Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/532

518 princess of a house that he detested—that of Guise—but he endeavoured to stimulate her unworthy son, King James, to the rescue. He assured him that if he allowed his mother's life to be thus taken, it would draw upon him the most terrible reproaches, and that, moreover, her execution would exclude him from the English throne. This alarmed James, and he sent to the English Court Robert Keith, a young man of no weight, but who was a pensionary of Elizabeth, like James himself. This did not escape the notice of the public, who concluded that James cared nothing about the fate of his mother whilst he could send such a man, at the time that the chief nobility of Scotland were in a state of high indignation at the idea of a Queen of Scotland being treated like a subject, and a criminal subject, of the Queen of England. Many of the chief nobility offered to go and put in the king's protest at their own cost; yet James, whose resident ambassador at the English Court was the notorious Archibald Douglas, who had been one of the most active of his father's murderers, now added to the wonder by sending that insignificant and bribed emissary. It was proposed to send Francis Stuart, the new Earl of Bothwell, a nephew of Alary, who was bold and outspoken, but Archibald Douglas managed to prevent that. Courcelles, the present French ambassador, wrote to Henry III., that he augured little from James's appointment of his agents; and truly when Keith appeared before Elizabeth and delivered a remonstrance from James, Elizabeth went into a fury that terrified both of her pensioners, James and his man Keith.

The pusillanimous monarch, on receiving the account of Elizabeth's anger, made haste to write a most humble apology, and to send two other envoys who might be more acceptable to the English queen. These were Sir Robert Melville, and Mar, the master of Gray. Melville was a respectable man, but Gray had already betrayed the interests of Mary to the English Court, and he had written before he set out from Scotland that she should be quietly removed by poison, and on arriving he renewed the bait by whispering in the ear of Elizabeth that "the dead cannot bite." Another of his agents, Stuart, assured her that James had only sent them merely to save appearances, and that, whatever he might pretend, he would be easily pacified by a present of dogs or deer.

Thus, with the exception of Melville, James's ambassadors were really the paid tools of Elizabeth, like himself, and came only to sell the life of his mother. Melville endeavoured to persuade the queen to allow Mary to be sent to Scotland, engaging for the king that he would keep her safe. On this Elizabeth turned to Leicester, and openly expressed the utmost contempt for James and his proposals. Gray, who appeared to fulfil his commission whilst he was really bargaining for advantages to himself, now suggested that Mary was willing to resign all her rights in favour of her son, on which Leicester suggested that this merely meant that James should be put in his mother's place in regard to the succession to the English crown. This sore point of the succession drove Elizabeth into one of her furies, and she exclaimed, "Ha! is that your meaning? then I put myself in a worse case than before. That were to cut my own throat, and for a duchy or an earldom to yourself, you, or such as you, would cause some of your desperate knaves to kill me. No, he shall never be in that place."

Gray remarked that it was true that James must succeed, in case of his mother's death, to all her claims, and therefore it appeared useless to execute Mary. This only doubled Elizabeth's wrath, and she retired in fury. Gray had made a public advocacy of the queen, which he was well aware would only hasten her fate; but honest Melville followed Elizabeth, and entreated her with much feeling to delay her execution; but the exasperated woman only exclaimed, "No! not for an hour!" and the door was closed behind her.

James, on learning these particulars, appeared alarmed into anxiety. He wrote with his own hand to Gray, commanding him to speak out plainly and exert himself to save his mother. But Walsingham, who knew the true chord in James's heart to appeal to, wrote to him expressing his surprise at his endeavouring to save a mother who had destroyed his father, never had been a mother to him, and who, if she succeeded in escaping, could only exclude him from the throne, and put down the Reformed Church. James at once, therefore, obeyed Walsingham's hint, whilst he appeared to consult his dignity. He recalled his ambassadors, and took the field for the rescue of his mother, not at the head of an army, but by enjoining the Presbyterian clergy to pray for her, an office which he must have been well aware they would never consent to, on behalf of a queen whom they regarded as the enemy of the Church.

Elizabeth had now thrown the responsibility of Mary's death on the Council, the Parliament, and the people, and bullied the Kings of France and Scotland into silence. What yet restrained her from executing the Queen of Scots? She had to sign the death-warrant, and she must throw even that on some other party too. The mode in which she went about this is, perhaps, more extraordinary than all the rest. She went about continually muttering to herself, "Aut fer aut feri: ne feriare feri" (Either endure or strike: strike lest thou be stricken). Instead of proceeding to sign the death-warrant and let the execution take its course, she had it again debated in the Council whether it were not better to take her off by poison. Walsingham, who saw that the responsibility would be certainly thrown on somebody near the queen, got away from Court; and the warrant, drawn up by Burleigh, was handed by him to Davison, the queen's secretary, to get it engrossed and presented to the queen for signature. When he did this, she bade him keep it awhile, and it lay in his hands for five or six weeks. But both Leicester and Burleigh were impatient for its execution; and directly after the departure of James's ambassadors in February, he was ordered to present it; and then Elizabeth signed it, bidding him take it to the great seal, "and trouble her no more with it." So far from appearing impressed with the seriousness of the act she had performed, she was quite jocose, telling Davison that he might call on Walsingham, who was sick, and show it to him thus signed, which, she said ironically, she feared would kill him outright. Then, as if suddenly recollecting herself, she said, "Surely Paulet and Drury might ease me of this burden. Do you and Walsingham sound their dispositions." Burleigh and Leicester, to whom Davison showed the warrant, urged him to send it to