Elizabeth's instructions to Lord Buckhurst to communicate the
sentence of death to Mary, and her remarkable reasons for this
act—Elizabeth compromised in the Babington Conspiracy—Her
letter to Paulet to allow the commissioners an interview with
Mary—Elizabeth's chicanery (Petit's version)—Paulet to Walsingham,
21st November 1586—Letter Henry III. to his Ambassador in London
to request James to save his mother's life—Sentence of death
communicated to Mary by Buckhurst—Queen Mary's pathetic letter
to the Pope informing him that she has been sentenced to die,
and giving her last instructions—Her letter to the Duke of Guise
informing him of her sentence, and giving instructions about her
affairs.
Having in the previous chapter touched on the various points which
occupied the attention of Queen Mary's enemies during the past four
months, we now arrive at a critical period, the month of November.
The situation was gradually becoming more serious and more acute,
indicating that the mind of Elizabeth was not only fixed on the
Scottish Queen during the day but during the night. The subject,
in short, engrossed her whole attention. On 16th November 1586 she
formulated her final instructions to Lord Buckhurst regarding the
sentence of death which in her former letter she had ordered her
ministers to find and pronounce. In this document, which we give
in full, much is false and conjectural, much of it grotesque, while
none of it is sincere or truthful. It would not occur to the Queen of
England that these interpolations on Queen Mary's letters would ever be
discovered:—
“Instructions given by Elizabeth to Lord Buckhurst and Robert Beale to
declare to the Queen of Scots the sentence passed against her and the
demand for her execution:
“After you have informed yourselves particularly as well of the
treatise offered and other things needful which have passed between us
and the Scottish Queen; of the manifold favours we have from time to
time shown to her, both before and since her arrival within our realm,
requited by her great ingratitude toward us, of which our pleasure is
you shall receive some special note and remembrance from our principal
secretary Walsingham, as also of the whole course of our proceedings
with her in trial of the late unnatural and wicked conspiracy against
our life and Crown, whereof she is found by a just and honourable
sentence of our nobility to have been not only privy and consenting,
but also a compasser and contriver to the inevitable danger of our
life and state. God of his great mercy towards us and our poor people
most happily and miraculously discovered and prevented the same. Our
pleasure is that you shall immediately repair to Fotheringay, where
the said Queen now remains in charge of Sir Amias Paulet, and after
you have delivered our letter to him and imparted our instructions
and other directions, you shall go together to the Scottish Queen, to
whom you shall signify the cause of our sending you to her, namely,
to let her understand how the lords and our commissioners lately
sent to Fotheringay have proceeded from their return from her. You
shall particularly explain the causes which moved them to postpone
the pronouncing of their sentence, their several meetings after their
return at our Star Chamber to examine and perfect their proceedings, so
that no just exception might be taken against the same; the producing
before them of Nau and Curle; their free, voluntary, and public
maintaining and confirming in their presence, without either hope
of reward or fear of punishment, of all those things which they had
before testified both by word, subscription, and oath, against her; and
finally, the sentence given by the universal consent of all the lords
and other commissioners, that she was not only privy to the late most
horrible and wicked conspiracy against our person, but a contriver and
compasser thereof according to the words of the sentence, which to
this effect our pleasure is shall be delivered to you. And also how
the Parliament of this realm now assembled, having been informed of
our honourable and just proceedings by our commission, directed to the
lords and others appointed for the examination and trial thereof, and
made acquainted with the particulars of those things with which they
found her charged, together with the testimonies and proofs produced
against her, and her own answers to the same. Finding, after deliberate
consideration, that the sentence pronounced by the commissioners was
most just, lawful, and honourable, have not only with full consent
and without scruple or contradiction affirmed and approved the same,
but also by sundry deputies selected from both Houses of the Lords
and Commons and addressed to us in the name of the realm, offered and
presented their humble and earnest petitions to us, both written and
oral, tending to the moving and persuading of us by their strong and
invincible arguments to proceed to the finishing of the sentence by
the execution of her whom they find to be the seed plot, chief and
motive and author of all these conspiracies which these many years past
have been hatched, intended, and attempted against our person, Crown,
and State, and do yet still threaten the same. If we should not apply
that remedy which in honour, justice, and necessity appertaineth, we
should be guilty and inexcusable before God and the whole world of all
the miseries and calamities that may ensue of our neglect or refusal
