Letters reveal secret orders to Mary Queen of Scots' jailer

Published on Wednesday 3 November 2010 14:22

A CACHE of 40 unpublished letters written to an English nobleman guarding Mary Queen of Scots, including four signed by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, shed new light on the last years of her imprisonment and should be purchased for a national collection, a leading scholar said last night.

• The collection of letters discussing the imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots includes four signed by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I

The letters, written to Sir Ralph Sadler, who oversaw the captive queen in 1584-5, two years before her execution, are up for auction at Sotheby's in December for an estimated 150,000-200,000.

They include detailed instructions for her new jailer from the Tudor court.

The letters also show a growing obsession among Queen Elizabeth and her inner circle of advisers over any chance of Mary's escape, as the threat of foreign invasion was turning her into an "incredibly dangerous" figurehead.

But while the danger to her life mounted, the letters detail how Mary insisted on having the luxuries befitting a queen, and behaved like royalty on a rare public outing.

• Elizabeth's instructions clear on treatment of her cousin

The letters are said to provide an extraordinary insight into the tragic and increasingly bitter relationship between the English and Scottish monarchs as Elizabeth's attitudes hardened.

"They are very significant," said John Guy, author of My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots. Mr Guy said the letters did not "change history", but added: "This is a very interesting group of documents, and some of the material is genuinely important and new."

The letters are set to be auctioned from the collection of the late Lord Hesketh on 7 December, alongside manuscripts including a First Folio of William Shakespeare, valued at more than 1 million.

In late 1584, Mary, then aged 41, had been in English custody for 16 years when she was entrusted for seven months to the care of Sir Ralph Sadler, 77.

A veteran Protestant statesman who was Henry VIII's ambassador to Scotland, he knew Mary as an infant. His tasks included moving her from the Wingfield estate in Derbyshire to the more secure Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire. She was executed in Fotheringay Castle in 1587.

Sir Ralph's detailed instructions included orders that Mary was "not permitted to ride farre abroad" but only go out on foot or in a coach. She was not to communicate privately with his servants. Queen Elizabeth personally warned him to "use but olde trust and new diligence" as he guarded her.

Mary had pleaded for an end to the "jealousy and mislike" with Elizabeth. She wrote coldly to Sir Ralph telling him to let her cousin know she should have "avoyded the cause and ground by hir given of the just jealousy by us conceaved" in "sundry hard and dangerous coorses".

Mary complained bitterly of conditions at Tutbury, including its unglazed windows.But Elizabeth complained that Sir Ralph allowed her to greet and kiss a "multitude" of townswomen when she stopped in Derby. He wrote back to describe in detail how she had just met three or four women, including a fellow widow, whom she greeted with a kiss.