to the lords and commissioners, appointed to that duty. These were then delivered to Beale, with earnest request for him to use the utmost diligence in expediting the same.

Elizabeth, meantime, unconscious of the proceedings of her ministers, was still brooding vainly over the idea of a private murder. "The next morning," pursues Davison, "her majesty being in some speech with Burleigh, in the private chamber, seeing me come in, called me to her, and, as if she had understood nothing of these proceedings, smiling, told me she had been troubled that night upon a dream she had, that the Scottish queen was executed,' pretending to have been so greatly moved with the news against me, as in that passion she would have done I wot not what. But this being in a pleasant and smiling manner, I answered her majesty, 'that it was good for me I was not near her, so long as that humour lasted.' But withal, taking hold of her speech, asked her, in great earnest, what it meant? and whether, having proceeded thus far, she had not a full and resolute meaning to go through with the said execution, according to the warrant? Her answer was, 'Yes,' confirmed with a solemn oath, only that she thought that it might have received a better form, because this threw all the responsibility upon her herself." I replied, that the form prescribed by the warrant was such as the law required, and could not well be altered, with any honesty, justice, or surety to those who were commissioners therein; neither did I know who could sustain this burthen, if she took it not upon her, being sovereign magistrate, to whom the sword was committed, of God, for the punishment of the wicked, and defence of the good, and without whose authority, the life or member of the poorest wretch in her kingdom could not be touched.'

“She answered, 'that there were wiser men than myself in the kingdom, of other opinion.' I told her, 'I could not answer for other men, yet, this I was sure of, that I had never yet heard any man give a sound reason to prove it either honourable or safe for her majesty to take any other course than that which standeth with law and justice;' and so, without further replication or speech, we parted.

"The same afternoon, (as I take it,) she asked me, 'Whether I had heard from sir Amias Paulet? I told her, 'No;' but within an hour after, going to London, I met with letters from him, in answer to those that were written unto him, some days before, upon her commandment."

This portion of the narrative would be incomplete without the insertion of these memorable letters :

SIR AMIAS PAULET TO SECRETARY WALSINGHAM.

"Sir,-Your letters of yesterday coming to my hands this present day, at five post meridian, I would not fail, according to your direction, to return my answer, with all possible speed, which I shall deliver to you with great grief and bitterness of mind, in that I am so unhappy as living to see this unhappy day, in which I am required, by direction from my most gracious sovereign, to do ar act which God and the law forbiddeth.

“My goods and my life are at her majesty's disposition (disposal), and I am. ready to lose them the next morrow if it shall please her, acknowledging that 1 do hold them as of her mere and most gracious favour, and do not desire to

enjoy them, but with her highness's good liking. But God forbid I should make so foul a shipwreck of my conscience, or leave so great a blot to my poor posterity, as to shed blood without law or warrant.

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Trusting that her majesty, of her accustomed clemency, and the rather by your good mediation, will take this my answer in good part, as proceeding from one who never will be inferior to any Christian subject living, in honour, love, and obedience towards his sovereign, and thus I commit you to the mercy of the Almighty. Your most assured poor friend, "A. POWLET (PAULET.)

"From Fotheringaye, the 2d of February, 1586–7.

"P. S.-Your letters coming in the plural number, seem to be meant to sir Drue Drury as to myself, and yet because he is not named in them, neither the letter directed unto him, he forbeareth to make any particular answer, but subscribeth in heart to my opinion. D. DRURY."

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The next morning, Davison communicated these letters to his royal mistress, which having read, "her majesty," pursues Davison, "falling into terms of offence, complaining of the daintiness, and (as she called it) perjury of him and others, who, contrary to their oath of association, did cast the burden upon herself,' she rose up, and, after a turn or two, went into the gallery, whither I followed her; and there renewing her former speech, blaming the niceness of those precise fellows, (as she termed them,) who, in words, would do great things for her surety, but, indeed, perform nothing,' concluded by saying, that she could have it well enough done without them.' And here, entering into particularities, named unto me, as I remember, 'one Wingfield, who,' she assured me, 'would, with some others, undertake it,' which gave me occasion to show unto her majesty how dishonourable, in my poor opinion, any such course would be, and how far she would be from shunning the blame and stain thereof, she so much sought to avoid; and so falling into the particular case of sir Amias Paulet and sir Drue Drury, discoursed unto her the great extremity she would have exposed those poor gentlemen to; for if, in a tender care of her surety, they should have done what she desired, she must either allow their act or disallow it. If she allowed it, she took the matter upon herself, with her infinite peril and dishonour; if she disallowed it, she should not only overthrow the gentlemen themselves, who had always truly and faithfully served and honoured her, but also their estates and posterities; besides the dishonour and injustice of such a course, which I humbly besought her majesty to consider of,' and so, after some little digression and speech about Mr. Secretary and others, touching some things passed heretofore, her majesty, calling to understand whether it were time to go to her closet, brake off our discourse.