to agree to their humble petition, so greatly affecting the safety
of our person and preservation of the State, of religion, and common
weal of our realm, none of which can in their opinion be otherwise
sufficiently provided for and assured against such outward dangers than
by a just execution of her by whom and for whom they have been, and
are still likely to be, devised, attempted, and followed out against
us. And for that we are pressed on all sides as well with respect to
honour, justice, surety, and necessity as the unfortunate suit and
petition of our Lords and Commons, who still protest that they can find
no other way of assurance for our person, religion, and State than by
proceeding against her according to justice. You shall therefore let
her understand that we know not how it shall please God to incline
and dispose our heart in this matter, but we have thought meet in
conscience that she should be forewarned thereof, so that she may the
better bethink herself of her former sins and offences both to God and
to us, and call on Him for grace to be truly penitent and for her late
unnatural and ungodly conspiracy against our life. This crime is so
much the greater and more odious in the sight of God and man in that
she hath suborned and encouraged some of our own subjects to be the
actors and doers of an act so foul and horrible against their Sovereign
and anointed prince her own near kinswoman, and one that, however she
may account thereof in nature and duty for past benefits, ought to have
received a more charitable measure at her hands if either the fear of
God or common humanity had prevailed anything with her. And because
she should have no reason to think herself hardly dealt with in the
manner of our proceedings against her, you shall let her know how much
the respect of her degree, calling, and nearness in blood to ourselves
hath moved us to take the course we have done in sending her a number
of our chief and most ancient nobility to examine and try her offence.
We might have proceeded otherwise by an ordinary course of law without
these respects and ceremonies if we had not preferred our own honour to
any other particular affection of malice or revenge against her, which
you may truly say is such as if the consequence of her offence reached
no farther than to ourselves as a private person. We protest before
God we could have been very well contented to have freely remitted
and pardoned the same, if we might hereafter have lived sufficiently
cautioned and assured against the like, a thing so much the more
hopeless however she might hereafter reform herself. The taking of
our life and subversion thereby of the present state of religion and
commonwealth is amongst her factors and instruments abroad and at home
now held and approved in their bloody divinity, as work meritorious
and lawful before God and man. And whereas in the opening of these
particulars she may happen, as in the late meeting of our commissioners
with her, to fall into some justification of her former offers and
demeanour towards us, removing the cause of all these mischiefs from
herself and imputing the same to the hard treatment she may pretend to
have received at our hands. We have thought meet, in case she shall
fall into any such argument, that you remind her how much she is to
blame to wrong us in honour with her unjust and untrue assertions,
considering how much more graciously we have dealt with her than she
could with any judgment or reason expect, if we had proportioned our
favour with her own demerits. You may take occasion to point out to her
those our deserts and benefits with her many ingratitudes in recompense
for them, which is conform to a special note from our secretary which
shall be delivered to you. Lastly, in case you shall find her desirous
to communicate with either of you apart under a pretence of revealing
any matter or secret of weight to be delivered to us concerning either
ourselves or our service, we think it not amiss that you conform
yourselves to her desire, and thereby, if you find cause, to advise us
before your return, which we leave to your discretion.
“ELIZABETH R.”
This is probably the most startling official paper to be found
during the period covered by our narrative. It is pure fiction and
was written a month after Queen Mary's trial. The first question
that arises is this: Was Elizabeth connected directly or indirectly
with the interpolations on these letters, and if so, to what extent?
She was much too clever a woman to commit anything to writing that
would incriminate herself. We have evidence that Walsingham, her
secretary, was the writer of them, and that he paid Phillips to open
the letters surreptitiously, copy them, and on the copies introduce the
interpolations. The originals were evidently destroyed, for they were
never seen again.[11]
Could anyone suppose that this momentous proceeding was going on
without the knowledge of the English Queen? Such a supposition
would be impossible. Walsingham was a daily visitor at court and
Elizabeth's paid secretary. It would have been as much as his life
was worth to negotiate this diabolical plot unknown to his mistress,
and particularly as every movement in connection with the Queen of
Scots had to be communicated to her. It was a case where she reserved
to herself exclusively the privilege of giving every order, with no
intention whatever of consulting her responsible ministers or her
Privy Council. In this particular matter they were merely figureheads.
