I put my trust. My time, sir is too short
For controversy: and that good man’s duty
Compels him to dispute my creed. I thank him:
Pray you, sir, say I thank him, from my heart,
For all his charities. In privacy
My prayers—not unacceptable, I trust,
To God my Saviour—have been offered up.
So must they to the end.”
But in the scene before the execution—one of singular power—the unhappy queen evinces a yearning for sympathy which triumphs over rigor, and, in spite of Gardiner’s presence, makes her relent, though too late.
First we see her alone. She is vindicating herself to her conscience: