. the best mode of invading England, and changing the government. He further stated, that Morgan, a known adherent of the queen of Scots, had written to him from France a letter, stating the design of the Roman catholic princes of Europe to invade England, for the purpose of liberating her; that the expedition would be commanded by the duke of Guise; that nothing was wanted - but money and men; that Charles Paget was sent over to Sussex, where he passed under the name of Mope, to obtain money and raise troops; and that he had concerted the means of carrying this design into effect with the Spanish ambassador. Brought to trial after these confessions had been made by him, and finding himself arraigned under the 25 Edw. III., he retracted them, and declared that they were pure inventions of his own to avoid being again tortured, under the supposition that he saved himself, by having fixed the time so as to bring his case within the exemptions of the 13 Eliz., by which he expected to be tried. Upon the strength of confessions thus extorted, and retracted, the jury found him guilty; but his execution was postponed. The delay appears to have been adopted for an inhuman purpose. He was induced to assert once more the truth of his confession; and having done so, was ordered to be executed at Tyburn, two months after his trial and conviction. On the scaffold he declared again that the confession was a mere fiction, to which he resorted for the purpose of escaping a second application of the rack. The Spanish ambassador being summoned before the privy council, repelled the charge against him with indignation, and was ordered out of the kingdom. Wade, clerk of the council, was sent at the same time to offer explanations to Philip, and returned without being admitted to the presence of the haughty Spaniard. The conviction of Throgmorton, upon confessions obtained from him by deceitful promises and the fear of torture, shows that in England, at this period, life was as insecure as under the most implicit and barbarous despotism of the east or west. The process, indeed, of applying conjointly bodily torture and perfidious hope, was exactly similar to that of the tribunal, which, in England, is a by-word for judicial iniquity. But, whatever his guilt or innocence, the queen of Scots does not appear to have had communication with him, and the intercepted letter must have been fabricated as a pretext for seizing his person and his papers. In 1584, Shrewsbury was relieved from a charge under which, not only his health but, ultimately, his reason broke down; and Mary was transferred to the custody of sir Ralph Sadler. She was removed from Sheffield to Wingfield, under an escort, and in the immediate care of Somer, the secretary of her new gaoler. Somer made a minute report to Elizabeth of his conversation with Mary on the way.' * He evidently had his in structions to draw from her some avowal which could be turned to her prejudice. She appears to have been so closely kept as to be ignorant of the affair of Throgmorton, and spoke of the duke of Guise in such a manner as to show that she knew nothing of any design, real or pretended, of invading England, entertained by him. There is in the reported conversation a characteristic tone of sadness, playfulness, fascination, and finesse. "Do you think," said she, "I would escape from hence if I might?" The secretary answered, that he thought she would, for it was natural to seek liberty. "No, by my troth!" said she, "I would rather die with honour than fly with shame.' "I would be sorry to see the trial," was the secretary's frank reply. She next asked him, whither he thought she would go, if she were at liberty. He replied, he thought she would go to "her own" in Scotland. "It is true," said she, "I would go to Scot.. land, but only to see, and give give good counsel to my son. But unless her majesty (Elizabeth) would give me her countenance and some maintenance in England, I would go into France, and live there among my friends, with the little portion I have there, and never * Sadler's State Papers, ii. 289. trouble myself with government again, or dispose myself to marry any more.' Whether the allusion to marriage was made from a feeling of the miseries which her marriages, including even that with Francis II., had brought upon her, or with the intention to disarm the jealous fears of Elizabeth, is doubtful. * Leicester now originated the association for the personal safety of Elizabeth "against popish conspirators." Those who subscribed it bound themselves to prosecute to death, as far as they were able, all who should attempt any thing against the queen.' The queen of Scots saw in it her death-warrant. By way of proving her innocence of all design against the life of Elizabeth, she requested to be allowed to subscribe it; a vain proceeding on her part, which proved nothing in her favour, and did not tend to mitigate her enemies. "Her majesty," says Walsingham, in a letter to sir Ralph Sadler, "could like well that this association were showed unto the queen, your charge, upon some apt occasion, and that there