Thread by @KateWilliamsme

The rosary of #MaryQueenofScots, just stolen from @ArundelCastle. As I’ll be saying to @vicderbyshire @BBCNews at 10.30, they are irreplaceable. Her execution in 1587 In Fotheringhay was brutal and directed to be humiliating, in a hostile country. Denied most dignities -

#MaryQueenofScots was told last minute in her Fotheringhay house arrest she would be executed next day, they tried to deny her her ladies in waiting (so the executioner would unclothe her - shocking treatment) and those who had once been her friends turned hostile witnesses.

The beads are particularly significant because
1) so much of her belongings were taken /lost after she fled Scotland and those at Fotheringhay were nearly all burned to stop them becoming relics - even her heart was removed and hidden in the ground.

2) they symbolise her resistance - the only resistance she had left - against what was done to her, as the men around her at her execution tried to force her to convert to Protestantism and refused to allow her her chaplain to pray with her.

The Duke of Norfolk, owner of Arundel - c16 predecessor, the 4th Duke was charged with ‘investigating’ Mary when she arrived in England. Instead (already thrice a widower at 30) decided to marry her. Elizabeth was v not pleased and put him in the Tower - later executed for plots

Thanks for all your points on the theft of the rosary of #MaryQueenofScots #ArundelCastle - sad loss! Thanks @BBCNews @SkyNews @itvnews and BBC and others for quoting me. Here’s my book if anyone wants to read more on what happened to Mary - waterstones.com/book/rival-que…

#MaryQueenofScots, stolen from in life, stolen from in death. #Arundelcastle bbc.co.uk/news/uk-572247…