Walsingham, therefore, whose character we have already described,
was in this case nothing but a puppet in the hands of a powerful and
unscrupulous woman, stronger than himself. If he had an audience of
her daily no correspondence between them would be necessary. The spies
employed were Walsingham's servants. Their object was to inveigle
Mary into a crime that was punishable with death. Walsingham having
failed to get Babington's consent to Elizabeth's assassination, and
thereby compromise the Scottish Queen, evidently resolved on the
other alternative, and manufactured the material which Phillips
introduced into the letters. The circumstantial evidence is too strong
to permit of Elizabeth's escape from the responsibility. The actual
extent to which she was compromised we shall probably never know, but
it is a fair and reasonable deduction from the correspondence, as
now disclosed, to say that she and Walsingham were responsible for
connecting Mary with the plot against her life. There is no proof
against Mary that will stand investigation, and no proof at all save
forged and interpolated letters (see pp. 228-40). It was, in plain
language, a cunning plot by Elizabeth against Elizabeth to encompass
the Scottish Queen in a false conspiracy against her life.
[Illustration: SIR FRANCIS WALSINGHAM, Secretary to Queen Elizabeth.]
The foregoing paper containing instructions to Buckhurst, the outcome
of this plot, we shall proceed to analyse. For audacity and unblushing
falsehood it is almost without precedent. It proceeds on the assumption
that the duplicity of the writer would not be found out, and we have
no evidence that during her lifetime, or for long after, it was found
out. The first paragraph takes us back to the beginning of Mary's
captivity, and considering the length of that captivity and the
treatment Mary experienced, the paragraph and its charges may be
regarded as sheer imagination, to which the innocence of Mary has given
the lie. The second paragraph requires Buckhurst to explain the cause
of his mission, the entire responsibility of which Elizabeth put on the
shoulders of her lords and commissioners, who, she says, gave sentence
against Mary unanimously! This almost takes away one's breath. The
reader will take note that the sentence was written out by Elizabeth,
handed by her to her ministers with a command to make it their finding
notwithstanding Mary's guilt or innocence. No one dared to offer a word
against it, or in short to have any opinion of his own; otherwise it
might have cost him his life. As regards Nau and Curie, their evidence
was obtained by the rack, and is of no value. The third paragraph
orders the execution, with the hypocritical reasons which led to it, in
all of which the wish is father to the thought, and plainly indicates
the mind of Elizabeth. The conspiracy trick was an excellent trump card
for such a woman to play against Mary, and by that means get quit of
a rival whom of all the women in the world she knew to be superior to
herself in every accomplishment. No woman could frequent the court of
Elizabeth who was superior to her in these respects. We have a proof
of this in the famous interview between her and Sir James Melville
in 1564, when Melville's ingenuity was taxed to the uttermost to
acknowledge Elizabeth's accomplishments against his will. The fourth
paragraph may be considered as perjury and hypocrisy and a repetition
of the unblushing falsehoods already expressed. The fifth paragraph
doubtless was intended to convey to Mary some idea of the saintly
conduct of Elizabeth and the wicked conduct of Mary, which reminds us
of the Pharisee in the Hebrew story. The commissioners were to let her
know “how much in respect of her degree, calling, and nearness in blood
to us, have moved us to take the course we have done in sending our
chief nobility to try her case.” Whether this sentimental and insulting
message was conveyed to Mary is not recorded, but the probability is it
was not. The sixth paragraph is an “instruction” to the captive that
as she has no case she is not to abuse the plaintiff. If she attempted
to justify herself before the commissioners she was to be told what
was equivalent to an insult: “how much she is to blame to wrong us in
honour with her unjust and untrue assertions.” This was before any
assertions were made! Obviously the English Queen was not endowed with
the common feelings of humanity. If we wished to get a side-light into
her character this paper would afford us as much information as we
require.
On the same day, 16th November, Queen Elizabeth wrote Paulet,
authorising him to allow the commissioners an interview with Mary:—
“We have thought it convenient, for sundry reasons, to send Lord
Buckhurst and Beale to acquaint the Queen your charge, as well
with the proceedings of the commissioners since their departure
from Fotheringay, as with what hath been lately done in Parliament
concerning the commissioners' proceedings. Our pleasure is that you
permit them to have access to the said Queen, hoping in God that before
they repair thither you will be restored to that good state of health,
so that you may be able to assist and join them in the present service
committed to them. And in case the said Queen shall desire to have any
conference apart, upon pretence to reveal some secret matter to be
communicated to us, either with Lord Buckhurst or with any one of our
servants, we are willing to assent thereto if she shall request the
same; otherwise we could best like that you should be present when any
such remarks should be delivered.”
