greatly she doth long to hear how her Spirit and her Moon do find themselves, after so foul and wearisome a journey." By the above pet names was the mighty Elizabeth accustomed, in moments of playfulness, to designate those grave and unbending statesmen, Burleigh and Walsingham; but playfulness at such a season was certainly not only in bad taste, but revolting to every feeling of humanity, when the object of that foul and weary journey, on which Elizabeth's Spirit and her Moon had departed, is considered. The most repulsive feature, in the final proceedings against the hapless Mary, is the odious levity with which the leading actors in the tragedy demeaned themselves while preparing to shed her blood, and, at the same time, appealing to the Scriptures in justification of the deed. L'Aubespine de Chasteauneuf, the French ambassador, demanded, in the name of his sovereign, that Mary might be allowed the assistance of counsel. Elizabeth returned an angry verbal answer by Hatton, “that she required not the advice or schooling of foreign powers to instruct her how she ought to act;" and added, "that she considered the Scottish queen unworthy of counsel." What, it may be asked, was this but condemnation before trial? and what result was to be expected from the trial of any person of whom a despotic sovereign had made such an assertion? Can any one read Elizabeth's letter to the commissioners, dated October 7th, in which she charges them "to forbear passing sentence on the Scottish queen till they have returned into her presence, and made their report to herself," 2 and doubt that the death of the royal captive was predetermined? It was not till the 11th, four days after the date of this letter, that they assembled at Fotheringaye for the business on which they had been deputed. On the 12th, they opened their court. Mary refused to acknowledge their authority, on which they delivered to her the following letter from their royal mistress : QUEEN ELIZABETH TO MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. "You have, in various ways and manners, attempted to take my life, and to bring my kingdom to destruction by bloodshed. I have never proceeded so harshly against you, but have, on the contrary, protected and maintained you like myself. These treasons will be proved to you, and all made manifest. "Yet it is my will that you answer the nobles and peers of the kingdom as if I were myself present. I therefore require, charge, and command, that you make answer, for I have been well informed of your arrogance, "Act plainly, without reserve, and you will sooner be able to obtain favour of me. ELIZABETH." This letter was addressed to Mary, (without the superscription of cousin or sister,) and as it may be supposed, from the well-known high spirit of that queen, had not the slightest effect in inducing her to reply to the commissioners. She told them, however, "that she had endeavoured to gain her liberty, and would continue to do so as long as she lived; but that she had never plotted against the life of their queen, nor had any connexion with Babington or the others, but to obtain her freedom; on which particulars, if Elizabeth chose to question her in person, 'Harleian MSS., 290, f. 180. Nicolas' Life of Davison. she would declare the truth, but would reply to no inferior. There was no little sagacity shown in this appeal of Mary to the inquisitiveness that formed a leading trait of Elizabeth's character. The details of this celebrated process, for trial it cannot be called, belong to the personal history of Mary Stuart,' rather than to the biography of Elizabeth. Suffice it therefore to say, that, after two days' fruitless struggle to defend herself against the subtlety and oppression of men, who demeaned themselves like adverse lawyers pleading on the side of the crown rather than as conscientious judges, Mary demanded to be heard before the assembled parliament of England, or the queen and her council. The commissioners then adjourned the court, to meet, October 25th, at the Star Chamber, Westminster. On that day they reassembled, and pronounced sentence of death on the Scottish queen, pursuant to the statute of the 27th of Elizabeth, which had been framed for that very purpose. The parliament met on the 29th, and, having considered the reports of the commissioners, united in petitioning queen Elizabeth that the sentence against the Scottish queen might be carried into execution. Elizabeth received the deputation from Parliament, November 12th, in her presence-chamber at Richmond Palace. Mr. Sergeant Puckering, the speaker, after enlarging on the offences of Mary against queen Elizabeth, recalled to her majesty the example of God's displeasure on Saul for sparing Agag, and on Ahab for preserving Benhadad; and, after preaching a political sermon too tedious for recapitulation, from these irrelevant cases, he assured her, "that her compliance with the petition would be most acceptable to God, and that her people expected nothing less of her.” Elizabeth made an elaborate and mystified harangue, in reply, of great length and verbosity. The following passages may serve as a sample of the style and substance of this celebrated speech :— "The bottomless graces and benefits, bestowed upon me by the Almighty, are and have been such, that I must not only acknowledge them, but admire them, accounting them miracles (as well) as benefits. "And now, albeit I find my life hath been full dangerously sought, and death contrived by such as no desert procured, yet I am therein