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she said, 'I forgive you with all my heart, for now I hope you shall make an end of all my troubles.' The executioner and two ladies-in-waiting helped her take off her gown. Mary was rather indignant about undressing in front of so many people and complained that 'she had never seen so many grooms to make her unready, and that she had never put off her clothes in such company'. Nevertheless, it was noted that she prepared herself quickly as if eager to leave this life and did not cry.
    Mary Queen of Scots, about to be executed at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire
    She was blindfolded with a white cloth embroidered in gold that also served to tie her hair up, leaving her neck exposed. Her two ladies-in-waiting left the scaffold and Mary knelt on a cushion in front of the block. Stretching out her arms, she said:
'In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum'
(Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit) three or four times. The executioner's assistant put a hand on her body to steady it. Even so, the first swing of the axe missed her neck completely and struck her on the back of the head. The queen's lips moved and her servants said they heard her utter 'sweet Jesus'. With any luck, the blow merely stunned her. The second stroke was on target but failed to sever her head and the executioner had no choice but to saw it off. Finally, he raised the severed head and cried, 'God save the Queen!'. He meant Elizabeth I.
    It was reported that Mary's lips continued moving for fifteen minutes after she had been executed. Her little dog also reportedly hid up her skirts and had to be forcibly pulled out before it lay down between her head and shoulders. Covered with blood, it was taken away to be washed.
    Mary's head was displayed from a bay window so that crowds of people could see that the Scottish queen was dead. It was reunited with her body, embalmed, and buried at Peterborough on 1 August 1587. The gravedigger was said to be 'Old Scarlett', the same man who had dug the grave of Catherine of Aragon. When Mary's son, James I, came to the throne of England, he had her body dug up and reburied at Westminster Abbey. Fotheringhay Castle was knocked down.

Death of an English Hero
    Sir Walter Raleigh, the celebrated sailor, explorer, and scholar, was a favourite of Elizabeth I but fell foul of James I of England (VI of Scotland) who locked him away in the Tower for thirteen years. He eventually persuaded the monarch to let him lead an expedition to find El Dorado, the legendary city of gold up the Orinoco River in Guyana, on condition he did not offend Spain with whom James was seeking an alliance. Raleigh failed to find gold and set fire to a Spanish settlement so, on his return to England, he was sent to the scaffold in Old Palace Yard, Westminster, on 29 October 1618 (the day of the Lord Mayor's Parade). Still popular with the public, it was hoped the 'pageants and fine shewes might draw away the people from beholding the tragedie of one of the gallantest worthies that ever England bred'. It failed. When one of his friends complained that he could not get near the scaffold because so many people had come to see the execution, Raleigh said to him: 'I know not what shift you will make – but I am sure to have a place'. He faced his ordeal with typical
sang froid.
When his jailer brought him a cup of the new sack wine brought over from Spain that morning, and asked him whether he enjoyed it, Raleigh said, 'It was a fine drink if you could tarry over it'.
    Sir Walter had always been a flashy dresser with pearls in his ears and on his shoes, diamonds on the fingers of both hands, and rubies and emeralds embroidered on his clothes. For his execution he wore a sombre black cap and velvet gown with ash-grey silk stockings. He usually wore his hair in the latest Italian fashion but, that morning, he turned his barber away saying, 'Let them comb it, that shall have it'.
    Raleigh had recently suffered a stroke that caused him to drag his