[CHAPTER XIII]
WESTMINSTER

"It appertaynes to ye duty we owe to our dearest mother that like honour should be done to her body, and like monument be extant to her as ourselves have already performed to our deare sister ye late Queen Elizabeth."—James VI. 28th Sept. 1612.

SIXTEEN years after the ceremony we have described in the last chapter James, now King of England, at last desired to show some mark of respect to his mother's memory, and Sir William Dethick was again intrusted with this mission.

On the 14th of August 1603 he was sent to Peterborough with "a rich pall of velvet, embroidered with the arms of the mighty princess Mary Queene of Scotts." He was also the bearer of letters to the Bishop of Peterborough to ask leave to place it on the coffin, which, being obtained, the pall was "by him caryed and laid uppon and over the corps of the said late Queene, assisted by many knights and gentlemen." A large concourse of people were present at the ceremony. The Bishop preached a sermon suitable to the occasion in the morning, and in the afternoon the Dean "preached of the same." In the interval there was a splendid banquet. "Then the Queene of Scotland," says our authority quaintly, "was most royally and sumptuously (re)enterred by the said gentee on the 14th August."[200]

Walker & Boutall, Ph. Sc.

Medallion containing
Miniature of Mary Queen of Scots
and Relics
now in the possession of Lady Milford.
[Enlarge]

Nine years later James, after erecting the well-known monument to Queen Elizabeth in Westminster Abbey, determined to do the same honour to his mother. He therefore addressed the following letter to the Dean and Chapter of Peterborough:[201]—

To the Dean and Chapter of Peterborough.[202]