of "the other discourse," while Bourgoing, having probably inspired the account already written of the death of Mary, gives but a short and meagre description of it in the diary.

As my remarks will be more of a personal than a political nature, it will perhaps be desirable to say here what I have to say as to the justice of Mary's death; and I think I shall be able to show that, while it was a political necessity, it was one from which Elizabeth shrank to a far greater extent than is usually credited to her, and I am quite disposed to pronounce her innocent of the final act which has brought upon her so much contumely.

The following lines from Mr. Swinburne's recentlypublished tragedy, Mary Stuart, seem to describe accurately the feelings of Elizabeth:

"I would rather

Stand in God's sight so signed with mine own blood

Than with a sister's-innocent; or indeed

Though guilty-being a sister's-might I choose,

As being a queen I may not surely—no—

I may not choose, you tell me.'

On the death of Mary Tudor, Elizabeth had been at once proclaimed Queen. Her rights were derived from her father's will, and the people recognised them so promptly and heartily, that they forgot that the Act of 1st Mary, repealing the Acts of Henry VIII which had declared the King's marriage with Katherine of Arragon null and void,† while it declared Mary legitimate in her birth, had the contrary effect upon that of Elizabeth. Hence the partisans of Mary Stuart, who was the next heir, claimed for her the rightful succession, and Mary herself not only claimed it, but adopted the title, and quartered the Arms of England with those of Scotland, which she had from her birth, and of

France, which had accrued at her marriage with the Dauphin. From this claim really arose that feud, the only end of which was necessarily the death of one or other of the Queens. That Elizabeth, when her rival fell into her power, kept her in an easy and luxurious imprisonment for many years, living in a style superior to anything she could hope for in her own country-for Sheffield Castle, in which she spent fourteen years of her captivity, was a finer palace than any that Scotland could then boast-and bore with all her scheming and plotting, goes far to prove, I think, that she had no strong feeling of antagonism to Mary personally. Speaking of her at an earlier period, Hosack says, "she forgot that Mary Stuart had once. worn the Arms and aspired to the Crown of England. She only saw her sister Queen and nearest kinswoman a helpless captive in the hands of men whose characters and aims she knew too well, and she would at any cost obtain her deliverance ;* and he says, further, that her ambassador saved Mary's life at that time from the violence of her own subjects. In all previous reigns to be a pretender to the Crown was considered ample reason for a prompt extirpation of the claimant, but Elizabeth and her Ministers bore for eighteen years with the chicanery and duplicity of which Mary's letters give abundant proof, and they would probably have kept Mary in the same light captivity till a natural death had eased them of their burden, had not the growing bitterness between Protestantism and Popery converted her into a martyr, to succour whom was to deserve well of Mother Church, and made her a cynosure of plotting which threatened the peace of the land, and rendered her death a political necessity. Elizabeth's Ministers knew that on the death of their mistress, if she predeceased Mary, their lives would be imperilled, and they felt the importance of terminating this state of affairs by

* Mary Queen of Scots and her Accusers, by John Hosack, i, 356.

the removal of its head; and hence the issuing of the Commission for the trial of Mary for complicity in Babington's plot, and her sentence to death. Even after this, Elizabeth's respect for her relative, or, perhaps, her feeling of the divinity which should "hedge a king," prevented her from affixing her name to the warrant for Mary's execution for several months, and it is even doubtful whether she ever did sign it at all. The circumstances are too long to be detailed minutely; suffice it to say that Davison, one of the Secretaries of State, says she did sign it, and told him to keep it secret.* Miss Strickland gives an account of the existence of a minute of a Star Chamber investigation in 1606, twenty years after Mary's death, in which it is stated, under deposition of two witnesses, "that the late Thomas Harrison, a private and confidential secretary of the late Sir Francis Walsingham, did voluntarily acknowledge to them that he was employed by his said master, Sir Francis Walsingham, to forge Queen Elizabeth's signature to the death warrant of the Queen of Scots, which none of her ministers could ever induce her to sign."+

