AN INTERVAL OF SUSPENSE.
The end did not come so quickly as Mary had expected. Although the
sentence had been publicly proclaimed throughout the kingdom, Elizabeth
hesitated to sign the death-warrant. She saw that the execution of the
Scottish queen might be fraught with dangerous consequences to herself
and the realm, and it was not her policy to make a perilous advance
without having provided the means for a safe retreat. If she could only
find some servant who, "upon the winking of authority could understand a
law," her purpose would be better served. Mary would be secretly
removed, and a scapegoat would be at hand to bear the sin, and, if needs
be, the punishment due to it. On February the 1st, she signed the
death-warrant, which had been placed before her among a number of other
papers, and impressed upon Assistant Secretary Davison that she did not
wish to be troubled further with that matter. Indeed she continued to
complain of the lack of zeal in those who had joined the Association for
her defence. She had done all, she said, that could be required of her
by law or reason, and those who were interested in her welfare should
relieve her of further responsibility. "Would it not be better for me,"
she remarked, "to risk personal danger than to take the life of a
relation. But if a loyal subject were to save me from the embarrassment
of dealing the blow, the resentment of Scotland and France might be
disarmed." The prudence of those "loyal subjects" who preferred to
leave the responsibility on her own shoulders, was amply vindicated
immediately after the execution, when, in the futile endeavour to
deceive the French and Spanish ambassadors, she visited Burleigh and
other Ministers with temporary suspension from office, and cast Davison
into the Tower, where she left him to languish for the remainder of her
lifetime, because forsooth they had executed the death-warrant without
her knowledge. Walsingham and Davison felt constrained, however, to
write Sir Amias Paulet and Sir Drew Drury, whom the Queen thought should
be ready to do her will, to point out to them the service their royal
Mistress expected from them. "We find," they wrote, "by speech lately
uttered by Her Majesty that she doth note in you a lack of that care and
zeal of her service that she looked for at your hands, in that you have
not in all this time of yourselves (without other provocation) found out
some way to shorten the life of the Queen, considering the great peril
she (Elizabeth) is subject unto hourly, so long as the said Queen shall
live........
"And therefore she (Elizabeth) taketh it most unkindly towards her, that
men professing that love towards her that you do, should in any kind or
sort, for lack of the discharge of your duties, cast the burthen upon
her, knowing, as you do, her indisposition to shed blood, especially of
one of that sex and quality, and so near to her in blood as the said
Queen is." Closing, they commit Paulet and Drury "to the _protection_
of the Almighty"--which was very thoughtful, seeing how persuasively
they had just been soliciting them to an act of assassination. Paulet,
in spite of his fierce hatred of Mary, unequivocally refused to
entertain the suggestion and expressed his regret that he had lived to
see the unhappy day in which he was "required by direction from her most
gracious sovereign, to do an act which God and the law forbiddeth."
Then, with exquisite propriety of terminology, he commits Walsingham and
Davison, not to the "_protection_"--the time when they most needed
protection he probably thought was past--but to "the _mercy_ of the
Almighty."
In the meantime the preparations for the execution were advancing.
Elizabeth having signed the death-warrant, Davison handed it over to the
Chancellor; at the instance of the Lord Treasurer, Burleigh, the Council
convened, and, without waiting further instructions from the Queen,
appointed the Earls of Kent and Shrewsbury to execute the warrant.
While her fate was being sealed at Westminster, the doomed captive in
Fotheringay was expecting, from day to day, to receive the final blow.
Though frequently confined to bed by rheumatism in her limbs, she
maintained a cheerfulness and composure that greatly annoyed the
irascible Paulet. On December the 15th, he complains to Walsingham that
"this lady continues to show her perverse and obstinate character."
"She shows," he adds, "no sign of repentance and no submission. She
does not acknowledge her fault, does not ask for forgiveness and shows
no sign of wishing to live."
