Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

66

66

was ever man the bearer of such heavy tidings as I must bear to my native country, that I saw my gracious queen and mistress beheaded in England!"-" Rather rejoice," said she, my faithful servant, that the troubles of Mary Stewart are about to end." She made a request that her servants might be permitted to attend her in her last hour, and had some difficulty in obtaining it. They will disturb by their cries," said the earl of Kent. "My lord, I give my word, though it be but dead," said she, "that they will not so offend; but, poor souls! it will be a consolation to them to bid their mistress a last farewell." Having arrived at a second hall in the castle, she beheld the scaffold, the executioner, the axe, the block, her chair, and beheld them undismayed. The warrant having been read, she employed herself in prayer. The dean of Peterborough went up to her, and, under colour of pious. exhortation, assailed her in a strain of savage bigotry, or, with motives still more vile, made his calling a pretence for ministering to the passions of the murderess-queen. He told her, " that the queen of England had on this occasion shown a tender care of her; and, notwithstanding the punishment justly to be inflicted on her for her manifold trespasses, was determined to use every expedient for saving her soul from that destruction with which it was so nearly threatened : that she was now standing upon the brink of eternity, and had no other means of escaping endless perdition, than by repenting her former wickedness, by justifying the sentence pronounced against her, by acknowledging the queen's favours, and by exerting a true and lively faith in Christ Jesus: that the Scriptures were the only rule of doctrine, the merits of Christ the only means of salvation; and if she trusted in the inventions or devices of men, she must expect in an instant to fall into utter darkness, into a place where shall be weeping, howling, and gnashing of teeth: that the hand of death was upon her, the axe was laid to the root of the tree, the throne of the great Judge of heaven

was erected, the book of her life was spread wide, and the particular sentence and judgment was ready to be pronounced upon her: and that it was now, during this important moment, in her choice, either to rise to the resurrection of life, and hear that joyful salutation, 66 Come, ye blessed of my Father;" or to share the resurrection of condemnation, replete with sorrow and anguish; and to suffer that dreadful denunciation, “Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire."*

She interrupted and entreated him several times, declaring that she was born and would die in the ancient faith; but he persisted, bade her repent of her past wickedness, and would have continued to vent upon her the rancour of his bile and bigotry, if the earl of Kent, rude as he was, and his colleague the earl of Shrewsbury, had not induced him to desist. The earl of Kent observing that she prayed with a crucifix in her arms, bade her throw away "such popish trumpery, and have Christ in her heart, not in her hands ;" she replied," it was difficult to hold that image in her hands without being touched with compunction in her heart." She wore a veil which hung to the ground. Her two women began to prepare her for the block, and the executioners thought it their business to interfere. She said, with a smile, "she was not accustomed to go through her toilet before so large a company, and not used to be served by such valets." All now was ready her servants burst into tears; she put her finger on her lip in token of silence, gave them her blessing, asked their prayers, had a handkerchief placed over her eyes, laid her head upon the block without trepidation, and that head, once the most admired and beautiful in the world, was severed from her shoulders at two blows. The executioner held it up, still convulsed and streaming. One voice cried, "So perish all queen Elizabeth's enemies!" It was the voice, not of the executioner, but of the dean of Peterborough. None but the earl of Kent gave the response of "Amen!" All

MS. cited by Hume.

others wept or sobbed in speechless distress. Thus died Mary queen of Scots, in the nineteenth year of her captivity, and forty-fifth of her age, having redeemed by the wrongs and sufferings of her life, and the heroism of her death, her frailties, and, if she committed it, her single crime. Supposing that she abandoned herself to Bothwell, and shared or connived at the death of Darnley, she had all the palliation, whatever it be, which can be derived from finding herself bound to a man who merited her utmost contempt and hatred. She had the virtues and weaknesses of an impassioned temperament, but no inveterate vice, no instinctive malignity or meanness. Every accomplishment and grace of mind was combined in her, with a form of the most exquisite feminine beauty. In more auspicious circumstances she would have adorned nature and her age. It was her misfortune to be cast among the fierce elements of social barbarism, and the still more savage furies of religious fanaticism. She might yet have escaped crime and misery, if her superiorities had not provoked the envious hatred of a rival, cruel, and more powerful queen.

