Mary (Queen of Scots, 1542-87).- [The trial and execution of Mary Queen of Scots], manuscript in Secretary hand, 78pp., incomplete at beginning (affecting sermon which opened the trial), slightly stained in places, browned, 1 burn hole, stitched, unbound, loosely inserted in modern wrappers, sm. 4to, n.d. [must be dated after 1605 as Robert Cecil is referred to as Earl of Salisbury], [c. 1610].

⁂ Murder of Queen Elizabeth. "... for the dispatch of ye usurper, from the obedience of whom we are by the excommunication of her made free. There be six noble gent[lemen]... who... will undertake that tragicall execution."- Anthony Babington.

An interesting manuscript detailing the trial of Mary Queen of Scots at Fotheringhay and execution and aftermath. The manuscript shows the lay out of the court, reproduces some of the incriminating correspondence between Queen Mary and Anthony Babington (whose plot was the first to encompass the death of Queen Elizabeth from the beginning), an account of her apparel and her execution. The work also includes a copy of the sermon preached to Queen Elizabeth after the execution ("the angell of the Lorde appeared to Josephe in a dreame in Egypt" by Richard Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough), the funeral of Queen Mary at Peterborough Cathedral (her body was moved to Westminster Abbey by her son James I), a piece on Sir Francis Walsingham, and at the end, Burghley's "Precepts to His Son", Robert Cecil, originally written in 1584.

Provenance: Modern pencil inscription: "From Shapwick Manor, Somerset 1950 Strangways family."