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"At my next access to her majesty, which, I take, was Tuesday, the day before my coming from court, I having certain things to be signed, her majesty entered of herself into some earnest discourse of the danger she daily lived in, and how it was more than time this matter were despatched, swearing a great oath, that it was a shame for them all that it was not done;' and thereupon spake unto me, 'to have a letter written to Mr. Paulet, for the despatch thereof, because the longer it was deferred, the more her danger increased;' whereunto, knowing what order had

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been taken by my lords in sending the commission to the earls, I answered, that I thought there was no necessity for such a letter, the warrant being so general and sufficient as it was.' Her majesty replied little else, but that she thought Mr. Paulet would look for it.'"1

The entrance of one of her ladies, to hear her majesty's pleasure about dinner, broke off this conference, which took place on the very day of Mary's execution at Fotheringaye. It is a remarkable fact, withal, in the strangely linked history of these rival queens, that at the very time Elizabeth thundered out her unfeminine execration against those who were (as she erroneously imagined) delaying the death of her hapless kinswoman, Mary was meekly imploring her Heavenly Father" to forgive all those who thirsted for her blood;" and lest this petition should be considered too general, she included the name of queen Elizabeth in her dying prayer for her own son; not in the scornful spirit of the pharisee, but according to the divine precept of Him who has said, "Bless them that curse you, and pray for those that persecute you, and despitefully, use you." What can be said, in illustration of the disposition of these two queens, more striking than the simple record of this circumstance; which, remarkable as it is, appears to have escaped the attention of their biographers.

It may appear singular, that Davison did not endeavour to calm the ireful impatience of his sovereign, by apprising her that the deed was done; but Davison, being accustomed to her majesty's stormy temper, and characteristic dissimulation, suspected that she was as perfectly aware as himself of the bloody work that had been performed in the hall of Fotheringaye castle that morning. He knew not how to believe that the queen could be ignorant that the warrant had been sent down for that purpose," considering," as he says, "who the counsellors were by whom it was despatched." One circumstance affords presumptive evidence of Elizabeth's unconsciousness of this fact, which is, that when the news of Mary's execution was brought down to Greenwich early on the morning of the 9th of February by Henry Talbot, not one of her council would venture to declare it to her; and it was actually concealed from her the whole of that day, which she passed as if nothing remarkable had happened.

In the morning, she went out on horseback with her train, and after her return, she had a long interview with Don Antonio, the claimant of the crown of Portugal, whose title she supported for the annoyance of her great political foe, Philip II. of Spain. The whole day was, in fact, suffered to pass away without one syllable of this important event being communicated to her majesty by her ministers. "In the evening," says Davison, "she learned the news by other means." This was the general ringing of the bells, and the blaze of bonfires that were universally kindled in London and its vicinity, as the tidings spread, and the majority of the people appeared intoxicated with joy at what had taken place. Those who inwardly mourned were compelled, by a prudential regard 'See Davison's Apology, addressed to Walsingham, in Sir Harris Nicolas' Life of Davison, in which work the fullest particulars of that transaction are given. Davison's Report. See Appendix to Sir H. Nicolas' Life of Davison.

for their own safety, to illuminate their houses, and kindle bonfires like the rest.

The queen is said to have inquired the reason "why the bells rang out so merrily?" and was answered, "Because of the execution of the Scottish queen." Elizabeth received the news in silence.' "Her majesty would not, at the first, seem to take any notice of it," says Davison, "but in the morning, falling into some heat and passion, she sent for Mr. Vice-chamberlain, (Hatton), to whom she disavowed the said execution, as a thing she never commanded nor intended, casting the burden generally on them all, but chiefly on my shoulders."

