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 éxecution. 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.

prudence, rejected the suggestion; upon which Elizabeth reproached them and others who had taken the association oath with perjury. "They had,” she said, 66 promised great matters for their prince's safety, but would perform nothing; but," she continued, "there are others who will do it for my sake."

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Meantime she had ordered Davison to bring her the warrant, and signed it with a jest on Walsingham's hatred of the queen of Scots. Go," said she, "tell all this to Walsingham, who is now sick; though I fear he will die for sorrow when he hears it." But it will be better to cite at once the brief and authoritative account of this black transaction given in his " Apology" by Davison.*

"The queen," says he," after the departure of the French and Scottish ambassadors, of her own motion commanded me to deliver her the warrant for executing the queen of Scots. When I had delivered it, she signed it readily with her own hand: when she had so done, she commanded it to be sealed with the great seal of England, and, in a jesting manner, said, "Go, tell all this to Walsingham, who is now sick; although I fear he will die for sorrow when he hears it." She added also the reasons of deferring it so long, namely, lest she might seem to have been violently or maliciously drawn thereto; whereas, in the mean time, she was not ignorant how necessary it was. Moreover, she blamed Paulet and Drury, that they had not eased her of this care; and wished that Walsingham would feel their pulses touching this matter. The next day, after it was under the great seal, she commanded me, by Killigrew, that it should not be done; and when I informed her that it was done already, she found fault with such great haste, telling me, that in the judgment of some wise men, another course might be taken. I answered, that that course was always best and safest which was most just. But fearing lest she

Lord Somers's Tracts, i. 224. State Trials, vol. i. Proceedings against W. Davison.

would lay the fault upon me, (as she had laid the putting of the duke of Norfolk to death upon the lord Burleigh,) I acquainted Hatton with the whole matter, protesting that I would not plunge myself any deeper in so great a business. He presently imparted

it to lord Burleigh, and the lord Burleigh to the rest of the council, who all consented to have the execution hastened; and every one of them vowed to bear an equal share in the blame, and sent Beale away with the warrant and letters. The third day after, when, by a dream which she told of the queen of Scots' death, I perceived that she wavered in her resolution, I asked her, whether she had changed her mind? She answered, 'No, but another course,' said she, 'might have been devised;' and withal asked me whether I had received any answer from Paulet? whose letter when I had showed her, wherein he flatly refused to undertake that which stood not with honour and justice, she, waxing angry, accused him and others (who had bound themselves by the association) of perjury, and breach of their vow, as those that had promised great matters for their prince's safety, but would perform nothing. Yet there are,' said she, who will do it for my sake.' But I showed her how dishonourable and unjust a thing this would be; and withal, into how great danger she would bring Paulet and Drury by it. For if she approved the fact, she would draw upon herself both danger and dishonour, not without censure of injustice ; and if she disallowed it, she would utterly undo men of great desert, and their whole posterity. And afterwards she gave me a light check, the same day that the queen of Scots was executed, because she was not yet put to death."

6

The death-warrant meanwhile was on its way to Fotheringay castle. The earls of Shrewsbury, Kent, Cumberland, and Derby, and the clerk of the council Beale, arrived on the 7th, in the evening, to witness the

*For further particulars of Elizabeth's tampering with Paulet and Drury, see State Trials, vol. i. Arraignment of W. Davison, note, p. 1139. et seq.

On their

execution of the queen of Scots next day. arrival, they informed her that she must prepare to die. She heard the warning without emotion, laid her hand upon a New Testament on her table, and solemnly protested that she had not devised or excited to the death of Elizabeth.* Her only request to them was that she should be allowed the attendance of her confessor. They refused her this sacred consolation and support of humanity in the last hour, with the mockery of a proposal that Fletcher, dean of Peterborough, a pious and learned divine," should convert her to the true faith. She declined his services; upon which the earl of Kent had the brutality to say to her, "Your death will be the life of our religion, as your life would be its death."

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Upon their departure, she supped in her usual manner sparingly, bade her weeping servants rather rejoice than mourn that her sorrows were about to end, exchanged forgiveness with them, applied herself to writing letters and her will, went to bed at her usual time, slept some hours, and spent the remainder of the night in prayer. Anticipating that she might be denied the rites of her religion, she was provided with the sacrament consecrated by Pius V., and ministered it to herself. +

She rose early on the fatal morning of the 8th; dressed herself with care, as for a festival; distributed her bequests among her servants; and remained at prayer in her oratory or chapel until eight o'clock. At that hour the sheriff summoned her to the scaffold. She answered that she was ready; and attended him with a serene countenance, leaning on two of her guards, not from weakness of soul, but from having lost in her long captivity the use of her limbs. Her steward, sir Andrew Melville, meeting her on her way, fell on his knees, wrung his hands, and cried aloud, "Ah! madam,

*This protestation negatives, the accusation and evidence upon which she was tried and condemned; but it is consistent with the vague knowledge which it has been shown she possessed of the design against Elizabeth's life. See note, p. 317.

This singular incident has been introduced by Schiller on the stage, in his tragedy of Mary Queen of Scots.