II.

15

BOOK that the state council resorted to strong measures of precaution and violent government, to prevent any public disorders or foreign aggressions on the change. She recovered from this severe attack, to live seven years more; when the fatal hour arrived that removed her from a throne, which her debility was unfitting her to occupy with her former efficiency and credit.16

It was in the beginning of March 1603, that the mortal illness came on; at first in the form of a rheumatic gout in her arms and fingers, which diminished her usual sleep, but the pain of which she bore with firmness, and was desirous not to notice. Light became unpleasant to her; and her mind turned on depressing recollections, especially that she had consented to bloodshed, in the execution of lord Essex.17 The hectic indisposition continued

now ceased, which, being joined with inflammation from the breast upward, did more than terrify us all, especially the last Friday in the morning.' Ellis, v. 3. p. 179.

15 He added, Which moved the lords of the council, when they had providently caused all the vagrants hereabouts to be taken up and shipped for the Low Countries, to draw some munition to the court; and the great horses from Reading, to guard the receipt at Westminster; to take order for the navy to lie in the narrow seas; and to commit some gentlemen, hunger-starved for innovations, as sir Edward Bainham, Catesby, Tresham, two Wrights, &c. and afterward the count Arundel, to a gentleman's house, for speeches used by the foresaid turbulent spirits as concerning him; or for that he hath lately made some provision of armor.' Ellis, p. 179.

16 In the autumn of the year before her death she was so well, that lord Henry Howard wrote to the earl of Mar, in September 1602, The queen was never so gallant many years; nor so set upon jollity. Her council and others had persuaded her to give up the progress into the west for this year, but she is come about again to hold it on as far as lord Hertford's, which is fifty miles from hence, hunting or disporting, in the meantime, every other day.' Secret Corresp. of sir Robert Cecil, p. 231.

17 Not long before her death, she was divers times troubled with the gout in her fingers, whereof she would never complain, seeming better

XXXVII.

a fortnight, without assuming the form of a decided CHAP. fever; 18 and the nervous melancholy and general decline increased," accompanied by symptoms, which indicated that the heart was diseased, and by a labored and convulsive respiration.20 She was anxious to attend the public service of her chapel, in her usual seat; but when the hour came, she was unable to go into it, and was compelled to be content to hear it, in a helpless state, in an adjoining

pleased to be thought insensible of the pain, than to acknowlege the disease.' Ellis MS. p. 193. The Scots nobleman's account, mentioned by Dr. Birch, was, Our queen is troubled with rheum in her arm, which vexeth her very much. She sleepeth not so much by day as she used, neither taketh rest by night. Her delight is to sit in the dark, and sometimes, with shedding of tears to bewail Essex.' Birch's Mem. v. 2 p. 506.

18 On 19th March, the French ambassador's dispatch was, that she had been very much indisposed for fourteen days past, having scarce slept at all during that time, and eat much less than usual, being seized with such a restlessness, that, tho she had no formed fever, she felt a great heat in her stomach, and a continual thirst, which obliged her to take something every moment to abate it, and prevent the hard and dry phlegm from choking her.' Birch, ib. 506.

19 About three weeks before her death, her sleep decaying, she began to fall into a melancholy passion.' Ellis's MS. ib. This depression of spirits has been too hastily ascribed to some supposed remorse of conscience; but the same MS. expressly adds, in order to avert misconstruction of its nature, Melancholy diseases, as physicians tell us, proceed not always from the indisposition of the mind, but sometimes from the distemperature of humor in the body, causing a kind of numbness and stupidity of the senses.' Ellis's MS. p. 194. It is an affection of the body in its dying illness, which is not unfrequent. 20 Sir Robert Carey, earl of Monmouth, fully describes this condition: When I came to court, I found the queen ill-disposed; she kept her inner lodging; yet, hearing of my arrival, she sent for me. I found her in one of her withdrawing chambers, sitting low upon her cushions. She called me to her. I kissed her hand, and told her it was my chiefest happiness to see her in safety and in health. She took me by the hand, and wrung it hard, and said, No, Robin! I am not well; and then discoursed to me of her indisposition, and that her heart had been sad and heavy for ten or twelve days. In her discourse she fetched not so few as forty or fifty great sighs. I was grieved at the first to see her in this plight, for in all my lifetime before I never knew her fetch a sigh, but when the queen of Scots was beheaded.' Mem. p. 116.

6

11.

21

BOOK apartment." The malady increased upon her, till even her food became unacceptable to her;" she refused also the aid of medicine, because she felt no local pain.23 She sought to be alone, and declined into an indifference of worldly concerns, and to an insensibility to external sensations, while her body was perceptibly wasting away.25 Advised by her

24

21 The earl proceeds to say, 'I used the best words I could to persuade her from this melaucholy humor, but I found by her that it was too deep rooted in her heart, and hardly to be removed. This was upon Saturday night, and she gave command that the great closet should be prepared for her to go to chapel the next morning. The next day, all things being in readiness, we long expected her coming. After 11 o'clock, one of the grooms came out, and bade make ready for the private closet, as she would not go to the great. There we stayed long for her coming, but at the last she had cushions laid for her in the privy chamber, hard by the closet door, and there she heard service. Monmouth, ib. p. 117.

She re

22 From that time forwards she grew worse and worse. mained upon her cushions four days and nights at the least. All about her could not persuade her either to take any sustenance, or to go to bed.' Monmouth, ib. The Memoirs of this earl were published by lord Orrery, and reprinted in 1808.

23 The MS. adds,Being persuaded to use the help of physic, she utterly refused it, either because she thought her body, being not accustomed thereto, it would not do, or else that, having satiety of the world, she desired rather to die than live; for she would divers times say in her sickness, ‘I am not sick; I feel no pain; and yet I pine away.' Ellis, ib. 194. The French ambassador, on 22d, wrote, "that she had been better the day before, but was that day worse; and notwithstanding all the importunities of her counsellors and physicians to consent to the use of proper remedies for her relief, she would not take one. She was angry with them for it. She said she knew her own strength and constitution better than they, and that she was not in so much danger as they imagined.' Birch, p. 507.

24She was wholly addicted to silence and solitariness; which gave occasion of suspicion that she was afflicted in mind; but being moved by some of her council to impart such griefs as they doubted might trouble her, she answered, that she knew nothing in the world worthy to trouble her.' It is a constant opinion of such as were most inward with her, that she was then free from any such impression of mental derangement.' Ellis's MS. 194.

25 The French envoy, on 28 March, stated that 'the queen continued to grow worse, and appeared already in a manner insensible, not speaking sometimes for two or three hours, and within the last two days not for above four-and-twenty, holding her finger almost continually in her mouth, with her eyes open, and fixed upon the ground, where she sat

26

XXXVII.

attendant prelates to direct her spirit to the Divine CHAP. Being, she gently assured them that she had for some time done so. The inability to sleep was succeeded by an augmented failure of the organs of speech; yet she retained the use of her intellectual faculties, and could exhibit her devout feelings, by moving her hands and eyes into the attitude of adoration and supplication." When questioned by her three most confidential ministers,

few days before, as to her successor, she had mentioned the Scottish king.28 Another manuscript account compresses her answer, and perhaps more truly, considering her feeble and exhausted condition, into two short sentences; No base person, but a king.' The latter term sufficiently pointed to

upon cushions without resting or raising herself. She was greatly emaciated by her long watching and fasting.' Birch, p. 507.

The Sloane MS. thus describes this important insight into her religious mind. The bishops who then attended the court, seeing that she would not hearken to advice for the recovery of her bodily health, desired her to provide for her spiritual safety; and to recommend her soul to God. Whereto, she mildly answered, 'THAT I HAVE DONE LONG AGO.' Ellis, p. 194.

She sat up six days together without any sleep; and yet, she was not bereaved of understanding, but had the use thereof, even after her speech failed, as appeared by divers motions of HER HANDS AND EYES LIFTED UP, when she was required by the bishops to give testimony of the hope and comfort she had in GOD.' MS. Ellis, ib.

26 So the French ambassador stated; and also, That she did not desire that her kingdom should fall into the hands of rascals, which was her own word." Birch, 508. This dispatch may justify our accrediting the account in the Petyt MS. quoted by Mr. D'Israeli, that on 23d March, the same three counsellors, the admiral being on the right side of her bed, the lord keeper on the left, and Mr. Secretary Cecil at the bed's feet,' the lord admiral mentioned that they came in the name of all the rest of her council, to know her pleasure who should succeed. Whereunto she replied: My seat has been the seat of kings. I will have no rascal to succeed me. Who should succeed me, but a king? The secretary inquiring her meaning more distinctly, she added, Who should that be but our cousin of Scotland?' Curiosities of Lit. Second Series, v. 3. p. 107.

11.

29

BOOK James the son of Mary, as no other sovereign possessed so near a right. Being again specifically desired on the next day, before others of the council, if she meant the king of Scotland, to hold up her hand in token of assent,' if her voice could not express it; she lifted up her hand to her head, and turned it round in the form of a circle,' obviously implying the regal coronation.30 The evening afterwards was passed by her in earnest devotion, which

29 Ellis, 194. Perhaps if we substitute the actual term of 'rascal,' mentioned by the two other authorities, for 'base person,' we have her exact expressions, which the Petyt MS. may have amplified into an expansion that does not fully harmonize with her preceding silence, abstraction and debility.

30 Ellis's MS. p. 195. The French ambassador puts this incident on the day after the verbal answer, and states it thus: Afterwards, when her speech failed her, they requested her, in the presence of other of the council, to make some sign, to confirm what she had said to them. She put her hand to her head, to show her approbation of it.' Birch, 508. The same incident is thus represented by lord Monmouth: 'On Wednesday the 23d March, she grew speechless. That afternoon, by signs, she called for her council; and by putting her hand to her head, when the king of Scots was named to succeed her, they all knew that he was the man she desired should reign after her.' Mem. 119, 120. These accounts do not seem substantially to differ from the Ellis MS. and the ambassador. It is probable that the more ancient MS. gives the truest representation of the little symbolical action, in mentioning the turning round of the hand when raised. Mr. Petyt's MS. dates the incident on a Wednesday, and thus describes it, tho with a slight variation as to the form of the motion, yet more correspondently with the account in the text: 'About four o'clock in the afternoon, being Wednesday, after the archbishop of Canterbury and other divines had been with her, and left her in a manner speechless, the three lords aforesaid [the admiral, lord keeper, and sir Robert Cecil] repaired unto her again, asking her if she remained in her former resolution, and who should succeed her? But not being able to speak, was asked by Mr. Secretary in this sort: We beseech your majesty, if you remain in your former resolution, and that you would have the king of Scots to succeed you in your kingdom, shew you some sign to us.' Whereat, suddenly heaving herself upwards in her bed, and putting her arms out of bed, she held her hands jointly over her head in manner of a crown. Whence, as they guessed, she signified that she did not only wish him the kingdom, but desire continuance of his estate. After which they departed; and the next morning she died.' Vol. 3. p. 108. The account in the text from the MS. printed by Mr. Ellis, scems to give the simplest and truest statement.