Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1898 — A FATAL SPOT. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A FATAL SPOT.

Place Where Mary Queen of Scot* Lost Her Crown. Three hundred and fifty years ago on the 13th of May Mary Queen of Scots stood on a grassy knoll near the village of Cathcart watching with feverish interest the movements of three bodies *of troops about a mile off in the fields round Langslde. Eleven days before she escaped from the castle of Lochleven and now the day had dawned which was to decide whether she would ever rule Scotland again. What the fates had decreed is written at large in the pages of history and that story throws a glamour of pathetic romance round the spot on which Mary learned her doom. For many years “Court Knowe,”

as the knoll is called, was marked by a throne tree and when that decayed Gen. Sir George Cathcart, who fell at Inkerman, replaced it with a rough field-gate stone, on which he carved with his own hands a crown, the queen’s initials and the date of the battle. Later still, the General’s nephew, Earl , Cathcart, built this 'memorial, which is of red granite and repeats the inscription of its predecessor. It may be that Mary’s life was a failure, but she has her recompense now. Her story still greatly stirs the hearts of men and draws the sympathetic pilgrim to such shrines as this; Elizabeth, successful in life, is regarded afar off with emotionless respect.

MARY LOST HER CROWN HERE.