is said that she also administered to herself the Host

which the Pope had sent her for use in an emergency such as that now on her.

At eight o'clock she was taken to the hall of the



16i8 THE IRISH MONTHLY

(Castle. It was a, cold morning at Fotheringay, but many people had assembled. The Queen had hoped to die quietly, amidst the prayers of her attendants, but here was the Earl of Kent at her again and, at his

command, the Dean of Peterborough, who maintained a, continuous discourse on his religion while Mary tried to pray.

And, in the midst of all this disturbance, the blundering Earl again said more than he ought. Mary had requested that her servants might remain near, but the Earl refused, saying they might trouble her, ' might practise something superstitious and dip their

handkerchiefs in Your Grace's blood." He knew the Catholic practice of obtaining the blood of a martyr and, by his suggestion, he admitted knowledge that XMiary was commonly considered to be dying for her Faith. That he thought so himself is clear front his words overnight.

Thus the Queen met her death. She prayed wAith her women, while the Dean preached and begged God to " distinguish her cause." She expressed confidence that she would meet a loving God. She was ready so

that even when the executioners bungled their work no cry escaped her.

Clearly this evidence proves that Mary thought she died for her religiona, -and such was her intention. The

evidence ialso ishows that those who compassed her

death did so because she was a Catholic. And that

the people knew the true cause of the execution. A careful and impartial weighing of the evidence so far given leads to the certain establishment of these points.

It is unfortunate that space allows only the leading

points of evidence not arising in the direct narra-tive

to be stated. Yet such as can be given are convincing.

It must suffice to mention the letters Mary Stuart

wrote on that last night. One she sent to the con

fessor who hadi been refused her. lie was in tihe Castle

and the Queen wrote "1 That I have to-day fought for

my Faith you will lhear from Burgoin and others . . .



TVAS MARY STUART A MARTYR ? 669

uo less than that I have loyally made protestations of iy beliefs, in which I wish to die."

She wrote also to the King of France, saying that she was to die firstly for the Catholic Religion, and, secondly, for maintaining the right God gave her to

tlaim the English Crown. Later i-n the letter she

repeats that she dies for religion and sends the king a ring " for her joy to die for Catholicism."

Thus the Qnicen's letters as well as her pra<yers and words to Biurgoin and others prove her conviction that she was to nmeet a martyr's death. Did her persecutors number amongst their motives that of her religion?

The words of the Earl of Kent seem to show several times that this was so. And! that this was their prin

cipal motive is proved by the words of the comm;ission granted by Queen Elizabeth to those who were sent to Fotheringay to carry out the death sentence. After

mnuch preamble and shifting of responsibility on to Parliament aind the English people, the docuiment, signed of course by Elizabeth, declares that Mary is to be executed at once, since her further imprisonment, according to the English people (who were not mucl consulted in the matter!), " is and will be daily an

evident danger not only to; our life but also t-o

themselves and their posterity, and the public state of this kingdom, as much for the sake of the Gospel and true religion of Christ as for the peace and tran

quillity of this realm." There at last we have the truth, naked and shameless.

Mary died lest her Catholicism should mean the death of Protestantism. In the words of Labanoff: "c The

great operating cause of the death of the Quieen -of

Scots in the mind of Elizabeth's Council was, doubt

less, the security of the established religion and Pro

testant succession to the throne."1 And this writer, one of the most famous and authoritative of the

scholars who have studied the question, states : " It

seems to me that such ought to be the opinion of every

impartial historian. " " They have killed a saint of God," cried a historian



670 THE IRISH MONTHLY

of Mary's day. He knew as well as the faithful ser vants in the hall of Fotheringay that Mary was

martyred. That opinion was shared by Cardinal Morone and Cardinal St. Robert Bellarmine. So certain abroad was the opinion of Mary's martyrdom that a memorial was erected to her in Antwerp

Cathedral which applied, to her the words which were so often used to describe those who suffered on the gallows and whose bodies were mutilated by the execu tioner's knife. It ends-" Martyrium ConsummavitJ

* . . .she fulfilled her martyrdom. "

Probably the Queen's beatification has been deferred as a matter of expediency. Of all Queens, Mary is the most maligned in history. Every action of hers has been given an evil motive or distorted itself and falsified into wickedness. While disputes are still waged acri

moniously over the life of the Queen it would be rash to proclaim to the world that she is a Saint of God.

As a fact, Mary Stuart's name has always been in

the mind of the Church. More than one Pope and especially one Pope of our own days (Benedict XV) has spoken of her with favour, deploring the falsities which have stained her name and professing a private belief in the holiness of her death as a martyr. Some

day, probably far distant, men may cease to call her

disgraceful names, may learn the truth of the Darnley

scandal, the Bothwell scandal and of all the other charges, even of the guilt andi amorousness of the

forged Casket Letters. Then perhaps the Chureh may see fit to make a definite and authoritative pronounce

ment on the matter. Until then we can keep alive the

memory of the Queen and, with prayer that the judicial

process for beatification may not be too long delayed, think of her in the light of Clhrist's words, " The truth

shall make youi free."'



Documents

Was Mary Stuart a Martyr?