When Parliament ordained the sentence to be carried out, Elizabeth was
the more overjoyed at it as she believed herself thereby cleared, while
she had accomplished her brutal purpose; and she took care to hint that
but for the love of her people she could never have made up her mind
to sign the death-warrant of Mary Stuart! She said, “I must tell you
one thing, that by the last Act of Parliament you have reduced me to
such straits and perplexities that I must resolve upon the punishment
of her who is a princess, so nearly allied to me in blood, and whose
practices against me have so deeply affected me with grief and sorrow
that I have willingly chosen to absent myself from this Parliament lest
I should increase my trouble by hearing the matter mentioned, and not
out of fear of any danger or treacherous attempts against me, as some
think. But I will now tell you a further secret (though it be not usual
with me to blab forth in other cases what I know). It is not long since
these eyes of mine saw and read an oath wherein some bound themselves
to kill me within a month. Hereby I see your danger in my person, which
I will be very careful to prevent and keep off.”[12]
The unabated energy shown in the espionage of the Scottish Queen is
evident from Paulet's letter to Walsingham under date 21st November
1586:—
“My letter to Her Majesty enclosed herein will be, I doubt not,
imparted to you; and although it pleaseth you to impute her intended
liberality to my servants and soldiers to the report of Stallenge, yet
I am persuaded that the same hath proceeded of your favour towards
me and mine; wherein you have bound me very much, and indeed I thank
you for it as for a singular benefit. I do not remember, and I think
I may be bold to deny, that I have at any time left this lady in her
passionate speeches. I have said to Stallenge, and it is very true that
in former times I have observed this course: to have as little talk
with her as I might. Lately, following your direction, I have given
her full scope to say what she would; and yet at some times, finding
no matter to come from her worthy of notice, I have departed from her,
as otherwise she would never have left me; and I am deceived if Lord
Buckhurst will not give the same testimony of her tediousness.”
At this crisis the conduct of James VI. surprised many of the friends
of Mary. He was indifferent about his mother, because he was shaping
his policy to succeed Elizabeth, and to do so he must not quarrel with
her. A judicious and well-expressed letter on the subject was sent by
Henry III. of France to Courcelles, his Ambassador. It was intended
that this letter should be put before James, which doubtless was done,
but for the reason stated was not acted upon. It is believed he could
have saved his mother's life, but he was a selfish young man, and from
all reports indifferent to his mother's circumstances, he never having
seen her since he was an infant. The letter from the French King is
full of sympathy, with every expression of anxiety for the sad and
pitiful condition of the unfortunate Mary. It bears date, St. Germains,
21st November 1586:—
“I have received your letter of 4th October informing me of the
conversation which passed between you and the King of Scotland on your
expressing to him the sincere affection I bear him, by which he seems
to have an earnest desire to correspond with me entirely; but I wish
that letter had also informed me that he were better disposed towards
the Queen his mother, and that he had the heart and the will to do
everything to assist her in her present affliction, considering that
the captivity in which she has been unjustly held for eighteen years
and more might have induced him to listen to the many proposals which
have been made to him for obtaining her liberty, which is naturally
most desirable to all men, but more particularly to those who are born
sovereigns and to command others, who are more impatient of being thus
detained prisoners. He ought also to think that if the Queen of England
should follow the advice of those who desire her to imbrue her hands in
the blood of his mother, it will be a great stain on his reputation,
inasmuch as it will be thought that he has withheld the good offices
which he ought to render her with the Queen of England, which might be
sufficient to move her if he had employed them as early and as warmly
as natural affection commanded. It is much to be feared that in case
of the death of his mother there may be hereafter some scheme for
acting the same violent part towards him, to render his accession to
the throne of England more easily attainable by those who have it in
their power to secure it after the Queen of England, and not only to
deprive the King of Scotland of the right that he may claim to it, but
render doubtful that which he has to the crown of Scotland. I know not
in what state the affairs of my sister-in-law (Queen Mary) may be when
this reaches you, but I desire you will endeavour to excite the King of
Scotland by these remonstrances and any others that can bear on this
subject, to take up the defence and protection of his mother; and tell
him in my name that this is a thing for which he will be highly praised
by all other kings and sovereign princes, and that he may be assured
if he fails in this, great blame will attach to him and perhaps great
injury ensue to himself.”