Camden tells us, "that as soon as the report of the death of the queen of Scots was brought to queen Elizabeth, she heard it with great indignation: her countenance altered; her speech faltered and failed her; and, through excessive sorrow, she stood in a manner astonished, insomuch that she gave herself over to passionate grief, putting herself into a mourning habit, and shedding abundance of tears. Her council she sharply rebuked, and commanded them out of her sight." Historians have, generally speaking, attributed Elizabeth's tears and lamentations, and the reproaches with which she overwhelmed her ministers on this occasion, to that profound hypocrisy which formed so prominent a feature in her character; but they may, with more truth, perhaps be attributed to the agonies of awakened conscience:

"The juggling fiend, who never spake before,

But cried, 'I warned thee!' when the deed was o'er."

No sooner, indeed, was she assured that the crime which she had so long premeditated was actually perpetrated, than the horror of the act appears to have become apparent to herself, and she shrank from the idea of the personal odium she was likely to incur from the commission of so barbarous, so needless an outrage. If it had been a deed which could have been justified on the strong grounds of state necessity, "why," as sir Harris Nicolas has well observed, "should the queen have been so desirous of disavowing it?" Her conduct on this occasion resembles the mental cowardice of a guilty child, who, self-convicted and terrified at the prospect of disgrace and punishment, strives to shift the burden of his own fault on all who have been privy to the mischief, because they have not prevented him from the perpetration of the sin; yet Elizabeth's angry reproaches to her ministers were not undeserved on their parts, for deeply and subtilely had they played the tempters with their royal mistress, with regard to the unfortunate heiress of the crown. How systematically they alarmed her with the details of conspiracies against her life, and irritated her jealous temperament, by the repetition of every bitter sarcasm which had been elicited from her ill-treated rival, has been fully shown.

Looking at the case in all its bearings, there is good reason to suppose that the anger which Elizabeth manifested, not only against her cautious dupe Davison, but Burleigh and his colleagues, was genuine. Davison clearly shows that they agreed to act upon their own respon

'Bishop Goodman's Court of James I.

*

sibility, in despatching the warrant for Mary's execution, under the plausible pretext, that they thought it would be most agreeable to their royal mistress for them to take that course; they were also actuated by two very opposite fears-one was, that Elizabeth would disgrace both herself and them, by having Mary privily despatched in her prison; or, on the other hand, postpone the execution of the warrant from day to day, and possibly die herself in the interim-a contingency above all others to be prevented.

Elizabeth, therefore, if really ignorant of the resolution they had taken, was of course infuriated at their presuming to exercise the power of the crown, independently of her commands. The act would be of secondary importance in the eye of a sovereign of her jealous temperament; but the principle they had established was alarming and offensive to the last degree. Ten men, calling themselves her servants, had constituted themselves a legislative body, imperio in imperio, to act by mutual consent, in one instance, independently of the authority of the sovereign; and had taken upon themselves to cause the head of an anointed queen to be stricken off by the common executioner. A dangerous precedent against royalty, which in process of time, encouraged a more numerous band of confederates to take away the life of their own sovereign, Charles I., in a manner equally illegal, and opposed to the spirit of the English constitution.

Personal hatred to Mary Stuart had not blinded Elizabeth to the possibility of the same principle being exercised against herself, on some future occasion; and, as far as she could, she testified her resentment against the whole junta, for the lese majestæ of which they had been guilty, and, at the same time, endeavoured to escape the odium which the murder of her royal kinswoman was likely to bring on her, by flinging the whole burden of the crime on them.

Mr. Secretary Woolley writes the following brief particulars, to Leicester, of her majesty's deportment to such of her ministers as ventured to meet the first explosion of her wrath: "It pleased her majesty yesterday to call the lords and others of her council before her, into her withdrawing chamber, where she rebuked us all exceedingly, for our concealing from her our proceeding in the queen of Scots' case; but her indignation lighteth most on my lord-treasurer (Burleigh), and Mr. Davison, who called us together, and delivered the commission. For she protesteth, she gave express commandment to the contrary,' and therefore hath took order for the committing Mr. Secretary Davison to the Tower, if she continue this morning, in the mind she was yesternight, albeit, we all kneeled upon our knees to pray to the contrary. I think your lordship happy to be absent from these broils, and thought it my duty to let you understand them.” '

Woolley's letter is dated, "this present Sunday," by which we understand that the memorable interview between Elizabeth and her council did not take place, as generally asserted, immediately after she learned the tidings of Mary's execution on the Thursday evening, but on the

1 Wright's Elizabeth and her Times, vol. ii., p. 332. VOL. VII.— 6