EXECUTION OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. (Goldsmith's History of England.) A.D. 1587. THE Council of England was divided in opinion about the measures to be taken against the Queen of Scots. Some members proposed that, as her health was very infirm, her life might be shortened by close confinement; and the Earl of Leicester advised that she should be despatched by poison; but the majority insisted on her being put to death by legal process. Accordingly a commission was issued for forty-one peers, with five judges, or the major part of them, to try and pass sentence upon Mary, daughter and heir of James the Fifth, King of Scotland, commonly called Queen of Scots, and Dowager of France. Thirty-six of these commissioners, arriving at the castle of Fotheringay, presented her with a letter from Elizabeth, commanding her to submit to a trial for her late conspiracy. Mary perused the letter with great composure, and, as she had long foreseen the danger that hung over her, received the intelligence without emotion or astonishment. M She | said, however, that she wondered the Queen of England should command her as a subject, who was an independent sovereign, and a queen like herself. She would never, she said, stoop to any condescension which would lessen her dignity, or prejudice the claims of her posterity. The laws of England, she observed, were unknown to her; she was destitute of counsel; nor could she conceive who were to be her peers, as she had but one equal in the kingdom. She added, that, instead of enjoying the protection of the laws of England, which she had hoped to obtain, she had been confined in prison ever since her arrival in the kingdom, so that she derived neither benefit nor security from them. When the commissioners pressed her to submit to the queen's pleasure, otherwise they would proceed against her as contumacious, she declared that she would rather suffer a thousand deaths than own herself a subject to any prince on earth: that, however, she was ready to vindi cate herself in a full and free par- | and Savage, to whom Babington liament; as, for aught she knew, this meeting of commissioners was devised against her life on purpose to take it away with a pretext of justice. She exhorted them to consult their own consciences, and to remember that the theatre of the world was much more extensive than that of the kingdom of England. At length the ViceChamberlain Hatton vanquished her objections, by representing that she injured her reputation by avoiding a trial, in which her innocence might be proved to the satisfaction of all mankind. This observation made such an impression upon her, that she agreed to plead, if they would admit and allow her protest, of disallowing all subjection. This, however, they refused, but they satisfied her by entering it upon record; and thus they proceeded to a trial. The principal charge against her was urged by Sergeant Gaudy, who accused her of knowing, approving, and consenting to Babington's conspiracy. This charge was supported by Babington's confession, by the copies which were taken of their correspondence, in which her approbation of the queen's murder was expressly declared; by the evidence of her own secretaries, Nan, a Frenchman, and Curll, a Scotchman, who swore that she received the letters of that conspirator, and that they had answered them by her orders. These allegations were corroborated by the testimony of Ballard had shown some letters, declaring them to have come from the captive queen. To these charges Mary made a sensible and resolute defence; she said Babington's confession was extorted by his fears of the torture, which was really the case: she alleged that the letters were forgeries, and she defied her secretaries to persist in their evidence, if brought into her presence. She owned, indeed, that she had used her best endeavours to recover her liberty, which was only pursuing the dictates of nature; but as for harbouring a thought against the life of the queen, she treated the idea with horror. In a letter which was read during the trial, mention was made of the Earl of Arundel and his brothers. On hearing their names, she shed a flood of tears, exclaiming, "Alas! what hath the noble house of Howard endured for my sake!" She took occasion also to observe that this letter might have been a base contrivance of Walsingham, who had frequently practised both against her life and that of her son. Walsingham, thus accused, rose up, and protested that his heart was free from malice; that he had never done anything unbecoming an honest man in his private capacity, nor aught unworthy of the place he occupied in the State. Mary declared herself satisfied of his innocence, and begged he would give as little credit to the malicious accusations of her enemies, as she now gave to the reports which she had heard to | repugnant to her inclination. But his prejudice. at the same time she seemed to dread another conspiracy to assassinate her within a month; which probably was only an artifice of her ministers to increase her ap Whatever might have been the queen's offences, it is certain that her treatment was very severe. She desired to be put in possession of such notes as she had taken pre-prehensions, and consequently, her parative to her trial; but this was refused her. She demanded a copy of her protest; but her request was not complied with: she even required an advocate to plead her cause against so many learned lawyers as had undertaken to urge her accusations; but all her demands were rejected; and, after an adjournment of some days, sentence of death was pronounced against her in the Star Chamber in Westminster, all the commissioners except two being present. At the same time a declaration was published by the commissioners, implying that the sentence against her did in no wise derogate from the title and honour of James, King of Scotland, son to the attainted queen. Though the condemnation of a sovereign princess at a tribunal to which she owed no subjection, was an injustice that must strike the most inattentive, yet the parliament of England did not fail to approve the sentence, and to go still further, in presenting an address to the queen, desiring that it might speedily be put into execution. But Elizabeth still felt, or pretended to feel, a horror for such precipitate severity. entreated the two houses to find some expedient to save her from the necessity of taking a step so She desire of being rid of a rival that had given her so much disturbance. The parliament, however, reiterated their solicitations, arguments, and entreaties; and even remonstrated