whose death she laid heavily upon my lord treasurer Burghley for divers years together." In the end, Davison says, he told Hatton plainly, that, notwithstanding the directions she had given him for sending down the warrant to the commissioners (which haply she thought he would adventure for her safety and service), he was absolutely resolved not to meddle in it alone. Hatton agreed to accompany him instantly to the lord treasurer. Burghley approved of Davison's resolution not to proeeed singly, and agreed to submit the matter to the whole of the privy council. In the mean time he desired that the warrant might be put into his hands, and Davison, in the presence of Hatton, delivered it to Burghley, who kept it till it was sent away to Fotheringay. The next morning, the 3rd of February, Burghley assembled the council in his own chamber, and they unanimously consented to have the execution hastened, "knowing how much it imported both to themselves and the whole realm, and having so clear a testimony of her majesty's pleasure as her own warrant under her hand and great seal of England." They also expressed their unwillingness to trouble her majesty any further on the subject; and then calling for Mr. Beale, the clerk of the council, as the fittest person, they deliberately gave him the death-warrant and letters of instruction to the commissioners. On the following morning Davison went to court, where he found her majesty in conversation with Sir Walter Raleigh. She presently called Davison to her, and, as if she had understood nothing of these proceedings (the meeting of her whole council, the writing of the letters, &c.), she said to him smilingly, that “the overnight she had dreamt a dream, that the Queen of Scots was executed, and that she had been in her dream

In one of the letters which were addressed to the Earl of Kent, and which was signed by Burghley, the Earl of Derby, Leicester, Charles Howard, Hunsdon, Cobham, Francis Knollys, Hatton, Walsingham, and Davison, it was said that his lordship (Kent) would understand by the bearer how needful it was to have the proceedings herein to be kept very secret.

so angry against him therefore, that she could have done anything to him." At first the secretary treated this as a jest, for her majesty was "so pleasant and smiling." But Davison knew his mistress;-a moment's reflection excited an uncomfortable doubt-and he asked whether, having proceeded so far, she had not a resolute intention to execute the sentence. She answered yes, and swore a great oath, but said that she thought it might have been done in another way; and she asked him whether he had not heard from Sir Amyas Pawlet. Hereupon Davison produced Pawlet's answer to the infamous epistle which he and Walsingham had written. It appeared that Pawlet, though an unfeeling bigot, had some conscience, which was, however, no doubt quickened by his fear of consequences in this world. In great grief and bitterness of mind he deplored being so unhappy as to have lived to see this unhappy day, in which he was required, by direction from his most gracious sovereign, to do an act which God and the law forbade. His goods, his life were at her majesty's disposal; he was ready to lose them the next morrow if it should so please her, but God forbid that he should make so foul a shipwreck of his conscience, or leave so great a blot to his posterity, as to shed blood without law and warrant. Elizabeth then called Pawlet, lately her "dear and faithful Pawlet," a "precise and dainty fellow;" and waxing still more wrathful, she accused him and others, who had taken the oath of association, of perjury and breach of faith, they having all promised and vowed great things for her, and performing nothing. She said, however, that there were some who would do the thing for her sake, and she named one Wingfield, who with some others would have done it. Upon which Davison once more insisted on the injustice and dishonour of secret assassination, and upon the great danger which would have been brought upon Pawlet and Drury if they had consented. On the 7th of February, at the very moment when the walls of Fotheringay Castle were echoing with the noise made by the workmen in erecting Mary's scaffold, Elizabeth began an earnest con

versation with Davison, on the danger in which she lived, telling him that it was more than time that the affair was concluded, swearing a great oath, and commanding him to write a sharp letter to Sir Amyas Pawlet. The secretary, being "somewhat jealous of her drift," cautiously replied, that he imagined such letter was unnecessary. She then said that she thought, indeed, Sir Amyas would look for it; and then one of her ladies entering to inquire her majesty's pleasure as to what should be had for dinner, she suddenly broke off the conversation and dismissed Davison, who never saw her face again." *

When

On this same day the arrival of the Earl of Shrewsbury at Fotheringay Castle was announced to Mary, who knew what it meant, as Shrewsbury was Earl Marshal. He was attended by the Earls of Kent, Cumberland, and Derby, by one or two ministers of the gospel, and by Beale, the clerk of the council. Mary rose from her bed, dressed herself, sat down by a small table, with her servants, male and female, arranged on each side of her. Then the door was thrown open and the Earls entered, and Beale proceeded to read the death warrant. Beale had done reading, the queen crossed herself, and with great composure told them, that she was ready for death-that death was most welcome to her, though she had hardly thought that, after keeping her twenty years in a prison, her sister Elizabeth would so dispose of her. She then laid her hand on a book which was by her, and solemnly protested that as for the death of the queen, their sovereign, she had never imagined it, never sought it, never consented to it. The Earl of Kent, who seems to have thought that the value of an oath depended upon the book that was touched, rudely exclaimed, "That is a popish bible, and therefore your oath is of no value." "It is a Catholic testament," replied the queen, "and therefore, my lord, as I believe that to be the true version, my oath is the more to be relied upon." The

Sir Harris Nicolas, Life of William Davison, and the unquestionable documents quoted therein.

Earl of Kent then made a long discourse, advising her to lay aside her superstitious follies and idle trumperies of popery, to embrace the true faith, and to accept in her last agonies the spiritual services of the Dean of Peterborough, a very learned and devout divine, whom her majesty had mercifully appointed to attend upon her. Mary rejected the dean, and asked again for her own chaplain. Here the Earl of Kent told her that her death would be the life of his religion, as her life would have been its death. He refused her the attendance of her chaplain and confessor, as being contrary to the law of God and the law of the land, and dangerous to themselves. After some long and desultory conversation, in which she put the touching question, whether it were possible that her only son could have forgotten his mother, she calmly turned to the Earl Marshal, and asked when she was to suffer.__Greatly agitated, the Earl of Shrewsbury replied, "To-morrow morning at eight." The earls then rose to depart. Before they went, she inquired whether her late secretary Naue were dead or alive. Sir Drew Drury replied, that he was alive in prison. "I protest before God," she exclaimed, putting her hand again on the Catholic testament, "that Naue has brought me to the scaffold to save his own life. But the truth will be known hereafter." Then they all withdrew, leaving the doomed queen alone with her attendants. Presently she bade them dry their tears, and gave orders that supper might be hastened, "for that she had a deal of business on her hands." That night she supped very sparingly, as her manner was, and while she sat at table, she asked one who waited upon her, whether the force of truth was not great, since, notwithstanding the pretence of her conspiring against the queen's life, the Earl of Kent had just told her that she must die for the security of their religion! When supper was over, having called her servants before her to the table, she drank to them all, and they pledged her in return upon their knees, mixing tears with their wine, and imploring her pardon for any offences they might have committed against her. She

forgave them, and asked forgiveness of them, and then delivered some Christian advice as to their future conduct in life. She then distributed the few things she had among them, and retired to her chamber, where she wrote with her own hand two sheets of paper as her last will, and three letters, one to her confessor, one to the King of France, and the other to her cousin the Duke of Guise. This done, she prayed and read alternately till four o'clock in the morning, when she threw herself upon her bed and slept.

At break of day she rose, assembled her little household, read to them her will, distributed all her clothes, except those which she had put on, bade them farewell, and retiring to her oratory threw herself upon her knees before an altar. About eight o'clock the sheriff of the county entered the oratory and told her that the hour was come. She rose, took down the crucifix, and turned to take the last few steps which were between her and the grave. She came forth with an air of pleasantness and majesty, dressed in a gown of black satin, with a veil of lawn fastened to her caul and descending to the ground. Her chaplet was fixed to her girdle, and she kept in her right hand the ivory crucifix which she had taken from the altar. In an ante-chamber she was joined by the noble lords and the two knights who had been her hard keepers, and presently she found standing in her path her house steward Sir Robert Melville, who had been denied access to her for the last three weeks. This old and faithful creature fell upon his knees before her, and with a passion of tears lamented his hard fate which would make him the bearer of such sorrowful news into Scotland. And when he could proceed no further, by reason of his sobs, the queen said to him, "Good Melville, cease to lament, but rather rejoice, for thou shalt now see a final period to Mary Stuart's troubles. The world, my servant, is all but vanity and subject to more sorrow than an ocean of tears can wash away. But, I pray thee, take this message when thou goest, that I die true to my religion, to Scotland, and to France. God forgive them that have thirsted for my blood as the hart longeth for the