Nineteen years a prisoner
On 1 February 1587, Elizabeth I signed the death warrant of Mary, Queen of Scots. It was a decision she had agonised over for years. Mary had been her prisoner since 1568 — nineteen years of captivity in a succession of English castles and manor houses, each more remote than the last.
Mary had arrived in England expecting help. After her defeat at the Battle of Langside and her forced abdication from the Scottish throne, she had crossed the Solway Firth and thrown herself on the mercy of her cousin Elizabeth. It was the worst decision of her life. Elizabeth could neither release a rival claimant to her throne nor hand her back to her enemies in Scotland. So she kept her locked up.
The Babington Plot of 1586 gave Elizabeth the excuse she needed. Mary was accused of conspiring with Catholic plotters to assassinate Elizabeth and seize the English throne. The evidence, gathered by Elizabeth's spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham, may have been partly fabricated — but it was enough. Mary was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.
Elizabeth signed the warrant but then delayed its execution, haunted by the consequences of killing an anointed queen. Her councillors, fearing she would change her mind, dispatched the warrant to Fotheringhay Castle immediately. Mary was executed on 8 February 1587. Her son, James VI of Scotland, protested — but not too loudly. He was next in line for the English throne, and he knew it.