so clear from malice (which hath the property to make men glad at the falls and faults of their foes, and make thein seem to do for other causes, when rancour is the ground), as I protest it is and hath been my grievous thought, that one, not different in sex, of like estate, and my near kin, should fall in so great a crime. Yea, I had so little purpose to pursue her with any colour of malice, that it is not unknown to some of my lords here (for now I will play the blab), I secretly wrote her a letter on the discovery of sundry treasons, that if she would confess them, and privately acknowledge them by her letters to myself, she never need be called for them in so public question. Neither did I it of mind to circumvent her; for I knew as much as she could confess. And if even yet, now that the matter is made but too apparent, I thought she truly would repent (as, perhaps, she would easily appear in outward show to do), and that, on her account, no one would take the matter upon them; or, if we were but as two milkmaids, with our pails on our arms, or if there were no more dependences upon us, but mine own life only in danger, and not the whole estate of your religion, I protest (whereon you may 1The personal memoir of Mary, queen of Scots, by Agnes Strickland, will appear immediately after the completion of the Lives of the Queens of England. believe me, for though I have many vices, I hope I have not accustomed my tongue to be an instrument of untruth), I would most willingly pardon and remit this offence." 971 Lest, however, any one should be deceived, by all this parade of mercy and Christian charity, into the notion that it was her sincere wish to save her unfortunate kinswoman, she concluded her speech by informing them, "that she had just received information of another plot, in which the conspirators had bound themselves, under the penalty of death, to take away her life within the month," thus exciting a more deadly flame of loyal indignation in their bosoms against the powerless object of their fury, who was pointed at as the inciter of all attempts against the person of Elizabeth. The parliament responded, in the tone that was desired, with a more ardent requisition for the blood of Mary. Elizabeth faltered-not from womanly feelings of tenderness and compassion towards the defenceless object of their fury, but from certain doubts and misgivings within her own mind, which produced one of her characteristic fits of irresolution. Her mind was tempest-tossed between her desire of Mary's death, and her reluctance to stand forth to the world as her acknowledged executioner. She would have the deed performed "some other way." But how? "The dial spake not, but it gave shrewd signs, One, at least, of her ministers entered into the feelings of his royal mistress on this delicate subject, and to his eternal infamy, endeavoured to relieve her from her embarrassment, as to the means of removing the victim, without the undesirable éclat of a public execution. Leicester wrote from Holland to suggest "the sure but silent operation of poison." He even sent a divine over to convince the more scrupulous Walsingham of the lawfulness of the means proposed; but that stern politician was resolutely bent on maintaining a show of justice, and at the same time, exalting the power of his royal mistress, by bringing the queen of Scotland to the block. Burleigh coincided in this determination, and in his letters to Leicester complained," that the queen's slackness did not stand with her surety or their own."3 The personal influence of Leicester with the sovereign appears to have been required for the consummation of the tragedy. He was remanded home in November, and seems to have taken an active part in preventing Elizabeth from swerving from the point to which her ministers had brought her. 'Holingshed, 1582, vol. ii. 'Camden's Elizabeth, in White Kennet, p. 519. Camden. "I have, according to your lordship's late letter," wrote the premier, "moved her majesty for your lordship's license to return, whereto her majesty is very willing, as well for the desire she hath to see your lordship, as for the doubt she also hath, that this winter season you might fall into some sickness." Burleigh tells more of his mind in the postscript, in which he says:— "Yesterday all our commissioners professed our sentence against the Scottish queen with one full assent; but I fear more slackness in her majesty than will stand either with her surety or with ours. God direct her heart to follow faith ful counsel!" On the 22d of November, lord Buckhurst and sir Robert Beale proceeded, in pursuance of the orders in council, and her majesty's commands, to Fotheringaye Castle, to announce to the queen of Scots, that sentence of death had been pronounced against her by the commissioners, and ratified by the parliament of England. They executed their ungracious errand without the slightest delicacy or consideration for the feelings of the royal victim, telling her, "that she must not hope for mercy," adding taunts on the score of her religious opinions, very much at variance with the divine spirit of Christianity, and concluded by ordering her chamber and her bed to be hung with black.' The con duct of sir Amias Paulet was even more gratuitously brutal and unmanly, and reflects great disgrace on the character of any sovereign to whom such petty instances of malice could be supposed acceptable proofs of his zeal against her fallen enemy. Meantime, the French ambassador, L'Aubespine Chateauneuf, having written