Curator Dr Anna Groundwater discusses the Mary, Queen of Scots casket to go on display at the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum in Stirling.

Transcript

00:00My name is Anna Groundwater, a Principal Curator in Scottish History and Archaeology Department

00:06here at National Museums Scotland. What we have here is the Mary Queen of Scots silver casket,

00:12a superb example of early Renaissance French silver made in Paris between around 1490 to 1510.

00:21Very little of this kind of silver survives to today so it's exceptionally rare and the reason

00:27I think for its survival is its historic association with Mary Queen of Scots. It's thought that Mary was

00:34given the casket by her husband-to-be the Dauphin Francois to whom she was engaged in France in the

00:421550s and that she brought it back with her to Scotland following his death in 1560 when she

00:50returned to Scotland in 1561. The casket was associated with Mary at some particularly high

00:57and low points in her life. It has a dramatic history with her. First of all it comes back

01:04to France with her. We can imagine her with it in her bedroom at Holyrood House for instance

01:11but it's also part of her downfall because in 1567 Mary came up against the confederate lords

01:19following her unpopular marriage to Lord Bothwell and she was forced to concede defeat and abdicate

01:28the throne. At this point the silver casket was seized by the Privy Council and the Earl of Moreton who

01:35ran it. It was fastened by a lock he is said to have ordered the removal the forcing of that lock and then

01:42the casket was opened to reveal what was then subsequently a year later said to be a number of

01:50letters and love poems. These were brought along with the casket to a hearing against Mary ordered by

01:59Elizabeth at Parliament in Westminster in 1568 and when the casket was opened these letters were revealed

02:09that incriminated Mary in an illicit relationship with Lord Bothwell her third husband and implicated her

02:18in the murder of her second husband Lord Darnley. So the casket's incredibly heavy it's about 1.8 kilos

02:25that's you know two bags of sugar and that's all solid silver in monetary terms a very valuable item.

02:33In France objects like this were ordered to be surrendered in the later 17th century by Louis XIV to

02:42help pay for his wars. The fact that this casket appears to have come to Scotland with Mary means

02:49that it's been preserved so it was saved when all that other French silver was lost so it's just such an

02:56incredibly rare example of a casket like this. The lid of the casket is encrusted with this scroll-like and

03:04floral decoration strap work it's known that's quite classic for the Renaissance in the period but going

03:12around the sides is a different scheme of decoration pin-pricked images of hunting scenes flora and fauna

03:20there's a running stag a devoted dog at the heels a little bunny rabbit. The casket reappears in the

03:28historical record in the mid 17th century and in the 1670s we know that it's bought by the Duchess

03:37of Hamilton from her mother-in-law's estate the Marchioness of Argyle and it comes into the possession

03:44of the Hamilton family in whose hands it remains until National Museum Scotland acquired it in 2022.

03:53The casket is on semi-permanent display here in National Museum Scotland on Chambers Street but we're

04:01very excited that it's going off on a little bit of a tour first of all to Kirkudbury in November

04:09and then next year to the Stirling Smith Gallery.

04:14Stirling Smith Gallery.