Elizabeth ordered this verdict to be laid before her Parliament, which assembled a few days afterwards; and, at Walsingham’s instigation, its legality was not only confirmed, but the Lord Chancellor was sent up with an address to the Queen, in which, after stating their conviction that her security was incompatible with Mary’s life, they requested that she would give the sentence effect, by ordering her immediate execution. Elizabeth, though conscious that, if her personal safety had been endangered, she had herself to blame, was rejoiced at the opportunity at length afforded her, for gratifying her long cherished hatred. She affected, however, to be greatly perplexed how to act. She declared that, if she were not afraid of endangering the welfare of her people, she would freely pardon Mary for all her treasonable practices, and she beseeched the House to endeavour to discover some less severe method of procedure. The Parliament, as she expected, replied firmly, that they could not recommend any more lenient measure; and in the pedantic language of the day, called to Elizabeth’s remembrance the examples of God’s vengeance upon Saul for sparing Agag, and on Ahab for sparing Benhadad. Elizabeth still affected to be irresolute; and indeed it was not unlikely that she was so in reality; for, though anxious to have Mary removed, she was not so hardened and insane as not to know, that however it might be sanctioned by the world, murder was as criminal and as contrary to the unchanging code of moral justice, when commanded by a Queen, as when perpetrated by a peasant. She desired that her Parliament should be content for the present “with an answer without an answer.” “If I should say, that I will not do what you request, I might say perhaps more than I intend; and if I should say I will do it, I might plunge myself into as much inconvenience as you endeavour to preserve me from.” All this manœuvring was for the purpose of conveying to the nation an impression of her extreme sensibility, and generous hesitation.
Another reason why Elizabeth did not choose to be over-precipitate, was her fear of giving any deadly offence to foreign courts. She ordered the sentence against Mary to be published both throughout her own kingdom and abroad, and she waited anxiously to observe the sensation which it should create, and the steps that might be taken in consequence. She need not, however, have given herself much uneasiness upon this score. Henry III. of France had never been more than a very lukewarm advocate for the Queen of Scots, and the remonstrances he occasionally made in her behalf, were rather for the sake of appearances, than because he was anxious that they should be successful. On the present occasion, startled by the imminence of his cousin’s danger, he seems to have been a little more in earnest, and ordered his ambassador to make as forcible a representation as possible against the iniquitous severity that was intended. But Elizabeth knew that his rage would evaporate in words, and paid little attention to the harangue. In Scotland, the young King, James, was surrounded by ministers who had sold themselves to England, and Elizabeth was well aware, that though he might bark, he dared not bite. Besides, the sentiments regarding his mother, which had been carefully instilled into him from his earliest years, were not such as were likely to inspire him with any decided wish to protect and avenge her. He had been constantly surrounded by her deadliest enemies, and the lesson which Buchanan taught him daily, was a lesson of hatred towards his only surviving parent. His succession also to the English crown, greatly depended on the friendship of Elizabeth; and she was able, in consequence, to maintain an ascendancy over him, which he dared not venture to resist. He was not, however, so entirely destitute of all ordinary filial sentiments as to consent to remain a quiet spectator of his mother’s execution. “His opinion is,” said his worthless minion the Master of Gray, “that it cannot stand with his honour to be a consenter to take his mother’s life, but he does not care how strictly she be kept; and is content that all her old knavish servants should be hanged.”[195] To prevent if possible a catastrophe which “did not stand with his honour,” he sent the Master of Gray and Sir Robert Melville as his ambassadors to London, to press his objections upon the attention of Elizabeth. The latter was true to the cause in which he had been sent, and his remonstrances were vigorous and sincere. But Gray, wishing to curry favour with Elizabeth, assured her that she had no cause to fear the King’s resentment, for he was of an irresolute character and timid disposition, and that whatever might happen, he would never think of embroiling himself in a disastrous war with England. Elizabeth listened with evident satisfaction to these artful insinuations; and desired her minister Walsingham, to inform the Scottish monarch, that Mary’s doom was already fixed by the decision of the nation, and that his mistress the Queen had it not in her power to save her. James received this intelligence with grief, but not with the spirit that became the only child of Mary Stuart. Instead of putting himself at the head of an army, and marching into the heart of England, he was contented to communicate his mother’s unfortunate condition to his subjects, and order prayers to be said for her in all the churches,—“that it might please God to enlighten her with the light of his truth, and to protect her from the danger which was hanging over her.”
