Notes and Queries, Number 174, February 26, 1853 / A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.

On the south side of the chancel of Conington Church, Hunts., stands a handsome, massive, and elaborately-carved oaken chair, which has been traditionally known as the very seat from which the unfortunate Mary Stuart rose to submit her neck to the executioner. The chair was probably brought from Fotheringay, and placed in Conington Church as a sacred relic, by Sir Robt. Cotton, who built Conington Castle partly with the materials of Fotheringay, and who (according to Gough, in his additions to Camden's Britannia , vol. ii., Iceni, ed. 1789) brought from there the whole room where Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded. By this, perhaps, is meant, the deeply-recessed arcade that now forms the two exterior sides of the ground-floor of Conington Castle; which arcade, doubtless, was on the interior walls of Fotheringay, the windows being above it: the principal window being supposed to be that which now forms the staircase window of the Talbot Inn, Oundle. Modern windows have been placed within the eleven divisions of the arcade at Conington Castle.
In speaking of Conington Church, Gough says (see Additions to Camden ) that Lord Coleraine saw a chair of an Abbot of Peterborough in this church, 1743, which must have been the chair now under notice. The nature of its decorations shows it to have been a chair used for religious purposes; and the six principal figures that adorn it, are made to face at right angles with the chair; so that when it was placed on the south side of the altar, the faces of the figures would be turned towards the east.
A full description of the chair may not be without its interest to the readers of N. & Q., since (as far as I am aware) it has never yet received more than a passing notice from the historian; and if it indeed be a relic of Mary Stuart—as there seems good reason to believe—it deserves more attention (in these days of minute detail) than it has hitherto obtained.
The top of the chair is battlemented, and flanked by the two side-pieces which terminate in pediments supporting figures. Both figures are seated on