Although winners proverbially write history, artists are inclined to write sympathetically about the losers. Such is definitely the case with Mary Stuart. While she may or may not have actively participated in plots against Queen Elizabeth on her behalf, she was such a focal point for such plots that Elizabeth's final and possibly reluctant decision to execute her was a logical one. However, in this work, as in many others, Mary is a doomed innocent, Elizabeth a monster of injustice.

Aside from its dramatic potential, this lament was also something of a political piece. Rome, where Carissimi had been established since 1629, was naturally a bastion of Roman Catholicism, and not only was Mary Stuart considered by many to be a Catholic martyr at the hands of a Protestant ruler, but her grandson, Charles I, had been executed by order of the Puritan-controlled Parliament in 1649. While not a Catholic, he was far more sympathetic to Catholicism than his predecessors, and he was considered by many in Rome to be yet another innocent royal victim of the forces of Protestantism. Carissimi was attached to Rome's lifestyle and culture (he turned down many advantageous offers, including one where he was invited to name his salary, from patrons in other cities) and himself took minor orders in 1653, so it was natural that he write of Mary with special sympathy.

While this type of vocal solo piece originated in Florence, credit for the idea is usually given to the Roman historian Girolamo Mei, who speculated, around the turn of the century, that this type of monodic singing over a basic accompaniment would be a close approximation of the Greek style. Over the next decades, composers added more elaboration to the style, including sustained changes of mood set to different types of music, and a growing distinction between recitative and aria.

Carissimi wrote this as aria a piu parti , divided into different sections with differing styles and emotions. It opens with a lengthy recitative passage, a brief arioso section on "Vilipesa innocenza," continuing into a more extended arioso section beginning and ending with the repeated refrain "a morire," followed by contrasting recitatives, in the first where she bids her ladies in waiting farewell, in the second when she pours contempt upon London and Elizabeth, in increasingly agitated and ornamented phrases. While it begins with Mary's words silencing the priest administering the Anglican rites at her execution, in a dramatic effect that sweeps the listener immediately into the action, it ends with the narrator's words, usually sung by the soloist, sometimes by another singer.

In the recitative passages, the accompaniment serves largely as punctuation, largely chordal, with the occasional flourish or echo of the vocal line. However, in the "a morire" arioso, it suddenly becomes lively, almost dance-like, inexplicably, until Mary's last words in that section, as she says that her constancy provides an elixir to soothe her grief.

There is relatively little direct word-painting; instead, in the section in which Mary challenges Elizabeth to torment her further, the agitated, almost-flailing phrases serve more to depict her momentary frenzy than to illustrate the individual words themselves, almost a predecessor of operatic mad scenes or even the last cabaletta of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, depicting the same dramatic moment.

As in many of Carissimi's other such works, there are vivid moments of characterization, such as the upward sweep of "e son regina," strongly reminiscent of a royal fanfare and an expression of Mary's pride, or the way that the opening passage is set all in the tonic chord of G, as if depicting her constancy in the face of execution.

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