There are reports of several death's head watches rather than one with Mr. Cedric Jagger (Former Keeper of the Clockmakers' Museum in Guildhall London) saying in his book Royal Clocks that "preliminary investigations quickly revealed that this is not the story of one watch, but three" and that a skull watch was known to have been in Salisbury in 1822 which could have led to the creation of the other two. An 1863 letter from Alexander Bryson, Her Majesty's Clockmaker for Scotland, says that he and his father were in charge with cleaning the Dick-Lauder skull watch and that he was told by Sir John that it was given to a Catherine Seton, not Mary. In an 1895 record of transactions from the St. Paul's Ecclesiological Society, there is a record of sale of a Death's Head watch that was similar in style to that owned by Sir Thomas Dick-Lauder and that this watch was the one given to Mary Queen of Scots by Francis; however in that same record Sir Thomas claims that his watch is one of 12 that were given to the Queen's favorite handmaidens. Unfortunately this proves nothing other than a) we can be confident that the Dick-Lauder family had a skull watch and b) they were claiming it was the Mary Queen of Scots watch but there is no real proof to that claim. I think a certain healthy degree of healthy skepticism must be maintained when looking at some of the written "evidence" of providence for the Mary Queen of Scots watch as the impartiality of a family history written by a descendant could be drawn into question. Why let silly things like facts get in the way of telling a good story especially when it involve Royalty, execution and family heirlooms. There is an engraving dated between 1820-1835 in the V&A Museum of the supposed Mary Queen of Scots watch but there is no mention of the Dick-Lauder possession. I believe Mr Jagger was right when he proposed that other Death's Head watches "were created as evocation of the past and that their specific attribution to Mary Queen of Scots came later".

I spoke with Mr. George White, current Keeper of the Clockmakers' Museum, who said that there are antiquarian horologists who believe there is more to the story left to discover. The museum currently has on display a Death's Head watch that is now believed to be one of the 19th Century revival pieces. Mr. White says that no-one knows of the location of where the Salisbury watch is or of another which last appeared in public in November 1989 at a Sotheby's auction. I have contacted Sotheby's London Clock Department for more information and will update this when I hear back. Perhaps the other watch is described in "Former Clock and Watchmakers" by F.J. Britten which was "an exact facsimile of the Mary Seton one, with the additional inscription around the eyebrows Ex. Dono. Fr. R. Fr. Ad. Marias de Scotorum Fr. Regina".