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| Portrait of Mary after François Clouet, c. 1559 |
WHO WAS MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS? - Mary, Queen of Scots, also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, was queen regnant of Scotland from December 14, 1542 to July 24, 1567. Her parents were Mary of Guise and James V of Scotland. She was born in 1542 and was executed on 1587. It is generally believed that Mary's execution - ordered by Elizabeth I - was the final reason Philip II needed to launch the Spanish Armada. Mary was Elizabeth I's cousin.
THREAT TO THE THRONE - Mary was a staunch Catholic, and her cousin Elizabeth I was protestant. Mary was seen as a threat to the Queen who wanted to keep England as a protestant nation. According to HIstoryLearningSite.Co.UK, Catholics didn't recognize Henry's divorce from the Catholic Catherine of Aragon and there were rumors that Henry married Anne Boleyn before his divorce came through. SO, if the marriage to Anne (Elizabeth's mother)was illegal, Elizabeth was illegitimate and had no right to the throne. If Elizabeth had no right to the throne, the nearest legal heir to the English throne was.........Mary, Queen of Scots.
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| The display that Mary's ghost didn't like |
HOW DID MARY'S END COME ABOUT? - Elizabeth's solution was to keep Mary, Queen of Scots, in prison. For the next 19 years, Mary
was kept in safe custody in various castles and manor houses. What's strange is that Mary never met Elizabeth over that entire time. Mary, however, kept telling everyone that she should be queen of England and rallied peopleagainst Elizabeth, even while locked up. In1587, Elizabeth
hesitated about signing Mary's death warrant but did. According to HistoryLearningSite-UK, Mary was
executed at Fortheringhay Castle, 70 miles north of London, on February 8th, 1587. (For the whole story go to: History Learning Site UK
Before seeing the crown jewels, we walked through the display about Mary, which included life sized mannequins. It was there that Tom got the ghostly message. Both Tom and I walked around a corner and were face-to-face with a life-sized mannequin of Mary holding her son James. We both became very light-headed. Tom said "Mary doesn't like the exhibit and says it makes her look ugly." WE FILMED A SHORT VIDEO RIGHT AFTER THE ENCOUNTER -
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| Tom and Rob in the last room of Edinburgh Castle's tour |
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| A design in wood Tom liked |
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| The Haunted Whisky Shop! |
THE HAUNTED WHISKY SHOP - There's a building on the castle grounds that has a triangular shaped- peak and what appears to be two large doors. By looking at it, I can only assume that's where wagons were stored, or maybe it was used as a stable for horses.
Today, it's used for selling Scottish whisky (they spell it without the "e"). However, there was something more in there. When we went inside, Tom smelled the odor that lets him know that there's a ghost around. Basically, he said, it smells like a rotting corpse. He said it was so strong that it made him nauseous.
I had my ghostly headache, but because I was getting over the shingles (yes, it was a challenging start to vacation for me), the illness blocked out my ability to get messages. Regardless, we both knew that there was some person in there, and I would hazard a guess that it was a man (not many women were handling military animals hundreds of years ago).
NEXT: HOLYROOD HOUSE PALACE (The Queen's official residence in Scotland)