In the mean time, messengers had been sent to the Queen of Scots, to report to her the sentence of the Commissioners, and to prepare her for the consequences which might be expected to follow. So far from receiving the news with dismay, Mary solemnly raised her hands to heaven, and thanked God that she was so soon to be relieved from her troubles. They were not yet, however, at a close; and even during the short remainder of her life, she was to be still further insulted. Her keepers, Sir Amias Paulet and Sir Drue Drury, refused any longer to treat her with the reverence and respect due to her rank and sex. The canopy of state, which she had always ordered to be put up in her apartment wherever she went, was taken down, and every badge of royalty removed. It was intimated to her, that she was no longer to be regarded as a Princess, but as a criminal; and the persons who came into her presence stood before her without uncovering their heads, or paying her any obeisance. The attendance of a Catholic priest was refused, and an Episcopalian bishop sent in his stead, to point out and correct the errors of her ways. Mary bore all these indignities with a calm spirit, which rose superior to them, and which proved their unworthiness, by bringing them into contrast with her own elevation of mind. “In despite of your Sovereign and her subservient judges,” said she, “I will die a Queen. My royal character is indelible, and I will surrender it with my spirit to the Almighty God, from whom I received it, and to whom my honour and my innocence are fully known.”[196] In December 1586, she wrote her last letter to Elizabeth; and though from an unfriended prisoner to an envied and powerful Sovereign, it evinces so much magnanimity and calm consciousness of mental serenity, that it is impossible to peruse it, without confessing Elizabeth’s inferiority, and Mary’s triumph. It was couched in the following terms:
“Madam, I thank God from the bottom of my heart, that, by the sentence which has been passed against me, he is about to put an end to my tedious pilgrimage. I would not wish it prolonged, though it were in my power, having had enough of time to experience its bitterness. I write at present only to make three last requests which, as I can expect no favour from your implacable ministers, I should wish to owe to your Majesty, and to no other. First, as in England, I cannot hope to be buried according to the solemnities of the Catholic church, (the religion of the ancient Kings, your ancestors and mine, being now changed,) and as in Scotland they have already violated the ashes of my progenitors, I have to request, that, as soon as my enemies have bathed their hands in my innocent blood, my domestics may be allowed to inter my body in some consecrated ground; and, above all, that they may be permitted to carry it to France, where the bones of the Queen, my most honoured mother, repose. Thus, that poor frame, which has never enjoyed repose so long as it has been joined to my soul, may find it at last when they will be separated. Second, as I dread the tyranny of the harsh men, to whose power you have abandoned me, I entreat your Majesty that I may not be executed in secret, but in the presence of my servants and other persons, who may bear testimony of my faith and fidelity to the true church, and guard the last hours of my life, and my last sighs from the false rumours which my adversaries may spread abroad. Third, I request that my domestics, who have served me through so much misery, and with so much constancy, may be allowed to retire without molestation wherever they choose, to enjoy for the remainder of their lives the small legacies which my poverty has enabled me to bequeath to them. I conjure you, Madam, by the blood of Jesus Christ, by our consanguinity, by the memory of Henry VII., our common father, and by the royal title which I carry with me to death, not to refuse me those reasonable demands, but to assure me, by a letter under your own hand, that you will comply with them; and I shall then die as I have lived, your affectionate sister and prisoner, Mary, Queen of Scots.”[197]
Whether Elizabeth ever answered this letter, does not appear; but it produced so little effect, that epistles from her to Sir Amias Paulet still exist, which prove that, in her anxiety to avoid taking upon herself the responsibility of Mary’s death, she wished to have her privately assassinated or poisoned. Paulet, however, though a harsh and violent man, positively refused to sanction so nefarious a scheme. Yet in the very act of instigating murder, Elizabeth could close her eyes against her own iniquity, and affect indignation at the alleged offences of another.[198] But perceiving at length, that no alternative remained, she ordered her secretary Davidson to bring her the warrant for Mary’s execution, and after perusing it, she deliberately affixed her signature. She then desired him to carry it to Walsingham, saying, with an ironical smile, and in a “merry tone,” that she feared he would die of grief when he saw it. Walsingham sent the warrant to the Chancellor, who affixed the Great Seal to it, and despatched it by Beal, with a commission to the Earls of Shrewsbury, Kent, Derby, and others, to see it put in execution. Davidson was afterwards made the victim of Elizabeth’s artifice,—who, to complete the solemn farce she had been playing, pretended he had obeyed her orders too quickly, and doomed him in consequence to perpetual imprisonment.[199]
CHAPTER XII.
MARY’S DEATH, AND CHARACTER.
On the 7th of February 1587, the Earls, who had been commissioned to superintend Mary’s execution, arrived at Fotheringay. After dining together, they sent to inform the Queen, that they desired to speak with her. Mary was not well, and in bed; but as she was given to understand that it was an affair of moment, she rose, and received them in her own chamber. Her six waiting maids, together with her physician, her surgeon, and apothecary, and four or five male servants, were in attendance. The Earl of Shrewsbury, and the others associated with him, standing before her respectfully, with their heads uncovered, communicated, as gently as possible, the disagreeable duty with which they had been intrusted. Beal was then desired to read the warrant for Mary’s execution, to which she listened patiently; and making the sign of the cross, she said, that though she was sorry it came from Elizabeth, she had long been expecting the mandate for her death, and was not unprepared to die. “For many years,” she added, “I have lived in continual affliction, unable to do good to myself or to those who are dear to me;—and as I shall depart innocent of the crime which has been laid to my charge, I cannot see why I should shrink from the prospect of immortality.” She then laid her hand on the New Testament, and solemnly protested that she had never either devised, compassed, or consented to the death of the Queen of England. The Earl of Kent, with more zeal than wisdom, objected to the validity of this protestation, because it was made on a Catholic version of the Bible; but Mary replied, that it was the version, in the truth of which she believed, and that her oath should be therefore only the less liable to suspicion. She was advised to hold some godly conversation with the Dean of Peterborough, whom they had brought with them to console her; but she declined the offer, declaring that she would die in the faith in which she had lived, and beseeching them to allow her to see her Catholic Confessor, who had been for some time debarred her presence. This however they in their turn positively refused.[200]