In the circumstances this was a noble letter, but on James it was
quite lost. He had been repeatedly asked to befriend his mother, but
we have no evidence that he ever did so. With him “the love of money
was the root of all evil,” for he was constantly in want of money.
Elizabeth aided him, and in fact controlled him; but that was no reason
for allowing his mother to be murdered when he could have prevented
it. King Henry III. of France behaved to Queen Mary as a brother and
exerted himself more than anyone else to save her. But what is to be
said of her son, on whom this eloquent letter of the King of France was
lost!
It is evident from the conduct of Elizabeth that Mary's life could
not have been saved except by military force, and nothing should have
prevented James from appealing to arms. The kings of France and Spain
would have given him the necessary assistance. The more we know of
James the less do we feel enthusiasm for him.
On 23rd November 1586 sentence of death was communicated to Queen Mary
by Buckhurst, by order of Elizabeth. It does not appear that Mary was
surprised by the announcement; it would rather appear that for some
time she had been daily in expectation of it. To an ordinary individual
the intimation would have been overwhelming, it would have crushed him
to the earth. Mary, however, was made of sterner stuff. She had an
overflow of spirits, which during her captivity did her great service
and was a great factor in preventing her falling into melancholy. It
may be said that her brilliant spirit never left her, but carried
her through all her troubles up to their final termination. On the
very day when she received this crushing intimation she sat down and
wrote a long and beautiful letter to the Pope, a letter which His
Holiness could not read without emotion. She also wrote to the Duke of
Guise. These letters have been preserved and are as follows (slightly
condensed):—
23rd November 1586, Fotheringay:
“Holy Father; And so it is that it has pleased God by his divine
providence to make an order in his Church by which he has willed that
under His Son Jesus Christ crucified all those who should believe in
Him and be baptized in name of the Holy Trinity should acknowledge one
universal and Catholic Church....
“I have been unable to give due testimony to your Holiness in
consequence of my detention in this captivity together with my long
illness, but now that it has pleased God to permit for my sins and
those of this unfortunate island that I should be, after twenty years
of captivity, shut up in a close prison and at last condemned to die
by the Government and heretical Parliament of this country: as it has
been signified to me today by Lord Buckhurst, Amias Paulet, my keeper,
one Sir Drew Drury, and a secretary named Beale, in name of their Queen
commanding me to prepare to receive death, offering me one of their
bishops and a Dean for my consolation, a priest whom I had having been
by them long ago taken from me and kept I know not where, in their
hands. I have considered it to be my first duty to turn myself to God,
and then with my hand to signify all to your Holiness, that although I
cannot make you hear it before my death, at least after it the cause
of it may be manifest to you; which is, the whole well sifted and
considered, for the subversion of their religion in this island alleged
by them to be by me designed and in my favour attempted both by their
own subjects obedient to your laws, their declared enemies, and by
strangers, in particular the Catholic princes and my relations, who
all maintain my right to the crown of England, causing me to be named
as such in their prayers in the churches. I leave to your Holiness to
consider the consequences of this opinion, supplicating you to cause
prayer to be offered for my poor soul; and of all those who have died
or shall die for the same and the like opinions. And also in honour of
God to distribute of your alms, and instigate the kings to do the same,
to those who shall remain alive from this shipwreck. My intention being
to confess, to do penance so far as is in me, and receive my viaticum
if I can obtain my chaplain or other lawful minister to administer
to me my last sacrament, as in default of this with a contrite and
penitent heart I prostrate myself at the feet of your Holiness,
confessing myself to God and to His saints a most unworthy sinner, and
deserving of eternal damnation, if it please not the good God who died
for sinners to receive me by His infinite mercy to the number of poor
sinners penitent by His grace. Entreating you to accept this my general
submission and as a testimony of my intention to fulfil the rest in the
form ordained and commanded by the Church and to give me your general
absolution....