Upon the right assumed by Elizabeth over her liberty and life there is now but one opinion. She sought protection of Elizabeth voluntarily, or because she had no other resource. In either case, the right asserted by Elizabeth over her was but that of superior power. If she came because she had no other asylum to fly to, her claims and her person were but the more sacred. Like one escaping from shipwreck, she sought safety on the first shore that presented itself. But persons

thrown by the chance or necessity of the elements even upon a shore where their lives are proscribed, are held absolved from the operation of the proscribing law. "Ils sont naufrages, donc incondamnables," is an enthymem of the law of nature, admitted even by the French revolutionists amid the fury of their proscriptions.*

"*"Plaidoyer de Prugnon pour les naufrages de Calais."- Barreau François.

It will be objected that the queen of Scots, by participating in a conspiracy against the life of Elizabeth, forfeited to Elizabeth her own life, on the principle of retributive justice. Had the queen of Scots been at large in England, sharing with the English community the protection of the laws and confidence of the state, her conspiring against the sovereign would be a feasible, yet not a conclusive case against her. But Elizabeth, by arbitrarily taking from her the freedom, took from her also the reciprocal responsibility of her actions; and Elizabeth's right thus acquired over her prisoner, was but the right of the bandit and the pirate over a conspiring captive.

The great operating cause of the execution of the queen of Scots, in the mind of Elizabeth's council, was, doubtless, the security of the established religion, and protestant succession to the throne; grand objects, certainly, and demanding every sacrifice, except that which is most abhorrent to religion, and yet which has been too commonly offered up at its shrine, the sacrifice of human blood.

Elizabeth, upon learning the execution of the queen of Scots, for which she was so well and eagerly prepared, burlesqued surprise and grief with outrageous hypocrisy, clothed herself and her court in mourning, spent her time in solitude and tears, declared that the warrant was sent off without her knowledge, protested that she never intended the death of her dear kinswoman, banished Cecil from her presence, ruined her dupe Davison by imprisonment and a fine of 10,000l., wrote a letter of pretended sorrow and perfidious condolence to the son of her victim, succeeded in imposing silence and submission upon his craven and unfilial heart, but neither deceived nor silenced the opinion of the world.

It is a relief to turn to the brighter side of Elizabeth's reign and character in her foreign policy. The treachery of the duke of Anjou plunged the Low Countries into extreme confusion and distress. He consented after some time to restore the places which he had suc

ceeded in surprising; but those towns, when the French withdrew, became an easy prey to the prince of Parma. The necessity of foreign protection, and of a chief under whom parties would co-operate, must have been great indeed, when the prince of Orange advised a reconciliation between the states and Anjou. There was, he said, no alternative between risking the government again in the hands of the duke of Anjou, and returning under the yoke of Spain.* It required implicit confidence in the intelligence and integrity of that great patriot, to commit the fortunes of the people to the hands of one who had so flagrantly betrayed his trust; and this confidence his country reposed in the prince of Orange. The death of Anjou put an end to the arrangement when the terms were nearly concluded, and turned the eyes of the states to him whose moderation alone had prevented his having been long since constituted chief of the republic.

The prince of Orange was about to be installed first magistrate of his country, when the vengeance of Philip reached him by the hand of an assassin. It was, perhaps, scarcely possible for him to escape assassination, after he had been marked out for it by one who commanded assassins by the double action of fanaticism and the love of gold. He had been severely wounded in the castle of Antwerp, on the 18th of March, 1582, by a miscreant named Jaurigni, acting under the influence of bigotry and the desire of gain. On the morning of the 10th of July, 1584, five assassins of different nations, a Frenchman, a German, an Englishman, a Scotchman, a Burgundian, without concert, each supposing himself the sole depositary of their common purpose, watched for his life; and if he had not excluded Spaniards and Italians from access to his person, there would have been on the lists at least two more. This statement is averred by the Jesuit Strada†, an incontrovertible authority on the subject. The Burgundian, named Balthazar Gerard, snatched the prize of murder and mar

*Grot. An. lib. iv.

+ Strad. de Bell. Belg. dec. ii. lib. v.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »