queen Elizabeth; but it is extremely doubtful whether she had that identical participation for which she was condemned. * There are few judiciary proceedings, passing over the question of jurisdiction, so suspicious, and, it may be said, so tainted, as the case and proceedings against the queen of Scots. The evidence having been gone through, she requested an adjournment, with the aid of counsel. It was refused. She next repeated her request, to be allowed to defend herself in full parliament, and was again refused. Her third request, of a personal interview with the queen, was equally vain, and would, no doubt, have proved fruitless, had it been acceded to. She rose with perfect composure, conversed apart with Burleigh, Hatton, Walsingham, and Warwick, and retired. The court adjourned to the 25th of October, at the Star-chamber in Westminster. 66 On that day the commissioners accordingly re-assembled, with the exception of Warwick and Shrewsbury, and pronounced sentence of death against the queen of Scots, as accessory to Babington's plot, and as having compassed divers matters tending to the hurt, death, and destruction of the person of queen Elizabeth, contrary to the statute in the commission specified." The commissioners and judges at the same time published *See letters to Mary, Queen of Scots, from Charles Paget and Thomas Morgan, in Murdin's State Papers. Morgan, in a letter to her dated July 4th, says, "There is one Ballard, a priest of much travel in that country, and well disposed to your service, which he is like to offer your majesty; for the which, if he do so, you may thank him with few lines. Yet I must tell your majesty, for the discharge of my own duty and service to your majesty, that the said Ballard followeth some matters of consequence there, the issue of which is uncertain. Wherefore, as long as these labours of his and matters be in hand, it is not for your majesty's service to hold any intelligence with him at all, for fear lest he or his partners be discovered, and they, by pains or other accidents, discover your majesty afterwards to have had intelligence with them; and I have specially warned the said Ballard not to deal at any hand with your majesty as long as he followeth the affairs that he and others have in hand." -Murdin State Papers, 527. This passage proves that Mary was aware of the design against Elizabeth; but, at the same time, goes strongly to negative the case brought forward against her by Walsingham and Cecil. Is it credible that, with this systematic design of the conspirators to hold no communication with Mary which might compromise her, Babington should yet write her gratuitously (for she could not co-operate) a minute account of the conspiracy, which proved so convenient to her accusers and enemies? a declaration, that the sentence did not derogate from James, king of Scots, in his title and honour, and he was in the same place, degree, and right as if the said sentence had never been pronounced.* Mary had a presentiment of her fate before the sentence was yet proclaimed. Paulet writes to Walsingham, that in a conversation with him, after asking the names of several commissioners, whom she distinguished by the places in which they had sat during the trial, she remarked casually, that "history made mention how the realm of England was used to shed royal blood,” and then dropped the conversation. † Elizabeth had now her prey completely in her talons. She endeavoured to mask her purpose by a show of reluctance and regret; but her dissimulation sometimes gave way to the fierceness of her instinct. Her ministers entreated her for the sake of religion, the state, and her precious life, to sign the warrant. She put them off with expressions of hesitation and regret. Both houses of parliament, summoned extraordinarily, made the same prayer. The house of commons, through their speaker supported it with examples from the Bible, of rulers who had incurred God's vengeance by sparing the lives of their enemies. These very men had been loud in their execrations of the popish impiety and cruelty which had made religion a motive for the massacre of St. Bartholomew: yet they themselves would now steep the Scriptures in blood! Elizabeth replied in a tone of hypocrisy, as detestable as the ferocity of her petitioners, that she had an extreme repugnance to take the life of the criminal; and that she wished the two houses could discover some other mode of disposing of her, consistent with the safety of religion and the state, - and threw out to them, at the same time, the deadly suggestion that she had discovered another plot to assassinate her within a month. The two houses, re-considered their petition, could find no other mode than death, repeated their prayer for blood, * Camd. An. + Ibid. and MSS. State Paper Office. and were again put off with an answer which may be called oracular for its ambiguity and imposture. "If," said she, "I should say I will not comply with your prayer, I might say more than I mean; and if I should say I will do it, I might plunge myself into dangers as great as those from which you would protect me.' In compliance with their request, however, she published the sentence by proclamation. The inhabitants of London illuminated their houses for joy, and the church bells rang merry peals for twenty-four hours!