“Weep not, my good Melville!” said Mary Stuart to the faithful
servant who threw himself in a paroxysm of grief at her feet. “Weep not
for me! Thou shouldst rather rejoice that thou shalt now see the end
of the long troubles of Mary Stuart; know, Melville, that this world
is but vanity and full of sorrows. I am Catholic, thou Protestant, but
as there is but one Christ, I charge thee in His name to bear witness
that I die firm to my religion, a true Scotchwoman, and true to France.
Commend me to my dearest and most sweet son. Tell him I have done
nothing to prejudice him in his realm, nor to disparage his dignity,
and if he will live in the fear of God, I doubt not he shall do well.
Tell him, from my example, never to rely too much on human aid, but to
seek that which is from above. If he follow my advice, he shall have
the blessing of God in heaven, as I now give him mine on earth.”
As Mary Stuart ascended the steps of the scaffold, Sir Amyas Paulet,
her last jailer, tendered his hand to aid her. With queenly courtesy
she accepted it, saying: “I thank you, sir; this is the last trouble I
shall ever give you.”
When her upper garments had been removed, she remained clothed in
her petticoat of crimson velvet, with bodice and sleeves of the same
material. As Jane Kennedy drew forth the gold-bordered handkerchief
Mary had given her to bind her eyes, the faithful lady could not
restrain her weeping. But Mary placed her finger on her lips, saying
tenderly: “Hush! I have promised you would make no outcry; weep not,
but pray for me.”
When the handkerchief was pinned over the eyes of her loved mistress
Jane was forced to retire, and Mary Stuart was left alone upon the
scaffold with her executioners. Kneeling on the cushion, the heroic
Queen of Scots repeated with unfaltering voice: “_In te Domine
speravi_” (In thee, Lord, have I hoped). As she was blindfolded she
was then led by the executioner to the block, upon which she bowed her
head without the least hesitation, exclaiming in firm and clear tones,
“_In manus tuas_.” “Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit,” and
the beautiful lips closed forever. At the first blow the agitated
executioner missed his aim, and inflicted a deep wound on the side
of the skull. No groan nor cry escaped the suffering victim, but the
convulsion of her features evinced her terrible pain. At the third blow
the “butcher work” was accomplished, and the beautiful head of the
hapless Queen of Scots, streaming with blood, was held up to the gaze
of the people, as holding aloft this bloody and horrible trophy of his
fiendish deed, the executioner cried, “So perish all Queen Elizabeth’s
enemies!”
But neither wily ministers, nor plotting knaves, nor jealous hate, nor
obedient executioners, could rid Queen Elizabeth of her last great
foe, who, in spite of all her schemes, and tears, and imprecations,
would soon snatch the royal diadem from her brow, and take the sceptre
from her clutching hands, and tear the royal ermine from her tottering
form, and close her defiant eyes. The King of Terrors could neither be
bribed, nor menaced, nor defeated, though she should cry in tortured
agony, “_My kingdom for an hour of time!_” Steadily this conqueror
approached, though she fought desperately to elude his grasp. Far
differently did Elizabeth meet her doom from the heroic Queen of Scots.
Refusing to go to bed lest she should be deemed dying, Elizabeth
commanded that pillows should be piled for her on the floor; and there,
writhing in agony of body and terror of mind, she spent her last hours.
Now calling upon her chaplain to pray, and then muttering in angry
complainings when her ministers requested her to name her successor. At
length she was so weak that she could no longer speak, and she ordered
by signs that the Archbishop of Canterbury should continue to pray.
This the old man did until he was utterly exhausted, the dying queen
each time motioning him to proceed, when he endeavored to stop from
very weariness. Meanwhile her attendants watched her waning breath,
with eager impatience to greet the coming king. But even in death their
wily vigilance was overreached by the apparent sleep of their helpless
sovereign, and Elizabeth had been dead several hours before it was
discovered by her scheming ministers, who were eagerly awaiting the
signal announcing her demise, that they might be the first to shout
“God save James I.! king of England, Ireland and Scotland!”
