Mary I of Scotland: Encyclopedia II - Mary I of Scotland - Mary's relics

Mary I of Scotland - Mary's relics

Though Mary Stuart has not been canonised by the Catholic Church, many consider her a martyr, and there are relics of her. Her prayer-book was long shown in France; and her apologist published, in an English journal, a sonnet which she was said to have composed, and to have written with her own hand in this book.

A celebrated German actress, Mrs. Hendel-Schutz, who excited admiration by her attitudes, and performed Friedrich Schiller's "Maria" with great applause in several German cities, affirmed that a cross which she wore on her neck was the very same that once belonged to the unfortunate queen.

Relics of this description have never yet been subjected to the proof of their authenticity. But if there is anything which may be reasonably believed to have once been the property of the queen, it is the veil with which she covered her head on the scaffold, after the executioner had wounded the unfortunate victim in the shoulder by a false blow (whether from awkwardness or confusion is uncertain). This veil came into the possession of Sir J.C. Hippisley, who claimed to be descended from the House of Stuart on his mother's side. He had an engraving made from it by Matteo Diottavi, in Rome, 1818, and gave copies to his friends.

The veil is embroidered with gold spangles by (as is said) the queen's own hand, in regular rows crossing each other, so as to form small squares, and edged with a gold border, to which another border has been subsequently joined, in which the following words are embroidered in letters of gold:-

On the plate there is an inscription, with a double certificate of its authenticity, which states, that this veil, a family treasure of the expelled house of Stuart, was finally in possession of the last branch of that family, Henry Benedict Stuart, the cardinal of York, who preserved it for many years in his private chapel, among the most precious relics, and at his death bequeathed it to Sir John Hippisley, together with a valuable Plutarch, and a Codex with painted (illuminated) letters, and a gold coin struck in Scotland in the reign of queen Mary.

The plate was specially consecrated by Pope Pius VII in his palace on the Quirinal, April 29, 1818. Hippisley, during a former residence at Rome, had been very intimate with the cardinal of York, and was instrumental in obtaining for him, when he with the other cardinals emigrated to Venice in 1798, a pension of £4,000 a year from King George IV of the United Kingdom, then Prince of Wales. But for the pension, the fugitive cardinal, whose revenues were all seized by the forces of the French Revolution, would have been exposed to the greatest distress.

The cardinal desired to requite this service by the bequest of what he considered so valuable. According to a note on the plate, the veil is eighty-nine English inches long, and forty-three broad, so that it seems to have been rather a kind of shawl or scarf than a veil. Melville in his Memoirs, which Schiller had read, speaks of a handkerchief belonging to the queen, which she gave away before her death, and Schiller founds upon this anecdote the well-known words of the farewell scene, addressed to Hannah Kennedy.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Mary's relics", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki