the House of Commons, for liberty of speech, had ceased. The spies of Walsingham, Burleigh, and Leicester, were, it is true, perpetually at work; and there was no class of society into which they did not insinuate themselves. They were goers to and fro throughout the realm, and made reports to their employers of all they heard and saw; but were their reports faithfully conveyed to the queen by her ministers, ungarbled and uninterpolated? Assuredly not, unless it suited their own policy to do so; for have we not seen how long she was kept in ignorance of so public an event, as the fall of Rouen, by Leicester ?—and does not the under-current of the transactions, respecting Mary queen of Scots, abound with evidence, that the mighty Elizabeth was frequently the dupe, and at last the absolute tool of her ministers, in ridding them of a successor to the throne, whom they had cause to dread.

The state of Elizabeth's mind, just before she was induced to sign the death-warrant, is thus described by the graphic pen of the contemporary historian, Camden: "In the midst of those doubtful and perplexing thoughts, which so troubled and staggered the queen's mind, that she gave herself over to solitariness, she sate many times melancholy and mute, and frequently sighing, muttered this to herself, aut fer, aut feri, that is, either bear with her or smite her; and 'ne feriare feri,'-' strike, lest thou be stricken." At this period she was also heard to lament, 'that among the thousands who professed to be attached to her as a sovereign, not one would spare her the painful task of dipping her hands in the blood of a sister queen.'

The idea of ridding herself of her royal prisoner by private murder, the usual fate of captive princes, appears to have taken a powerful hold of Elizabeth's mind, during the last eight days of Mary's life. In fact, the official statements of Mr. Secretary Davison, afford positive proof that she had provided herself with agents, one of whom, Wingfield, she named," who were ready," she said, " to undertake the deed." The "niceness of those "precise fellows," Paulet and Drury, who had the custody of Mary's person, frustrated Elizabeth's project; they were too scrupulous or too cautious to become accomplices in the murder of their hapless charge, in any other way than by 1 Annals in White Kennet, folio 534.

2
* Lingard.

assisting at her execution, authorized by the queen's own warrant, under the royal seal. They were aware of the guerdon, generally assigned to those, who lend themselves to perform the unprofitable works of darkness for their betters. History had not told the tale of Gournay and Maltravers, and other tools of royal villany in vain to the shrewd castellans of Fotheringaye castle; and the subsequent treatment of Davison, demonstrated their wisdom in refusing to implicate themselves in an iniquity, so full of peril to inferior agents.

The particulars of this foul passage, in the personal annals of the maiden queen, shall be related by Davison himself.1

"After that the sentence against the Scottish queen was passed, and subscribed by the lords and others, the commissioners appointed to her trial, and that her majesty had notified the same to the world by her proclamation, according to the statute, there remained nothing but her warrant, under the great seal of England, for the performing and accomplishing her execution, which, after some instance, as well of the lords and commons, of the whole parliament then assembled, as of others of her council, and best affected subjects, it pleased her majesty at length to yield thereunto; and thereupon gave order to my lord-treasurer to project the same, which he accordingly performed, and with her majesty's privity, left in my hands, to procure her signature; but by reason of the presence of the French and Scotch ambassadors, then suitors for her (Mary's) life, she (queen Elizabeth) forbore the signing thereof, till the first of February, which was some few days after their departure home. At what time her majesty, after some conference with the lord-admiral, of the great danger she constantly lived in, and moved by his lordship to have more regard to the surety of herself and state, than she seemed

1 Copied, by sir Harris Nicolas, from the Cotton MS. Titus C. vii. f. 48, and collated by him with the copies in the Harl. MSS., and that in Caligula, and pronounced by him to be in Davison's own hand. His "Summary Report of that which passed between her majesty and him, in the cause of the Scottish queen, from the signing of the warrant to the time of his restraint," may surely be relied on as a plain statement of facts, which he would neither venture to falsify, nor to exaggerate. It comprises the simplest and most circumstantial account of the proceedings of queen Elizabeth, from the time the warrant was drawn up, till the execution of the royal victim.

to take, resolved at oir the HCM w kole avi gave orders to ius aurosis as to me a ing ne warrant unto ber u be smet wie bei di va messenger of the chamber, van jou ne n de ras, vinther I had never got a mi the ar-temen zeurang back immechek v mm. I went direct m

chamber, where hos Jarasim. mening my comme as coursed unto me via speed at set in morning betwixt her majesty and nm. Tocine ester acons the said Scott queen, and inaly aut ne now fully resolved a croce de azumismen thereof, and had commandemente bring the warrant her be signed. forthwith despatched, and deferred or jonger. to which directiva. Í ven mmediacy z my channeet. fetch the said warrant and other siaurs souchmar ber service, and returning up again. I sean in Ms. Brooke, 20 signify my being there w her majesty, wh present caled for me.

“At my coming in. ber inginess firs; demanded a′ʻme. — 'Whether I had been abroad that fair morning advising me 'to use it oftener, and reprehending me for the neglect thereof,' with other like gracious speeches, arguing care of my health, and finally asked me, “ What I had in my hands? I answered, Divers things to be signed that concerned her service.' She inquired, Whether my lord-admirai had not given me order to bring up the warrant for the Scottish queen's execution? I answered, Yes; and thereupon asking me for it, I delivered it into her hands. After the reading whereof, she, calling for pen and ink, signed it, and laying it from her on the mats, demanded of me, ́ Whether I were not heartily sorry to see it done? My answer was, 'that I was so far from taking pleasure in the calamity or fall of any, or, otherwise, from thirsting in any sort after the blood of this unhappy lady in particular, as I could not but be heartily grieved to think that one of her place and quality, and otherwise so near unto her majesty, should give so great cause as she had done to take this resolution; but seeing the life of that queen threatened her majesty's death, and therefore this act of hers, in all men's opinions, was of that justice and necessity, that she could not defer it without the manifest wrong and danger of herself and the whole realm,

I could not be sorry to see her take an honourable and just course of securing the one and the other, as he that preferred the death of the guilty before the innocent;' which answer her highness approving with a smiling countenance, passed from the matter to ask me, 'What else I had to sign?' and thereupon offering unto her some other warrants and instructions touching her service, it pleased her, with the best disposition and willingness that might be, to sign and dispatch them all.”

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After this, she commanded me to carry it to the seal, and to give my lord-chancellor special order to use it as secretly as might be, lest the divulging thereof before the execution might, as she pretended, increase her danger; and in my way to my lord-chancellor, her pleasure also was, that I should visit Mr. Secretary Walsingham, being then sick at his house in London, and communicate the matter to him, 'because the grief thereof would go near,' as she merrily said, to kill him outright;' then taking occasion to repeat unto me some reasons why she had deferred the matter so long, as, namely, 'for her honour's sake that the world might see that she had not been violently or maliciously drawn thereto.""

How these professions agreed with her majesty's merry message to Walsingham, apprising him that she had just signed the fatal instrument for shedding the blood of her nearest relative, by the axe of the executioner, the unprejudiced reader may judge. Little, indeed, did Elizabeth, in the full confidence of her despotic power, imagine that the dark import of her secret communings with her secretary in that private closet, would one day be proclaimed to the whole world, by the publication of the documentary evidences of her proceedings. When the Ithuriel spear of truth withdraws the curtain from scenes like these, the reverse of the picture suddenly unveiled to those who have been taught, even in the nursery, to revere in "good queen Bess" the impersonification of all that is great and glorious in woman, is startling.

"The queen concluded," continues Davison, "that she never was so ill-advised as not to apprehend her own danger, and the necessity she had to proceed to this execution; and thereupon, after some intermingled speech to and fro, told me that she would have it done as secretly as might be, appointing the hall where she (queen Mary) was, for the place

of execution, and misliking the court, or green of the castle, for divers respects, she alleged, with other speech to like effect. Howbeit, as I was ready to depart, she fell into some complaint of sir Amias Paulet and others, that might have eased her of this burden,' wishing that Mr. Secretary (Walsingham) and I would yet write unto both him and sir Drue Drury, to sound their disposition in this behalf.

"And," continues Davison, "albeit, I had before excused myself from meddling therein, upon sundry her majesty's former motions, as a matter I utterly prejudged, assuring her, 'that it would be so much labour lost, knowing the wisdom and integrity of the gentlemen, whom I thought would not do so unlawful an act for any respect in the world;' yet, finding her desirous to have the matter attempted, I promised, for her satisfying, to signify this her pleasure to Mr. Secretary, and so, for that time leaving her, went down directly to my lord-treasurer, (Burleigh,) to whom I did communicate the said warrant signed, together with such other particulars as had passed at that time between her highness and me. The same afternoon I waited on my lord-chancellor for the sealing of the said warrant, according to her majesty's direction, which was done between the hours of four and five, from whence I returned back unto Mr. Secretary Walsingham, whom I had visited by the way, and acquainted with her pleasure, touching the letters that were to be written to the said sir Amias Paulet and sir Drue Drury, which, at my return, I found ready to be sent away.'

The reader is here presented with the copy of the private official letter, in which the two secretaries propose the murder, in plain and direct terms, to Paulet and Drury, by the express commands of their royal mistress :

WALSINGHAM AND DAVISON TO SIR AMIAS PAULET AND SIR DRUE DRURY. "February 1, 1586-7.

"After our hearty commendations, we find, by a speech lately made by her majesty (queen Elizabeth), that she doth note in you both, a lack of that care and zeal for her service, that she looketh for at your hands, in that you have not, in all this time, (of yourselves, without other provocation,) found out some way of shortening the life of the Scots' queen, considering the great

1 Davison's Summary Report of that which passed between him and the queen, copied by sir H. Nicolas from the Cotton MS. Titus, vii., f. 48, and collated by him from the copies of the same document, in Harl. MSS., and Cotton MSS. in Caligula. See also Davison's Apology, in Nicolas' Life of Davison.