The Earl of Kent next solicited her to join with him and the Protestant chaplain in their devotions. But she declined, and, kneeling apart, repeated a part of the penitential Psalms, and afterwards continued her prayers aloud in English. By this time, the chaplain had concluded; there was a deep silence, so that every word was heard. It was impossible for any one to behold her at this moment without being deeply affected—on her knees, her hands clasped and raised to heaven, an expression of adoration and divine serenity lighting up her features, and upon her lips the 332 words of forgiveness to her persecutors. Having finished, she cheerfully suffered herself to be undressed by her women, gently admonishing them not to distress her by their lamentations; putting her finger on her lips, and bidding them remember that she had promised for them. On seeing the executioner approach to offer his assistance, she smiled, and playfully said, “that she had neither been used to such grooms of the chamber, nor to undress before so many people.” When all was ready, she kissed her women, and, giving them her last blessing, she knelt down and groped her way to the block,—for her eyes were bound,—and laid her neck upon it without the slightest mark of trembling or hesitation. Her last words were, “Into thy hands I commend my spirit, for thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.” At two strokes, her head was severed from her body, and the executioner, holding it up, called aloud, “God save the queen!” “So let all Queen Elizabeth’s enemies perish!” was the prayer of the chaplain; but the spectators were dissolved in tears, and one deep voice alone answered, “Amen!” It came from the Earl of Kent. On removing the body, and the clothes and mantle which lay beside it, Mary’s favorite little dog, which had followed its mistress unperceived, was found nestling under them. No entreaty could prevail on it to quit the spot; and it remained lying beside the corpse, and stained in the blood, till forcibly carried away by the attendants.
Elizabeth affected to receive the news of the death of her rival with surprise and grief; she even carried her artifice to so barbarous a length, as to render Davison, 333 the secretary, and the innocent instrument of her cruelty and dissimulation, the victim of her perfidy. Under pretence that he had orders not to let the warrant go out of his office, he was degraded, fined, imprisoned, and utterly ruined. By this sacrifice, she hoped to appease the king of Scots, whom the death of his mother had filled with grief and resentment, which yielded, however, at length, to the necessities of his situation. Having affected to admit the excuses of Elizabeth, and to be satisfied with the sacrifice of Davison, he stifled his indignation, and continued the semblance of amity with the English court. Thus the death and sufferings of Mary remained unavenged, while Elizabeth was suffered to reap the advantages of her malignity.
ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF ENGLAND.
This extraordinary woman, the daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, was born in 1533. Being educated a Protestant, and having adopted the principles of the reformation, she was looked upon with suspicion and treated with harshness during the reign of her sister Mary. She devoted herself, however, to study, and is thus described at this period: “She was of admirable beauty, and well deserving a crown; of a modest gravity, excellent wit, royal soul, happy memory, and indefatigably given to the study of learning, insomuch as, before she was seventeen years of age, she understood well the Latin, French, and Italian tongues, and had an indifferent knowledge of the Greek. Neither did she neglect music, so far as it became a princess, being able to sing sweetly, and play handsomely on the lute.”
On the death of Mary, in 1558, she was immediately proclaimed queen, and was received in the metropolis with the loudest acclamations. She consigned to oblivion all the affronts she had received during the late reign, and prudently assumed the gracious demeanor of the common sovereign of all her subjects. Philip of Spain soon made her proposals of marriage; but she knew the aversion borne him by the nation too well to think of accepting him.
QUEEN ELIZABETH ON A TOUR THROUGH HER REALM.