Matt Ford

She reaches up and unfastens her outer robe.

As it falls to the floor, she hears a sharp intake of breath move around the hall like a wave.

Mary stands in a petticoat and bodice of deep, vivid red, knowing every soul in the room recognises its meaning.

It is the colour of Catholic martyrdom.

Mary moves her eyes back to Cecil.

There are two things that cannot be taken from me, my royal blood and my religion, both of which I will keep even in death.

Mary watches Cecil's smile falter, then disappear.

She exhales.

Now she is ready.

Mary kneels and rests her head against the block.

She closes her eyes.

She thinks of the men who married and betrayed her.

Of her son and the crown he will one day wear.

A crown she no longer begrudges him.

Then she thinks of Elizabeth, the cousin she never met.

She thinks of the love that might have existed had things been different.

It is the last thought Mary has before she feels the blow of the axe on her neck.

and no more thoughts exist at all.

After Mary's defiant last stand, the English were so terrified of her becoming a martyr that they closed the ports, burned her belongings, and removed her heart and placed it under a guarded glass jar.

Mary was then buried at Peterborough Cathedral, not far from Catherine of Aragon.