On the 19th of December, she penned a letter of which the following is a
portion, to Queen Elizabeth:--
"Madame, in honour of Jesus (whose name all powers obey), I require you
to promise that when my enemies shall have satisfied their dark desire
for my innocent blood, you will permit that my poor sorrowful servants
may altogether bear my body to be buried in holy ground and near those
of my predecessors who are in France, especially the late queen, my
mother; and this because in Scotland the bodies of the kings, my
ancestors, have been insulted, and the churches pulled down and
profaned, and because, suffering death in this country, I cannot have a
place beside your predecessors, who are also mine; and what is more
important, because in our religion we must prize being buried in holy
ground. And as I am told you wish in nothing to force my conscience or
my religion, and have even conceded me a priest, I hope that you will
not refuse this my last request, but will at least allow free sepulture
to the body from which the soul will be separated, as being united, they
never knew how to obtain liberty to live in peace, or to procure the
same for you, for which before God I do not in any way blame you--but
may God show you the entire truth after my death.
"And because I fear the secret tyranny of some of those into whose power
you have abandoned me, I beg you not to permit me to be executed without
your knowledge--not from fear of the pain, which I am ready to suffer,
but on account of the rumours which would be spread concerning my death
if it was not seen by reliable witnesses; how it was done, I am
persuaded, in the case of others of different rank. It is for this
reason that in another place I require that my attendants remain to be
spectators and witnesses of my end in the faith of my Saviour, and in
the obedience of His Church, and afterwards they shall all together
quickly withdraw, taking my body with them as secretly as you wish, and
so that the furniture and other things which I may be able to leave them
in dying, be not taken from them, which will be, indeed a very small
reward for their good service. Would you wish me to return a jewel,
which you gave me, to you with my last words, or would it please you to
receive it sooner? I implore of you anew to permit me to send a jewel
and a last adieu to my son, together with my blessing, of which he has
been deprived, owing to that you informed me of his refusal to enter
into a treaty in which I was included,--by the unhappy advice of whom?
The last point I leave to your conscience and favourable consideration.
For the others I demand of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, and in
consideration of our relationship, in remembrance of King Henry VII.,
your grandfather and mine[#] and in honour of the dignity we have both
held, and of our common sex, that my request be granted.
[#] Henry VII. was Elizabeth's grandfather and Mary's great-grandfather.
"For the rest I think you will certainly have heard that they pulled
down my dais, by your order, as they said, and that afterwards they told
me that it was not done by your command but by that of some of the
Council. I praise God that such cruelty, which could only show malice
and affect me after I had made up my mind to die, came not from you. I
fear it has been like this in many other things, and that this is the
reason why they would not permit me to write to you until they had, as
far as they could, taken from me all external mark of dignity and power,
telling me I was simply a dead woman, stripped of all dignity.
"God be praised for all. I wish that all my papers, without any
exception, had been shown to you, so that it might have been said that
it was not solely the care of your safety which animated all those who
are so prompt in pursuing me. If you grant me this, my last request,
give orders that I shall see what you write regarding it, as otherwise
they will make me believe what they like; and I desire to know your
final reply to my final request.
"In conclusion, I pray the God of mercy, the just Judge, that He will
deign to enlighten you by His Holy Spirit, and that He will give me the
grace to die in perfect charity, as I am preparing myself to do,
pardoning all those who are the cause of my death, or who have
co-operated in it, and this shall be my prayer till the end. I consider
it happy for me that it should come before the persecution which I
foresee threatens this island--if God is not more truly feared and
revered, and vanity and worldly policy not more wisely curbed. Do not
accuse me of presumption if, on the eve of leaving this world, and
preparing myself for a better, I remind you that one day you will have
to answer for your charge as well as those who are sent before, and
that, making no account of my blood or my country, I desire to think of
the time when, from the earliest dawn of reason, we were taught to place
our soul's welfare before all temporal matters, which should cede to
those of eternity.
"Your Sister and Cousin wrongfully imprisoned,
MARIE, QUEEN."
She wrote again to Elizabeth nearly a month later, but Paulet refused to
dispatch her letter.