in great alarm to Henry III., that the queen of England was proceeding, he feared, to extremities with the queen of Scots, and urged him to interfere for her preservation, that monarch despatched M. de Pomponne de Bellievre, as an ambassador-extraordinary, for the purpose of remonstrating with Elizabeth against the outrage she was preparing to commit, and using every species of intercession for the preservation of Mary's life. Bellievre landed at Dover, after a stormy passage, November 29th, having suffered so severely from sea-sickness, together with one of the gentlemen of the suite, that they were unable to proceed till they had reposed themselves for a day and night. Elizabeth, or her council, more probably, took advantage of this circumstance to delay the new envoy's audience, under pretence that he and his company had brought the infection of the plague from France, and that it would be attended with great peril to her royal person if she admitted them into her presence.2 It was also asserted, that Bellievre had brought over some unknown men, who had come expressly to assassinate her. These reports appear to have been very offensive to the embassy, and are ascribed by the indignant secretary of legation, by whom the transactions of that eventful period were recorded for the information of his own court, "to the infinite malice of the queen." 993 Elizabeth had withdrawn to her winter quarters at Richmond, and it was not till the 7th of December that the urgency of Bellievre induced her to grant him his first audience. He came to her after dinner on that day, accompanied by L'Aubespine, the resident French minister, and all the gentlemen who had attended him from France. Elizabeth received them in her presence-chamber, seated on her throne, and surrounded by her nobles and the lords of her council. Leicester had placed himself in close contiguity to the royal person; but when the French envoy 1 1 Reports of M. de Bellievre and L'Aubespine in Egerton; and Letters of Mary, Queen of Scots, vol. ii., p. 199. 2 Statement for M. de Villeroy of the transactions of M. de Bellievre in England. 'Reports of M. de Bellievre. proceeded to open the business on which he came, she bade her presumptuous master of the horse "fall back." His colleagues hearing this command addressed to him, took the hint, and withdrew also to a little distance. Bellievre then delivered the remonstrances on the part of his sovereign, in behalf of the Scottish queen, his sister-in-law. Elizabeth interrupted him many times, answering him point by point, speaking in good French, but so loud, that she could be heard all over the saloon. When she mentioned the queen of Scots, she appeared under the influence of passion, which was expressed by her countenance.' She burst into invectives against her, accused her of ingratitude for the many favours which she said "she had conferred upon her;" although it was impossible for hatred and revenge to have worked more deadly mischief against another, than such love as hers had wrought to the hapless victim of her treachery. She went on to comment on the address Bellievre had just delivered, observing, " that monseigneur had quoted several examples drawn from history; but she had read much, and seen many books in her lifetime,-more, indeed, than thousands of her sex and rank had done; but never had she met with, or heard of, such an attempt as that which had been planned against her by her own kinswoman, whom the king, her brother-in-law, ought not to support in her malice, but rather to aid her in bringing speedily to justice." Elizabeth went on to say, " that she had had great experience in the world, having known what it was to be both subject and sovereign, and the difference also between good neighbours and those who were evilly disposed towards her.”2 She told Bellievre, who was a nobleman of high rank and singular eloquence, "that she was very sorry he had not been sent on a better occasion; that she had been compelled to come to the resolution she had taken, because it was impossible to save her own life if she preserved the queen of Scots; but if the ambassadors could point out any means whereby she might do it, consistently with her own security, she should be greatly obliged to them, never having shed so many tears at the death of her father, of her brother, king Edward, or her sister Mary, as she had done for this unfortunate affair."93 She then inquired after the health of the king of France and the queenmother, and, after promising the ambassador that he should have an answer in four days, she retired to her apartment. Bellievre returned to London, where he vainly waited for the promised answer, and at last repaired, with L'Aubespine, to Richmond, once more to solicit another audience. Bellievre, considering that she was trifling with him, demanded his passport, observing, at the same time, that it was useless for him to remain longer in England. Elizabeth, on this, sent Hunsdon and Walsingham to him, to appoint an audience for the following Monday. The following lively account of this reception, and the altercations which took place between the two French ambassadors and her majesty on that occasion, is related in a joint letter from Bellievre and L'Aubespine to their own sovereign, Henry III.^ 1 Report for M. de Villeroy. See Letters of Mary, Queen of Scots, vol. ii., p. 209. 2 Report for Villeroy. Bellievre's letter to the king of France. Lettres Originale d'Etat des Mesmes Collection; No. 9513, tome iii., f. 399, Bibliothèque du Roi. |