that mercy to the Queen of Scots was cruelty to them, her subjects, and her children. Elizabeth affected to continue inflexible, but at the same time permitted Mary's sentence to be made public; and Lord Buckhurst, and Beale, clerk to the council, were sent to the unhappy queen to apprise her of the sentence, and of the popular clamour for its speedy execution. Upon receiving this dreadful information, Mary seemed no way moved; but insisted, that since her death was demanded by the Protestants, she died a martyr to the Catholic religion. She said, that as the English often embrued their hands in the blood of their own sovereigns, it was not to be wondered at that they exercised their cruelty towards her. She wrote her last letter to Elizabeth, not demanding her life, which she now seemed willing to part with, but desiring that, after her enemies should be satiated with her innocent blood, her body might be consigned to her servants and conveyed to France, there to repose in a Catholic country, with the sacred remains of her succeeding to the throne. Accordmother. In the meantime, accounts of this extraordinary sentence were spread into all parts of Europe; and the King of France was among the foremost who attempted to avert the threatened blow. He sent over Believre as an extraordinary ambassador, with a professed intention of interceding for the life of Mary. But James of Scotland, her son, was, as in duty obliged, still more pressing in her behalf. He despatched Keith, a gentleman of his bedchamber, with a letter to Elizabeth, conjuring her to spare the life of his parent, and mixing threats of vengeance in case of a refusal. Elizabeth treated his remonstrances with the utmost indignation; and when the Scottish ambassador begged that the execution might be put off for a week, the queen answered with great emotion, "No, not for an hour." Thus Elizabeth, when solicited by foreign princes to pardon the Queen of Scots, seemed always disposed to proceed to extremities against her; but when her ministers urged her to strike the blow, her scruples and her reluctance seemed to return. ingly, the kingdom was now filled with rumours of plots, treasons, and insurrections; and the queen was continually kept in alarm by fictitious dangers. She therefore appeared to be in great terror and perplexity; she was observed to sit much alone, and to mutter to herself half sentences, importing the difficulty and distress to which she was reduced. In this situation she one day called her secretary, Davidson, whom she ordered to draw out secretly the warrant for Mary's execution, informing him, that she intended to keep it by her in case any attempt should be made for the delivery of that prin cess. She signed the warrant, and then commanded it to be carried to the chancellor to have the seal affixed to it. Next morning, however, she sent two gentlemen successively, to desire that Davidson would not go to the chancellor until she should see him; but the secretary telling her that the warrant had been already sealed, she seemed displeased at his precipitation. Davidson, who probably wished to see the sentence executed, laid the affair before the council, who unanimously resolved that the warrant should be immediately put in execution, and promised to justify Davidson to the queen. Accordingly, the fatal in Whether the queen was really sincere in her reluctance to execute Mary, is a question which, though usually given against her, I will not take upon me to determine.strument was delivered to Beale, Certainly there were great arts used by her courtiers to determine her to the side of severity, as they had everything to fear from the resentment of Mary, in case of her who summoned the noblemen to whom it was directed, namely, the Earls of Shrewsbury, Derby, Kent, and Cumberland; and these together set out for Fotheringay Mary heard of the arrival of her executioners, who ordered her to prepare for death by eight o'clock the next morning. Without any alarm, she heard the death-warrant read with her usual composure, though she could not help expressing her surprise that the Queen of England should consent to her execution. She even abjured her being privy to any conspiracy against Elizabeth, by laying her hand upon a New Testament, which happened to lie on the table. She desired that her confessor might be permitted to attend her; which, however, these zealots refused. After the earls had retired, she ate sparingly at supper, while le comforted her attendants (who continued weeping and lamenting the fate of their mistress) with a cheerful countenance, telling them they ought not to mourn, but to rejoice at the prospect of her speedy deliverance from a world of misery. Towards the end of supper, she called in all her servants, and drank to them; they pledged her in order on their knees, and craved her pardon for any past neglect of duty. She craved mutual forgiveness; and a plentiful effusion of tears attended this last solemn separation. Castle, accompanied by two execu- | domestics, recommending them in tioners, to despatch their bloody letters to the King of France and commission. the Duke of Guise. Then, going to bed at her usual hour, she passed part of the night in uninterrupted repose, and, rising, spent the remainder in prayer and acts of devotion. Towards morning she dressed herself in a rich habit of silk and velvet, the only one which she had reserved for this solemn occasion. Thomas Andrews, the under-sheriff of the county, then entering the room, informed her that the hour was come, and that he must attend her to the place of execution. She replied that she was ready; and, bidding her servants farewell, she proceeded, supported by two of her guards, and followed the sheriff with a serene composed aspect, with a long veil of linen on her head, and in her hand a crucifix of ivory. In passing through a hall adjoining to her chamber, Sir Andrew Melvil, master of her household, fell upon his knees, and, shedding a flood of tears, lamented his misfortune in being doomed to carry the news of her unhappy fate to Scotland. "Lament not," said she, "but rather rejoice. Mary Stuart will soon be freed from all her cares. Tell my friends that I die constant in my religion, and firm in my affection and fidelity to Scotland and France. God forgive them that have long desired my end, and have thirsted for my blood as the hart panteth for the water brook! Thou, O God, who art truth itself, and perfectly understandest the inmost After this she reviewed her will, and perused the inventory of her effects. These she bequeathed to different individuals, and divided her money among her |