“I entreat your Holiness to impetrate from the most Christian King that
my jointure may be charged with the payment of my debts and the wages
of my poor desolate servants, and with an annual obit for my soul and
those of all my brethren deceased in this just quarrel; having had
no other private intention, as my poor servants present at this my
affliction will testify to you, and how I have willingly offered my
life in their heretical assembly to maintain my religion, Catholic,
Apostolic, and Roman, and bring back the devout of this island;
protesting in this case that I would willingly demit all title and
dignity of Queen, and do all service and duty to theirs, if she would
cease to persecute the Catholics, as I protest that this is the object
at which I have aimed since I have been in this country, and have no
ambition or desire to reign or dispossess others for my own sake, being
by sickness and long affliction so weakened that I have no more desire
to trouble myself in this world than with the service of His Church and
the gaining of the souls of this island to God. For evidence of which
at my end I would not fail to prefer the public safety to the private
interest of flesh and blood, which makes me beseech you, with a mortal
regret for the perdition of my poor child, after having by all means
endeavoured to retrieve him, being to him a true father as St. John
the Evangelist was to the youth whom he recalled from the company of
the robbers, to take at last all the authority over him which I can
give you to constrain him, and to call on the Catholic King to assist
you in what relates to temporal matters, and especially together to
endeavour to unite him by marriage. And if God for my sins permits him
to be obstinate, knowing no Christian prince at this time who exerts
himself so much for the faith, nor possesses such means of assisting in
the reduction of this island, as the Catholic King to whom I am so much
indebted, he being the only one who has assisted me with his money and
advice in my necessities, under your good pleasure I leave him all the
rights or interest which I can have in the government of this kingdom.
Should my son remain obstinately out of the Church; whom if he can be
brought back I desire to be by him and my kinsmen of Guise assisted,
supported, and advised, enjoining him by my last will to consider them
after you as fathers, and to ally himself by their advice and consent
and with one of these two houses, and if it should please God I wish
him worthy to be a son of the Catholic King. You shall have the true
recital of the manner of my last struggle and all the proceedings
against me and by me, so that, knowing the truth, the calumnies which
the enemies of the Church would fasten on me may be by you refuted and
the truth known.[13]
“MARIE R.”
Queen Mary at the same time wrote to the Duke of Guise, Fotheringay,
23rd Nov. 1586:—
“You whom I hold most dear in the world I bid you farewell, being on
the point of being put to death by an unjust judgment, such a one as
never any belonging to our race yet suffered, much less one of my rank.
But praise God, my good cousin; for, situated as I have been, I was
useless to the world in the cause of God and his Church; but I hope
that my death will bear witness of my constancy in the faith and my
readiness to die for the support and restoration of the Catholic Church
in this unfortunate island. And though executioner never yet dipped
his hand in our blood, be not ashamed, my friend; for the judgment of
these heretics and enemies of the Church, and who have no jurisdiction
over me, a free Queen, is profitable before God to the children of
His Church, which, had I not adhered to, this stroke had been spared
me. All those of our house have been persecuted by this sect; witness
your good father, with whom I hope to be received in mercy by the just
Judge. I recommend then to you all my poor servants, the discharge of
my debts, and the founding of some annual obit for my soul; not at
your expense, but to make such solicitation and arrangements as shall
be requisite to fulfil my intentions, which you will be informed of by
my poor disconsolate servants, eye-witnesses of this my last tragedy.
May God prosper your wife, children, brothers, and cousins, and all
belonging to them. May the blessing of God and that which I should
give to my own children be upon yours, whom I commend to God not less
sincerely than my own unfortunate and deluded son. You will receive
tokens (rings) from me to remind you to have prayers said for the soul
of your poor cousin, destitute of all aid and counsel but that of God,
who gives me strength and courage to withstand alone so many wolves
howling after me; to God be the glory! Believe in particular a person
who will give you in my name a ruby ring, for I assure you upon my
conscience that this person will tell you the truth agreeably to my
desire, especially as to what concerns my poor servants and the share
of each. I have suffered much for the last two years and upwards, but
have not been able to inform you of it for an important reason. God be
praised for all things, and may He give you grace to persevere in the
service of His Church so long as you live, and may that honour never
depart from our race, that all of us may be ready to shed our blood in
the defence of the faith regardless of all other worldly interests.
For my own part, I think myself born both on the father's and mother's
side to offer up my blood for it, and have no intention to degenerate.
May Jesus crucified for us and all the holy martyrs render us by their
intercession worthy of the free-will offering of our bodies for His
glory. Thinking to degrade me, they took down my canopy, and my keeper
afterwards came and offered to write to the Queen, saying that this
act had not been done by her command but by the advice of some of her
council. I showed them on the canopy, in place of my coat of arms, the
cross of my Saviour. You will be informed of all that was said; they
have since been more indulgent.
”MARIE R. of Scotland,
Dowager of France.”