Mary Queen of Scots
Death masks and effigies were part and parcel of a royal funeral. The earliest surviving examples belonging to an English King are those of Edward III, the progenitor of both the Houses of York and Lancaster. Both mask and effigy now lie in the Westminster Abbey collection, along with that of the first Tudor King, Henry VII. Mary Queen of Scots was a descendant of both men. Although her execution for treason meant she would never have an elaborate or public funeral, a death mask was still taken of the Queen’s face.
In 1587, Mary’s cousin Elizabeth I finally and reluctantly signed her death warrant. The exiled Mary had been involved in plots to kill and replace Elizabeth on the throne of England. Once the order was signed, the English Queen’s councilors, moved quickly. On the evening of February 7, 1587, Mary was told she would die the next morning, with no time to settle her affairs. Mary spent her last night writing letters and her will and disposing of her belongings. The next morning, she met her end with dignity.
Mary’s death, however, was not a clean one. The first blow of the ax glanced off the back of the former queen’s skull, missing her neck. The second blow was more successful, although Mary’s head remained attached to the neck by a piece of sinew. This was crudely severed with one final blow. However, none of this trauma showed on the queen’s face, which was preserved as not one but four death masks, with two likely candidates surviving to this day.
The Lennoxlove mask remains in possession of the Dukes of Hamilton, descendants of distant relatives of Mary. It was to the first Marquis of Hamilton that Mary left her sapphire ring. This, plus a box that reputedly held the notorious casket letters act as provenance for the mask, which has been kept at the Hamilton family of Lennoxlove, East Lothian for the last 250 years. The second mask, known as the Jedburgh mask was initially discovered in Peterborough where Mary was first buried until her reburial in Westminster Abbey. It is now part of a Museum to Mary in a house in Jedburgh, Scotland, where she once stayed when she was ill.
Both masks look very different. The Lennoxlove mask is the smallest of the pair and unadorned apart from eyebrows and lashes while the Jedburgh mask has been garishly painted, so it looks as if the Queen has been made up. Antonia Fraser, one of Mary’s biographers, believes the Lennoxlove mask is most likely the death mask of one of the early lady Hamilton’s rather than of Mary herself. However, without further evidence, we can never know if one, both or neither is the Queen of Scot’s death mask. What is certain is the identity of the death mask of the man who usurped and executed Mary’s grandson sixty-two years later.