were some good regard had both unto her countenance and speech after the perusing thereof." It is not easy to determine which was the more revolting, the sovereign who commanded, or the minister who became the vehicle of this base experiment. The queen of Scots, who saw the axe suspended over her head, made new efforts to obtain her freedom from Elizabeth. She sent her secretary, Naue, with terms of submission so implicit, that Elizabeth gave her hopes. But that princess, who knew well how to throw the responsibility of odious measures from herself upon her instruments, excited, underhand, a clamour among her partisans in Scotland, against both the liberty and life of the queen of Scots. The bond in which the associators obliged themselves was immediately converted into an act of parliament, summoned for the purpose. The act provided, that any person by, or for, whom rebellion should be excited, or the queen's life attacked, might be tried by commission *Har. Mis, ii, 5. + Sir R. Sadler's State Papers, ii. 430. under the great seal, and adjudged to capital punishment; and if the queen's life should be taken away, then any person by or for whom such act was committed, should be capitally punished, and the issue of such person cut off from the succession to the crown. It is unnecessary to point out the monstrous hardship of making the queen of Scots, a prisoner in the hands of Elizabeth, responsible for acts done for her, or in her name. The contingent exclusion of her son from the succession was ascribed to Leicester, who had views for himself, or his brother-in-law lord Huntingdon, upon the crown. A new penal statute was passed at the same time against Jesuits and seminary priests. They were subjected to the penalties of high treason if they did not quit the kingdom within forty days; and all who harboured them were declared guilty of felony. William Parry, a Welsh member, denounced the bill in the house of commons as cruel, bloody, desperate, and of pernicious consequence to the English nation. Called upon to give his reasons, he declined doing so, except before the council, and was committed; but, upon explanation to the council, was restored to his seat. This fact, it may be observed in passing, shows how powerless the house of commons must have been when the council governed its proceedings and privileges! Parry was not long restored when Edmund Neville accused him of a plot to assassinate the queen. There is something truly anomalous in the purposes and character of Parry, as they may be collected from his voluntary confession to Walsingham, Hatton, and Lord Hunsdon. He was in the queen's service from 1570 to 1580, when he was condemned to death for attacking and wounding an unarmed man with his drawn sword. The queen pardoned him, and gave him a licence to travel. He went abroad as a spy of Walsingham. His mission was known, and he was shunned by the catholic fugitives of England whom he met on the continent. He, however, reconciled himself to the church of Rome at Paris, proceeded to Milan, justified himself to the in 66 quisition, and went to Venice, where he met father Palmio, a grave and learned Jesuit." By conversing with Palmio about the oppressed state of the English catholics, and perusing the book De Persecutione Anglicana, he conceived the idea of killing the queen of England their persecutor, "if the same might be well warranted in religion and conscience by the pope, or some learned divines." Father Palmio "made it clear" to him that his purpose was well warranted, commended his devotion, and introduced him to cardinal Campeggio, the papal nuncio at Venice. The nuncio made him and his design known to the pope, who gave him a passport to Rome through the secretary, cardinal Como ;—and in short, after three years' wandering in Italy and France, conferring with others, and ruminating with himself on his project of assassinating queen Elizabeth, he returned to England. It may be inferred, from his confession, that all this time he had been corresponding as a spy with Walsingham; and, on his arrival in England, he appears to have scarcely known himself whether he was a spy or a conspirator. The character of a spy obtained him easy access not only to Walsingham but to the queen. It was also most probably for his services in that character that he was placed in the house of commons, and so easily restored to his seat by the privy council, after his attack upon the bill in progress against Jesuits. He had communicated his design to Neville, who entered into it, and both bound themselves in an oath of secrecy and fidelity. Parry at the same time represented this very Neville to the minister as a dangerous malecontent, upon whom a watchful eye should be kept; and, to guard the queen against his own purposes, he never went into her presence without having laid aside his dagger. After he had been some time in England, cardinal Como wrote him a letter from Rome" commending and allowing" his design, absolving him in the pope's name of all his sins, and" willing him to go forward in the name of God." It reached him, he says, in March, 1583, |