Your sister and cousin wrongfully a prisoner

Your sister and cousin wrongfully a prisoner
Oil on canvas
60x42

I made this piece using many medieval references to mermaids and accidentally made the woman in the boat look like Elizabeth 1st. When researching a name for it, I stumbled upon a reference to Mary queen of Scot’s being depicted as a mermaid (a sign of prostitution) after the suspicious death of her husband. She remarried quickly after being held captive and possibly raped by her new husband. Elizabeth 1st used this time to further promote her virtue and virginity.

Mary was deposed at 24 and held captive for 19 years before being beheaded by her cousin Elizabeth 1st.

There was something in the last letter from Mary to Elizabeth that seems to resonate with the current climate and situation we find ourselves in. And as a half Scot I wanted to exonerate Mary and use this painting to put power into her depicted as a Mermaid.

‘Accuse me not of presumption if, leaving this world and preparing myself for a better, I remind you will one day to give account of your charge, in like manner as those who preceded you in it, and that my blood and the misery of my country will be remembered, wherefor from the earliest dawn of your comprehension we ought to dispose our minds to make things temporal yield to those of eternity’