WRITTEN just six hours before she was put to death, Mary Queen of Scots penned one last letter to her ex-brother-in-law, the King of France.

In the note, she tells how she will be "executed like a criminal at eight in the morning" and asks King Henri III to have "prayers offered to God for a queen who has borne the title Most Christian" and dies "stripped of all her possessions".

Now the 430-year-old letter is to go on public display to mark the anniversary of her death.

It was last seen in public in 2009, when long queues formed to view it at the National Library of Scotland. This time members of the public will have just a few hours to see it, with the session running from 10am to 4pm on February 8 at the library on George IV Bridge in Edinburgh.

National Librarian Dr John Scally said: "The life of Mary Queen of Scots has fascinated people of all ages for generations. She is one of Scotland’s most famous monarchs.

"The National Library is pleased to provide this opportunity to see the last letter she ever wrote only hours before her execution. This is a rare chance to see a remarkable piece of Scottish history."

Mary, who was 44 at her time of death, wrote the letter at 2am as she prepared to meet the executioner at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire after 19 years imprisonment.

In her own hand, she tells King Henri III her "crime" was her loyalty to her Catholic faith and her claim to the English throne as a descendant of the Tudor line, which made her a threat to her cousin Queen Elizabeth I. She also expresses concern for the loyal servants she will leave behind.

Born in Linlithgow Palace in 1542 to James V of Scotland and his French wife Mary of Guise, Mary became queen when she was just six days old on her father's death.

She was engaged to Edward, son of Henry VIII, at the age of five, but the betrothal was called off by her guardians, who moved the monarch to Stirling Castle, triggering the English raids known as the "Rough Wooing" as the English king tried to reclaim his hold over the Scottish throne.

The youngster was then betrothed to four-year-old French prince Francis and sent to France. They later married in a match uniting the Scottish and French crowns.

However, Francis died just one year later and Mary, by then an 18-year-old widow, returned to Scotland's Protestant-led government for a life of drama and tragedy.

She married her cousin the Earl of Darnley, but the union was unhappy and Mary grew close to the Earl of Bothwell and her secretary David Rizzio, who was dragged from dinner with pregnant Mary and murdered by nobles led by Darnley.

After he in turn was found dead, the country's nobility turned against Mary, who was imprisoned after abdicating and fled to England to seek safety with Elizabeth I following her escape from prison and the defeat of her army at the Battle of Langside.

Her son James, who had been made King of Scotland on her abdication, went on to take the English throne after Elizabeth's death in 1603 and later honoured his mother by having her body exhumed and placed in Westminster Abbey.

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HAMISH MACPHERSON ON OUR YOUNGEST EVER MONARCH

THE trouble with Mary Queen of Scots was that she was four things that did not make for a successful reign in the 16th century: she was female, pro-French, had a legitimate claim to the English throne, and she was Roman Catholic – all qualities that are displayed in her final letter.

That combination made her enemies even before she returned from France as the Queen of Scotland in August 1561, having been made a widow by the death of her husband, King Francis II of France – for a period of 17 months, Mary was uniquely Queen of Scotland and France. Had she and Francis had a son, he would have been King over a ‘united kingdom’ of France and Scotland – a point to ponder.

The details of her reign are well known. This includes John Knox’s confrontations with his beauteous young Queen that revolved around his distaste for women rulers, as well as her disastrous marriage to her Catholic cousin Henry, Lord Darnley that provoked the Protestant nobles to rise against her, especially after she gave birth to the future King James VI and I.

The murder of her secretary Rizzio, the assassination of Darnley, her subsequent swift marriage to the Earl of Bothwell and the calamitous defeats of her forces at Carberry and Langside either side of her imprisonment in Lochleven Castle and her abdication in favour of her infant son – all of these led up to her fleeing to England and seeking the succour of her cousin, Elizabeth Gloriana, the avowedly Protestant Queen who saw Mary as a threat to her throne and religion and duly locked her up for 19 years.

Elizabeth’s Protestant courtiers, especially her spymaster Francis Walsingham, were only too willing to believe any plot by Catholics to put Elizabeth to death and Mary on her throne. Eventually Walsingham concocted the Babington Plot to make it seem that Elizabeth was indeed doomed, and Mary was duped into going along with it.

Mary’s show trial was a farce with a foregone conclusion. Despite dithering over what to do, Elizabeth eventually signed her cousin’s death warrant.

It took two strokes of the axe to sever Mary’s head, and as it rolled on the floor, her auburn wig came off to reveal that her own short hair had turned grey. She was just 44.

Mary was buried in Peterborough Cathedral, and when he became King of England, James VI and I had his mother’s remains transferred to a splendid vault opposite that of Elizabeth in Westminster Abbey where she lies to this day.