A letter sent by Mary, Queen of Scots while she was placed under armed guard at Carlisle Castle sells for £32,500.
The letter was sent to the French ambassador to England less than two months following Mary, Queen of Scots’ daring escape from Lochleven Castle on May 2, 1568.
She was imprisoned following her forced abdication in favour of the infant James VI.
When Mary arrived in England to seek refuge from relative, Queen Elizabeth I, she was apprehended by Richard Lowther, the Deputy Governor of Cumberland, and escorted to Carlisle Castle, officially as a free woman, although she was placed under armed guard.
On May 20, Mary wrote that she had been “right well received and honourably accompanied and treated”, upon her arrival in England. However, by June 26, Mary’s mood had deteriorated. She charged George Douglas with carrying two letters from her to France, to King Charles IX and Catherine de Medici.
In her letter to King Charles, Mary wrote:
“Monsieur, my good brother, Seeing that,
contrary to my hopes, the injustice of this queen,
or, at least of her council, is preparing for me
a much longer sojourn here, than I could wish
(if it does not please you to provide a remedy),
as you will see by the reports of the Sieur de
Montmorin…”
The letter that was presented for sale asks the French ambassador to Queen Elizabeth to lend Douglas, the bearer of these letters, 300 écus and to intercede with the French Royal family, in order to ensure Douglas’s passage to France.
The letter sold for £32,500 at Lyon & Turnbull’s Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs February auction.
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