On Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, Martyr

O my Lord and my God,
I have trusted in Thee.
O my dear Jesus,
now liberate me.
In shackle and chain,
in torture and pain,
I long for Thee.
In weakness and sighing,
in kneeling and crying,
I adore and implore Thee
to liberate me.

Mary Queen of Scots, Wednesday 8th February 1587

As I have said in another place, it is hard to say if these Royal executions can achieve the actual status of martyrdom. Mary was certainly inconvenient to many, and her religious faith played not a small part in that inconvenience.

The Roman Church has never taken seriously the sentiment that Mary was a Martyr even for the Catholic Cause, probably for cowardly and twisted political exigency.

There are many lessons to be learned here: Truth often comes with a price; generosity is always the better option; marring cousins may be a very bad idea (they may disappoint you); never put yourself in the power of someone that you have called a bastard all your life; blood is sometimes much thinner than water.

The absolute lesson, the true lesson, the lesson that Holy Mother Church would want to teach us today if only she had the courage to keep this festival, that we can take from the life and death of our Queen lies not in the question of her sanctity, of her innocence, of her legitimate rights, or even of the justice of the Catholic Cause--however true, illustrative, edifying these may be--but that no one should take it upon themselves to strike the heads off the inconvenient, whether they be pauper or prince.

Martyr, or victim of an elaborate Kangaroo Court, it cannot hurt, today, to call to mind the death of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, nor to ask for her intercession on behalf of us who still toil in this vale of tears while we wait to join her in the Banquet of Heaven.

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, pray of us.