There are, however, extant two manuscript accounts of Davison's trial for "misprison and contempt," and from these it would appear that the Queen's Attorney-General, who conducted the prosecution, acknowledged the signature of the warrant by the Queen, and only blamed Davison for issuing it after he had been told expressly to keep it secret, but to have it in readiness so that it could be acted upon when wanted. It was directly after the signature that the correspondence ensued between Davison and Walsingham and Sir Amias Paulet, which leaves an indelible stigma on the names of the former, and, if Davison is to be believed, on that of the Queen also, for the letter undoubtedly presses

*

Life of W. Davison, by Sir Harris Nicholas. London, 1823. p. 232.

+ Cotton MS., quoted in Lives of the Queens of Scotland, vii, 465.

on Sir Amias the desirability of putting Mary to death in an informal way.* * On the refusal of Sir Amias to fall in with this suggestion-a refusal couched in a manly letter, too long to quote-Davison called the Council together, and laid the matter before them. Having the signature they had long wanted, they gave orders to have the warrant acted upon at once, without further reference to the Queen, who appears to have been ignorant of the consummation of the act for some days afterwards. When she received the information, she at once had Davison arrested, and shortly afterwards she wrote to King James of Scotland a letter respecting a treaty, the completion of which had been delayed by the death of his mother, which James euphemistically calls "yone unhappy fact," in which she says, "that so unhappyly to my harts grife was delaied and differd, assuring you on the faith of a Christian and worde of a King, that my hart cannot accuse my conscience of one thoght that might infringe our friendship, or let so good a worke. God the chersar of all harts euer so have misericorde of my soule as innocencye in that mattar deserveth, and no otherwise; wiche invocation wer to dangerous for a gilty conscience." This statement, made with much more vigour of language than correctness of spelling, seems to have been satisfactory in its effect, for King James expressed his belief in the asseverations of Elizabeth, and she subsequently writes, "I am greatly satisfied, my dear brother, that I find by your owne graunt that you bilive the trothe of my actions, so manifestly openly proved."

+

I must now proceed to the Journal of M. Bourgoing, and I shall select a few passages from it which will give

* Letter Books of Sir Amias Paulet, p. 359.

+ Letters of Queen Elizabeth and King James VI of Scotland (Camden Society's Publications), p. 48.

Ibid, p. 50.

some idea of the difficulty of managing a prisoner at once so bold and so indefatigable in mischief-working as Mary.

The diary opens with the removal of Mary from Chartley to Tixall, concerning which Miss Strickland says, in one of her admirable histories, "the particulars of the journey, the deportment of the Royal prisoner, together with her sayings and doings by the way, would, doubtless, have added a page of no ordinary interest to her personal history."* The story, according to the diary, is as follows:-Mary was at Chartley with a large suite, in charge of Sir Amias Paulet, and on August 11, 1586, she sent her secretary to say she wished to go out after dinner, to which Sir Amias replies that she can do so if she wishes, but if she likes to wait till the morrow, Sir Walter Aston has "promised to give them the pleasure of hunting a stag, which he wished her to kill with her own hands, as she had done some time before." Mary, delighted at the prospect, willingly accepted the invitation, and then made some difficulty because of its being Friday, though she would rather go than sacrifice so good an opportunity, fearing it might not be offered again if she refused it. The Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday not being available, either from the state of the weather or for other reasons, Mary sends word on Tuesday (16th August), and they all start for the hunt, which it would appear from the sequel had been arranged by Sir Amias to get them all out of the house; for Walsingham had sent instructions to that effect, which were faithfully carried out. The diary proceeds" Her Majesty, mounted on her horse, rode fully a mile with such speed that, without noticing, we allowed Sir Amias to join some others, who, it is to be supposed, were hidden near. The Queen, having been informed by M. Nau

* Lives of the Queens of Scotland, &c., vii, 423.

+ Letter Books, p. 253.