A Tudor Monarch’s Impossible Choice
In the crisp February air of 1587, while Londoners celebrated what they saw as a straightforward political resolution, Queen Elizabeth I remained sequestered at Greenwich Palace – her favorite riverside residence where the manicured lawns sloped gently toward the Thames. Just one week earlier in these very chambers, she had finally signed the death warrant for her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, after months of agonizing hesitation. Her new secretary William Davison had held the document like a drawn arrow, waiting for public pressure and parliamentary arguments to overcome the queen’s profound reluctance. Even as her quill touched parchment, Elizabeth hinted to Davison that there might be “more appropriate” methods than public execution for dispatching an anointed queen. But her councilors, preferring judicial transparency to covert assassination, bypassed further consultation and swiftly delivered the fatal paperwork to the executioner.
This moment at Greenwich represented more than the culmination of a nineteen-year imprisonment; it marked the violent severing of England from its medieval past and the irreversible commencement of its Protestant destiny. The execution at Fotheringhay Castle on February 8th (Old Style) would eliminate not just a royal rival but Elizabeth’s most valuable diplomatic bargaining chip against Catholic Europe. As the queen rode out to hunt that morning, unaware that Shrewsbury’s son was galloping through the mud with news of the completed execution, she stood at the precipice of a new era where England would face Spain’s wrath without the protective ambiguity Mary’s existence had provided.
The Theater of Royal Grief
Historical accounts present two starkly different versions of Elizabeth’s reaction upon learning of Mary’s death – a contradiction typical when documenting the carefully stage-managed emotions of the Virgin Queen. In Davison’s self-pitying memoir, an anonymous source reported the queen maintained her characteristic composure, revealing nothing. Yet James VI of Scotland received intelligence that his English cousin collapsed in dramatic distress, shedding tears never before witnessed in her long reign of calculated self-control.
Both accounts likely contain fragments of truth. Elizabeth, schooled in survival during her sister Mary Tudor’s bloody reign, had mastered the art of emotional dissimulation. Any genuine shock at her signed order being carried out (and shock there must have been) would never surface before a gallery of watching courtiers. If tears fell, they would do so in private – or before carefully selected audiences where they might serve diplomatic purposes.
The most immediate danger came from Scotland. Though James had been raised by his mother’s enemies and showed little filial affection, no monarch could ignore the humiliation of a royal mother executed by foreign hands. Elizabeth understood that Scottish nobles might push their young king toward war, while Catholic powers like France (where Mary had been queen consort) and Spain sought to avenge this blow to their faith. The queen’s tears became her opening gambit in a delicate negotiation to preserve Scottish neutrality without emptying England’s treasury.
The Sacrificial Secretary
By Friday, Elizabeth’s performance escalated. She berated Davison before the Privy Council for acting without explicit authorization, her wrath so terrifying that hardened statesmen trembled. On Saturday, she turned her fury upon the entire council, delivering a speech so blistering that even veteran ministers like Lord Burghley were reduced to stammering apologies. Yet this calculated rage had purpose – while councilors escaped with bruised egos, Davison found himself marched through Traitor’s Gate to the Tower of London, where Tudor prisoners often met their end.
Elizabeth’s Scottish allies noted with cynical accuracy: “Someone must die before the people.” But the queen stopped short of sacrificing her secretary. After a show trial, Davison received a heavy fine and eighteen months’ imprisonment before quietly disappearing from history – a merciful outcome suggesting Elizabeth’s anger was more spectacle than substance.
The secretary’s fate had been sealed weeks earlier when he failed to comprehend Elizabeth’s hints about discreetly eliminating Mary. Her coded suggestion that “more appropriate” methods existed than public execution referred to the Bond of Association – a document signed by Davison himself authorizing extrajudicial killing of anyone threatening Elizabeth. When the morally rigid secretary balked at this implied assassination, he signed his own political death warrant.
Diplomatic Theater Across Europe
Elizabeth extended her performance onto the European stage. To France’s Henry III (Mary’s former brother-in-law), she composed an extraordinary letter expressing shock and grief, claiming she signed the warrant only to satisfy her subjects while expecting discretion from ministers. Her ambassadors spread this narrative across capitals, while even Spain’s hostile envoy Mendoza reported Elizabeth prostrate with remorse.
This was political theater of the highest order, yet beneath the performance lay genuine strategic dread. For twenty years, Mary’s existence had given Elizabeth crucial leverage – Catholic powers hesitated to invade England while a Catholic heir awaited the throne. Now that delicate balance was shattered. As Elizabeth confessed to the Dutch envoy, she foresaw “the war continuing without end” and expenditures growing “intolerable” – prophetic words on the eve of England’s epic struggle with Spain.
The Unraveling of Elizabethan Statecraft
Mary’s execution marked the failure of Elizabeth’s signature foreign policy: strategic ambiguity. The queen had built her reign on avoiding irreversible decisions, believing time could unravel most political knots. As Europe plunged toward religious war, she maintained England’s neutrality through dazzling diplomatic footwork, keeping multiple options perpetually open.
Mary had been central to this balancing act. Her Catholic claim to the English throne made Spain’s Philip II hesitate before attacking Elizabeth – why depose a Protestant heretic only to install a pro-French Catholic? Now that restraint was gone. Within months, Philip would launch his Armada, beginning a war Elizabeth had spent decades avoiding.
The queen’s tears at Greenwich, whether calculated or sincere, flowed for more than her cousin. They mourned the end of an era where England’s security relied on royal cunning rather than military might. As the executioner’s axe fell at Fotheringhay, it severed not just Mary’s life but Elizabeth’s ability to navigate between Europe’s warring powers. Henceforth, England would face Spain’s fury without the protective ambiguity that had preserved its peace for thirty years.
Legacy of a Watershed Moment
The events of February 1587 transformed England’s place in the world. Within eighteen months, the defeated Spanish Armada would cement England’s naval ascendancy, while the East India Company (founded in 1600) heralded its commercial expansion. The cautious, ambiguous Elizabethan state gave way to the bold imperialism of the Stuart age.
Yet Elizabeth herself never embraced this new world. She continued resisting military commitments in the Netherlands, fretting over costs, and mourning the lost flexibility Mary’s presence had provided. Her legendary indecision – once a brilliant strategy for preserving options – became a liability in an age requiring decisive action.
The queen who wept at Greenwich (whether sincerely or strategically) understood better than her jubilant subjects that England stood at a crossroads. Her tears marked the passing of an era where royal wits could outmaneuver military might, and the painful birth of a nation that would soon eclipse its cautious queen’s wildest imaginings. In executing Mary, Elizabeth unwittingly midwifed the British Empire – a destiny far grander and more terrible than anything the reluctant warrior-queen had ever desired.