* She re Lord Buckhurst and Beale, clerk of the council, were sent to notify her fate to the queen of Scots. ceived the message with not merely firmness but cheerfulness, because she said her troubles were about to end. Sir Amias Paulet divested her of every ensign of royalty, and stripped her chair of its canopy of state. This too she bore with tranquillity. She made a last and vain, but not weak, appeal to Elizabeth. In a letter dated the 19th of December, she assures her who, after depriving her during nineteen years of liberty, was about to deprive her of life, "that she cherished no resentment towards her; that she did not deprecate death; that she asked only to be put to death, not in private, but publicly before her servants and other wit nesses; that her remains might be conveyed for interment to France; that her faithful attendants who had shared her fate should be permitted to enjoy her bequests to them, and proceed in safety whither they pleased." Elizabeth returned no answer; but it is doubtful whether the letter reached her. The king of France, meantime, had sent over Bellièvre as special envoy to intercede with Elizabeth for Mary's life. It has been stated that the envoy had secret instructions from Henry, out of hatred to her relatives the Guises, to solicit, not her life, but her death. The vain display of pedant erudition and historic example which he employed in his address to Elizabeth would bring Advis et mémoire de ce qui à été fait, par M. de Bellièvre, &c. See Appendix N. his good faith into question, if it were not the style of the age. But he appears to have exerted himself with fidelity and zeal, and gives a striking description of the artifices employed by Elizabeth to elude his application. "She deferred," the writer of the report of his mission says, "with infinite malice, giving him audience for several days, under the pretence that some of his suite had died on the way of the plague, and that some unknown persons came over with him to kill her. On the 7th of December she sent for him to Richmond, and received him seated on her throne, surrounded by the chief nobles of the kingdom. He remonstrated in detail against the right of Elizabeth over the life of Mary, and urged reasons of expediency to spare her life. The queen replied in good French, point by point, with signs of strong emotion in her countenance, and said that the queen of Scots had three times conspired against her life. Bellièvre said that Henry III. pledged his word, and the duke of Guise would give his sons as hostages to Elizabeth, for the future conduct of the queen of Scots, if her life were spared.† Elizabeth replied in a word, that such guarantees would little avail her when she was dead. The ambassador returned to London, waited several days for an answer, and, receiving none, intimated to Elizabeth that, as she had proclaimed the sentence, he had no object in waiting, and wished for his passport. Not receiving his passport, he wrote again. The queen, under pretence of indisposition, would not be seen; and he caused his letter to be placed in the hands of Walsingham, who undertook to send an answer next day. A verbal answer came, granting a delay of twelve days. Bellièvre sent immediately to his master, received an answer two days beyond the time, and was summoned by Elizabeth to her presence at Greenwich, on the 6th of January, 1587. She heard him with temper till near the close *See Carte, Gen. Hist. book xix. Thuan. Hist. lib. lxxxvi., and App. N. + Thuan. Hist. lib. lxxxvi. + "Uno verbo respondit hujusmodi cautiones ac fide-jussiones sibi mortuæ nihil profuturas."- Thuan. ubi supra. of his instructions, when she expressed herself in terms "almost of indignity." "'* Having gained nothing, he prepared to depart in two days; was requested to remain two or three days more; and on the 14th of January received his passport. The worthless son of the unhappy queen of Scots interfered with Elizabeth through his ambassador Keith, received from her a rebuke under which he quailed, and sent two special envoys, Melville, and the master of Gray; the latter of whom proved a traitor to his trust. After some negotiation, Melville, in an audience of Elizabeth, entreated for some delay of the execution. She replied in a fury, as she turned her back upon him, "No not an hour!" This answer shows that she was never visited really by one touch of hesitation or humanity. Elizabeth, as the time approached for executing the sentence, affected, and only affected, to feel a conflict of passions within her bosom. She mused and raved, and muttered to herself, Aut fer aut feri: ne feriare feri; and only indulged her imagination in the display of mimic agonies. Her ministers reiterated their cry for blood, and she pleaded her humanity; but then she added that she must, with whatever pain, consult the safety of religion, the state, and the people. Rumours were spread that London was set on fire by the papists, that the duke of Guise was landed, that the queen of Scots had escaped, that queen Elizabeth was assassinated, - all contrived to wake the prejudices, the fears, and therefore the ferocity, of the populace against the unhappy prisoner. It appears, however, that Elizabeth really wished to be relieved from killing her victim by her sign manual and warrant ; - but she sought relief in the alternative of secret assassination. She caused the two secretaries, Walsingham and Davison, to write to Paulet and Drury, to sound them on the subject of privately despatching their prisoner. The two gaolers, from integrity or See Appendix N. † See Extracts fom Davison's Apology, next page. |