The British Library has obtained official financial accounts for the 1580s, which detail the best meals and other luxuries given to the Queen of Scots during her captivity at Wingfield Manor in Derbyshire and Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire. Andrea Clarke, the library’s chief curator of medieval and early modern manuscripts, told the Observer it was “luxurious imprisonment. These provide a truly colorful snapshot [Mary’s] existence in prison. The food listed is incredible, from the basics – bread, butter, eggs – to a huge range of poultry, fish and meat, some of which I had never heard of and had fun looking up.” 1585 expenses for Mary, Queen of Scots, detailing many luxury items. Photo: 12174/The British Library Clarke curated a recent British Library exhibition, Elizabeth and Mary: Royal Cousins, Rival Queens, which explored their tumultuous relationship amid conspiracies, espionage and betrayal, with England and Scotland deeply divided between Protestant and Catholic and Europe torn apart by religious conflicts and civil wars. Mary was just six days old when she became Queen of Scots in 1542 after the death of her father, James V. Feared as a Catholic with a claim to the English throne, she was targeted by conspirators and eventually found guilty of treason and beheaded in 1587, aged 44. On rolls of parchment, professional scribes had recorded all the expenses incurred between December 1584 and February 1585. In a forthcoming British Library blog, Clarke writes: “By the time the financial accounts were drawn up in 1585, Mary had been kept in the English captivity for nearly 17 years and was recently transferred to the custody of Sir Ralph Sadler, her newly appointed guardian. Sadler’s official correspondence for the same period reveals the pressure he was under to secure his charge as cheaply as possible… The accounts may have been drawn up precisely to inform this cost-cutting effort.’ They show that Mary dined on beef, mutton, veal, boar and fowl, as well as cod, salmon, eels and herring seasoned with saffron, ginger and nutmeg and with wine and beer. Oranges, olives, capers, almonds and figs were among her exotic delicacies. Sweet treats included jam, caraway cookies and fruit preserved in syrup. She was attended by a large household and dined under the canopy of her state, where each course offered her a choice of up to 16 individual dishes. Detailed household expenses include “mats for the Quenes lodging” and soap “for washing the Quenes linen,” along with the wages of staff responsible for “repairing the chrome and cleaning the armour” and “setting up and making a bed “. Although Mary was only allowed to ride occasionally, she continued to keep her own horses, and the accounts report fixed expenses such as lanterns, hay and “the showing and treating of the horses”. But the accounts also offer a reminder that Mary was a prisoner of the English crown as they list the wages of 40 soldiers who attended her.
