For almost a century mystery surrounded the whereabouts of a leaded glass window from Heage Hall, which some believed to have been carved by the queen while in captivity in Derbyshire.
Now, I am delighted to say the glass pane – said in one parish magazine to have “‘vanished into oblivion” – has been found after languishing for decades in the home of retired teacher John Maddison.
Better still it is going under the hammer tomorrow <march 24> at our Etwall saleroom.
As pieces of local folklore go it doesn’t get much better than this.
The small 11.5 x 5.8cm (4 ½ x 2 ¼in) pane came to light when John’s son and daughter-in- law, Anna Maddison, were going through his estate after he died in 2024, aged 82.
Anna said the family had known the pane was stashed away, but weren’t entirely sure what it was, or where it might have come from.
After it was consigned for sale, some digging revealed its incredible history dating back four centuries (a story which has been covered over the years by this paper).
The pane was discovered in the 1800s by the Quaker antiquarian Henry Wake who spotted it while exploring the dilapidated remains of Heage Hall, near Nether Heage.
The panel reads Trop heureux en toi, malheureux en moi, which translates as “Happy in thee, unhappy in me.”
Wake was adamant that the French motto was the work of Mary who grew up at the French court and had been imprisoned a mile away from the hall at Wingfield Manor.
Mary was known to use a ‘scribbling’ ring – a diamond-set ring designed to scratch glass to leave messages, signatures, or verses on windowpanes during her travels and imprisonment.
Wake was convinced she had visited the hall while she was incarcerated at Wingfield Manor between 1569 and 1571.
In a document accompanying the window he wrote: “Heage Hall is within a mile of the Park boundary of Wingfield Manor House where Mary was confined and at that time could be reached with great privacy. In order to relieve the dullness of a prison life, she probably often visited Heage Hall under escort and at one of those visits wrote with a diamond on one of the panes of glass.”
His theory is given greater weight by a visit the imprisoned queen made to Buxton to treat her rheumatism.
On her final trip to the spa town in 1584 she was said to have engraved a farewell on a window in Latin translated as “Buxton, whose warm waters have made thy name famous, perchance I shall visit thee no more – Farewell.”
But others questioned whether the heavily-guarded Mary ever visited the Heage Hall, then the seat of the Pole family, as there is no written evidence to support it.
The debate over the window’s veracity raged until 1914 when Wake died, and Ambergate vicar, H Eardley Field, sent the pane to the British Museum to settle the controversy.
Museum experts concluded “that it was in a hand contemporaneous with Mary but not her writing”.
If it wasn’t written by Mary herself, perhaps there is a chance it was written by one of her ladies – maybe her old retainer Bess.
Either way it is a wonderful piece of Derbyshire history and a wonderful local artefact with a thrilling story.
The pane is being sold with an old catalogue titled Monthly Catalogue of Books, Coins, Antiquities, on sale by Henry J. Wake, Fritchley, Derby which outlines his case.
Due to her perceived threat to the English crown, Mary’s Protestant cousin Elizabeth I kept her rival imprisoned for 19 years until her execution in 1587, aged 44.
Under the supervision of the powerful nobleman George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury she was kept in various castles and manor houses across England many in Derby where Talbot owned a number of estates.
Whether or not Mary Queen of Scots ever visited Heage Hall, her ghost – in the shape of a figure on a brown horse dressed in her Tudor riding clothes – is said to haunt the building.
Anna said she is delighted to share the story with the rest of the county. Let’s hope the window, which has a guide price of £70-£100, shines at auction tomorrow.
Auction Details
Auction: Derby March Four-Day Antiques & Collectors Auction: including Silver, Jewellery & Watches
Auction date: 19th – 24th March 2026 | 10am
Location: Hansons’ Derbyshire Saleroom
Auction contact: [email protected]
Catalogue/bidding: www.hansonslive.co.uk | www.the-saleroom.com
