MARY'S TREATMENT
As to the rest, I think you know that in your name they have taken down my dais, but afterwards they owned to me that it was not by your commandment, but by the intimation of some of your privy council. I thank God that this wickedness came not from you, and that it serves rather to vent their malice than to afflict me, having made up my mind to die. It is on account of this, and some other things, that they debarred me from writing to you, and after they had done all in their power to degrade me from my rank, they told me "that I was but a mere dead woman, incapable of dignity." God be praised for all!
I could wish that all my papers were brought to you without reserve, that at last it may be manifest to you that the sole care of your safety was not confined to those who are so prompt to persecute me. If you will accord this my last request, I would wish that you would write for them, otherwise they do with them as they choose. And, moreover, I wish that to this, my last request, you will let me know your last reply.
To conclude, I pray God, the just Judge, of His mercy that He will enlighten you with His Holy Spirit, and that He will give you His grace to die in the perfect charity I am disposed to do, and to pardon all those who have caused, or who have co-operated in, my death. Such will be my last prayer to my end, which I esteem myself happy will precede the persecution which I foresee menaces this isle, where God is no longer seriously feared and revered, but vanity and worldly policy rule and govern all. Yet will I accuse no one, nor give way to presumption. Yet while abandoning this world, and preparing myself for a better, I must remind you that one day you will have to answer for your charge, and for all those whom you doom, and that I desire that my blood and my country may be remembered in that time. For why? From the first days of our capacity to comprehend our duties, we ought to bend our minds to make the things of this world yield to those of eternity!
From Fotheringay, this 19th December, 1586.
Your sister and cousin,
Prisoner wrongfully,
Marie Royne.
THE QUEEN'S WILL
The Will of the Queen of Scots.
Strickland's Letters of Mary Queen of Scots, vol. ii. p. 237.