Mr. Froude thus ably sums up the salient points in the character and
reign of Elizabeth:—
“The years which followed the defeat of the Armada were rich in
events of profound national importance. They were years of splendor
and triumph. The flag of England became supreme on the seas; English
commerce penetrated to the farthest corners of the Old World, and
English colonies rooted themselves on the shores of the New. The
national intellect, strung by excitement of sixty years, took shape
in a literature which is an eternal possession to mankind, while
the incipient struggles of the two parties in the Anglican church
prepared the way for the conflicts of the coming century, and the
second act of the Reformation. The Catholic England with which the
century opened, the England of dominant church, and monasteries, and
pilgrimages, became the England of progressive intelligence; and the
question whether the nation was to pass a second time through the
farce of a reconciliation with Rome was answered once and forever by
the cannon of Sir Francis Drake. The action before Gravelines of the
30th of July, 1588, decided the largest problems ever submitted in the
history of mankind to the arbitrement of force. Beyond and beside the
immediate fate of England, it decided that Philip’s revolted provinces
should never be reannexed to the Spanish Crown. It broke the back of
Spain, sealed the fate of the Duke of Guise, and though it could not
prevent the civil war, it assured the ultimate succession of the king
of Navarre. In its remoter consequences it determined the fate of the
Reformation in Germany; for had Philip been victorious the League must
have been immediately triumphant; the power of France would have been
on the side of Spain and the Jesuits, and the thirty years’ war would
either have never been begun, or would have been brought to a swift
conclusion. It furnished James of Scotland with conclusive reasons for
remaining a Protestant, and for eschewing forever the forbidden fruit
of popery; and thus it secured his tranquil accession to the throne of
England when Elizabeth passed away. Finally, it was the sermon which
completed the conversion of the English nation, and transformed the
Catholics into Anglicans.
“While Parliament was busy with the condition of the people, the
concerns of the Church were taken in hand by the queen herself. For
Protestantism Elizabeth had never concealed her dislike and contempt.
She hated to acknowledge any fellowship in religion either with Scots,
Dutch, or Huguenots. She represented herself to foreign ambassadors
as a Catholic in everything, except in allegiance to the papacy. Even
for the Church of England, of which she was the supreme governor, she
affected no particular respect.
“The want of wisdom shown in the persecution of the Nonconformists was
demonstrated by the event. Puritanism was a living force in England;
Catholicism was a dying superstition. Puritanism had saved Elizabeth’s
crown; Catholicism was a hot-bed of disloyalty. She found herself
compelled against her will to become the patron of heretics and rebels,
in whose objects she had no interest and in whose theology she had no
belief. She resented the necessity while she submitted to it, and her
vacillations are explained by the reluctance with which each successive
step was forced upon her on a road which she detested. It would have
been easy for a Protestant to be decided. It would have been easy for
a Catholic to be decided. To Elizabeth the speculations of so-called
divines were but as ropes of sand and sea-slime leading to the moon,
and the doctrines for which they were rending each other to pieces a
dream of fools or enthusiasts. Unfortunately her keenness of insight
was not combined with any profound concern for serious things. She saw
through the forms in which religion presented itself to the world.
She had none the more any larger or deeper conviction of her own. She
was without the intellectual emotions which give human character its
consistency and power.
“Elizabeth could rarely bring herself to sign the death-warrant of a
nobleman, yet without compunction she could order Yorkshire peasants
to be hung in scores by martial law. She was most remorseless when she
ought to have been most forbearing, and lenient when she ought to have
been stern.
“Vain as she was of her own sagacity, she never modified a course
recommended to her by Burleigh, without injury both to the realm and
to herself. The great results of her reign were the fruits of a policy
which was not her own, and which she starved and mutilated when energy
and completeness were needed.
“The greatest achievement in English history, the ‘breaking the
bonds of Rome,’ and the establishment of spiritual independence, was
completed without bloodshed under Elizabeth’s auspices, and Elizabeth
may have the glory of the work.
“In fighting out her long quarrel with Spain and building her church
system out of the broken masonry of popery, her concluding years
passed away. The great men who had upheld the throne in the days of
her peril dropped one by one into the grave. Walsingham died soon
after the defeat of the Armada, ruined in fortune and weary of his
ungrateful service. Hunsdon, Knollys, Burleigh, Drake, followed at
brief intervals, and their mistress was left by herself, standing as
it seemed on the pinnacle of earthly glory, yet in all the loneliness
of greatness, and unable to enjoy the honors which Burleigh’s policy
had won for her. The first place among the Protestant powers, which had
been so often offered her and so often refused, has been forced upon
her in spite of herself. She was head of the name, but it gave her no
pleasure. She was the last of her race; no Tudor would sit again on the
English throne. Her own sad prophecy was fulfilled, and she lived to
see those whom she most trusted turning their eyes to the rising sun.
“Old age was coming upon her, bringing with it perhaps a consciousness
of failing faculties; and solitary in the midst of splendor, and
friendless among the circle of adorers, who swore they lived but in her
presence, she grew weary of a life which had ceased to interest her.
Sickening of a vague disease, she sought no help from medicine, and
finally refused to take food. She could not rest in her bed, but sat
silent on cushions, staring into vacancy with fixed and stony eyes, and
so at last she died.
“All questions connected with the virgin queen should be rather studied
in her actions than in the opinion of the historian who relates them.
_Opinions_ are but forms of cloud created by the prevailing currents of
the moral air. _Actions and words are carved upon eternity._”