Scene III unfolds with Queen Mary’s deci­sion plac­ing her at the heart of a deeply human and polit­i­cal con­flict, where emo­tions and duties become dan­ger­ous­ly entan­gled. The Queen, deter­mined to inter­vene in Chaste­lard’s sen­tenc­ing, declares a readi­ness to share in his pun­ish­ment, a reflec­tion of both her affec­tion and her inner tur­moil. She speaks not as a sov­er­eign detached from con­se­quence, but as a woman bound by a grow­ing sense of help­less­ness. Her com­mands to Mary Beat­on and Mary Carmichael—to observe silent­ly from Holyrood—suggest more than roy­al dis­cre­tion. They reflect the bur­den of lead­er­ship where even mer­cy must be con­cealed beneath strat­e­gy. Through this maneu­ver, she sep­a­rates her­self from pub­lic per­cep­tion, lay­ing the ground­work for both mis­un­der­stand­ing and silent defi­ance. Her actions reveal that pow­er can­not always shield what the heart can­not let go.

From their perch, the two Maries watch events unfold with dis­tinct emo­tion­al lens­es. Carmichael notes the indif­fer­ent rhythm of the gath­ered crowd, while Beat­on’s gaze nar­rows onto the com­ing tragedy with dread. Her grow­ing resent­ment for the Queen inten­si­fies, dri­ven not by pol­i­tics but by love lost and loy­al­ty betrayed. Though Carmichael urges calm, Beat­on antic­i­pates betray­al dis­guised as mer­cy. The Queen’s beau­ty and charm, she sug­gests, are weapons that mask cold­er inten­tions. Below, the crowd remains unaware of the emo­tion­al weight sus­pend­ed above them. When Chaste­lard is final­ly brought for­ward, the noise, the shift­ing faces, and the silent spec­tat­ing all become part of a per­for­mance no one can rewrite. Beaton’s dread becomes real, her prayers tan­gled with anger and regret.

As Chaste­lard stands before his fate, a strange dig­ni­ty sur­rounds him. He is described as unshak­en, even cheerful—his smile a veil, his calm per­haps born from know­ing no oth­er out­come could have fol­lowed. The public’s fas­ci­na­tion clash­es with the pri­vate ache in Beaton’s heart. She imag­ines what words he might say, what farewell he might offer if he knew she watched. The exe­cu­tion, while swift, feels stretched across a can­vas of silence and judg­ment. Carmichael observes how death steals noth­ing from his presence—it only final­izes what life and pol­i­tics could not resolve. As the axe descends, Beat­on’s world frac­tures. She finds no com­fort in the rit­u­al, only a final sev­er­ance from some­thing once deeply cher­ished.

Mary Beat­on, shak­en but res­olute, demands to see the fall­en body. Her insis­tence is not for clo­sure but for connection—to the truth of what has been lost and to the pain that comes with see­ing it. She walks through the echo­ing halls of Holy­rood not as a lady of the court, but as a mourn­er con­fronting what his­to­ry can­not soft­en. Even as Carmichael hes­i­tates, Beat­on choos­es to face death direct­ly, believ­ing that only then will Chastelard’s sto­ry end for her. The Queen’s role remains cloaked in ambiguity—was she too late, or did she nev­er tru­ly intend to stop what was always des­tined? In this, the chap­ter leaves read­ers not with res­o­lu­tion, but reflec­tion: on loy­al­ty strained by love, on jus­tice shaped by silence, and on the hearts that car­ry grief long after crowds have dis­persed.

For read­ers, this chap­ter speaks vol­umes about the con­flict between pri­vate emo­tion and pub­lic respon­si­bil­i­ty. It also cap­tures how pow­er, once roman­ti­cized, becomes a cage for those caught in its demands. Queen Mary is not sim­ply a monarch here—she is a woman reck­on­ing with deci­sions that, no mat­ter how jus­ti­fied, leave her wound­ed and iso­lat­ed. Mary Beaton’s anguish offers a mir­ror to our own help­less­ness in wit­ness­ing loss. The sto­ry urges us to rec­og­nize that tragedy is rarely sud­den; it is built, moment by moment, by choic­es unspo­ken, desires repressed, and truths denied. Through this, Swin­burne reminds us that the grand­est tales of his­to­ry are also the qui­etest por­traits of grief.