Elizabeth I is remembered in popular culture as Gloriana, the successful Queen ruling in a man’s world, who strengthened the monarchy, and provided justice and stability.
Except she often wasn’t. She was often floating around at the whim of her male counselors. Consider her treatment of Mary Queen of Scots after Mary had been found guilty of treason for plotting against Elizabeth in the Babington Plot. Elizabeth signed the death warrant, but was clearly hesitating over exactly how to carry out the deed.
The problem for Elizabeth was that Mary Queen of Scots was not an English subject, so she wasn’t subject to English laws, and she couldn’t commit treason against the English queen. Also, imagine the precedent that it would set. Elizabeth believed strongly in the divine right of monarchs. It was part of the reason why, when Mary first arrived in England 20 years before, she didn’t have Mary tried for the murder of her husband Darnley.
What kind of precedent did it set for Elizabeth to murder a fellow queen? What did it say about the right of a woman to rule independently, if she could be so easily brought down by her rebellious lords? Plus, if Elizabeth killed Mary, she would likely incur the wrath of Spain and the other Catholic countries, as Mary was positioning herself as a Catholic martyr.
So Elizabeth had a problem. She needed Mary to be gone, but she didn’t want to actually execute her.
The solution would have been for Mary to die of natural causes, neatly in her bed. Mary was very sick, and being kept in great discomfort, not unlike the way Henry VIII kept Katherine of Aragon 50 years before. Her legs were swollen from lack of exercise, and she had no direct view of the sun. She could hardly walk, and was low in spirits.
Surely, if she died overnight in her sleep, no one would suspect anything. Why couldn’t that happen, Elizabeth wondered? Why couldn’t Mary just…die?
She suggested that to Mary’s jailer. Perhaps he could, you know, kind of speed up the inevitable. So she signed the execution warrant, and then she hesitated.
Maybe, she suggested to Mary’s jailer Amyas Paulet, Mary’s life could be “shortened”?
Paulet was a Puritan, and nothing if not consistent in his beliefs. He was fine with depriving Mary of a Catholic priest, or refusing to deliver letters to her son. But, he drew the line at murder. He was horrified, and wrote back to Francis Walsingham:
I am so unhappy to have liven to see this unhappy day, in the which I am required, by direction from my most gracious Sovereign, to do an act which God and the law forbiddeth… God forbid that I should make so fowle a shipwracke of my conscience, or leave so great a blot to my posteritie, or shed blood without law and warrant… Â thus I commit you to the mercy of the Almightie.
– From Fotheringay, the 2nd of February, 1586
So no, it wasn’t going to be that easy for Elizabeth. She was going to have to execute Mary Queen of Scots herself. Make a public decision, and live with the consequences. Mary wasn’t murdered in her sleep. She was executed with an ax less than a week after Paulet wrote his response.
Other Episodes and links on Mary Queen of Scots
Blog: Mary Queen of Scots’ Cipher
Podcast episode on Mary Queen of Scots
Podcast episode on Francis Walsingham
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast,  the original Tudor history podcast, started in 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. In 2019 she created Tudorcon, which is now a yearly event, in addition to writing books, and running TudorFair.com - a whimsical Tudor Merch shop. She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 20 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history.