یک مرگ

CHAPTER NINE

A death

Queen Mary stopped writing then. Yesterday afternoon, 7th February 1587, we heard a horse outside our window. Mary looked out. There was a man there, on the road from London. He had a letter from the Queen of England.

In the evening, an Englishman, Lord Shrewsbury, came to see Mary, ‘I am sorry, my lady,’ he said. ‘But I have a letter from my Queen. You’re going to die, tomorrow.’

Mary did not move. ‘When’ she asked quietly.

‘At half past eight in the morning,’ he said. ‘I am very sorry, my lady.’ He went away.

We did not sleep much that night. We talked and prayed to God, and she gave me her letter to her son, James. ‘Give it to him, Bess, please,’ she said. ‘And tell him how I died.’

‘Yes, my lady,’ I said. And so now I am going to tell you. King James. This is how your mother died.

At six o’clock she got up, prayed, and dressed. She put on a red petticoat first, then a black dress, and a white veil over the dress. The veil came from her head to her feet; she could see out through it, but we could not see her face. She looked like a woman on her wedding day.

When the Englishmen came we went downstairs with her. Her little dog walked beside her, under the veil, but the Englishmen didn’t see that. Six of us went into a big room with her. A hundred people stood and watched.

A Protestant churchman came to talk to her, ‘My lady,’ he said. ‘Pray with me -‘

‘No,’ she said. ‘Thank you, but no. I was born a Catholic and I’m going to die a Catholic. I think God understands that.’ She prayed for five minutes, and then stood up. The executioner came towards her. He was a big, strong man with an axe, and something black over his face.

‘I am sorry, my lady,’ he said. ‘I don’t hate you, but this is my work. Please forgive me.’

‘Of course I forgive you,’ Mary said. ‘I am old, and tired, and you’re going to open my prison doors for me. I am going to see God. Do your work well.’

Then she looked at me and her friends. ‘Don’t cry for me, ladies,’ she said. ‘Please, don’t cry now.’

She could not walk to the block, so the executioner helped her. He took off her white veil, and then he took off her black dress, and put it on the floor. She stood there, in her red petticoat, with a smile on her face. Then the executioner put something over her eyes. Very slowly, Mary put her head on the block.

‘The Lord my God is my one true friend,’ she said. ‘I give my life, oh God, into your hands.’

Then the executioner lifted his axe, once… twice… oh God! Three times…and her head - her poor, poor head, fell on the floor.

It was very quiet in the room after that. It is a little thing, a head - a very little thing. But there was so much blood - blood on her red petticoat, blood on her black dress and her white veil, blood on the executioner’s shoes, blood all over the floor. Blood, blood everywhere.

We all looked, and said nothing. The executioner put down his axe and stood quietly. And then Mary’s little dog came out from under her bloody dress and veil, and walked slowly, un-happily, through the blood towards her head.

My lord, the story of your poor mother’s life finishes here. We, her friends, cry for her, but that is how your mother died. She died like a Queen. A good lady and a famous Queen.

Mary, Queen of Scots.