Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/533

] Fotheringay without a moment's delay; but Davison had a feeling that he certainly should get into trouble if he did so. He therefore went on to Walsingham, and after showing him the warrant, they then and there made a rough draft of a letter to Sir Amyas Paulet and Sir Drew Drury, Mary's additional keeper, proposing private assassination, as the queen requested. Whilst Walsingham made a fair copy, Davison went to the lord chancellor and got the great seal affixed to the warrant. On his return to Walsingham, the notable letter urging the murder of the prisoner was ready, and they sent it forthwith. This letter was duly entered by Walsingham in his letter-book, and remains as an everlasting testimony of his and his mistress's infamy. Had he not himself preserved it, it would never have been known. It has been often published. It informed Paulet and Drury that the queen had of late noticed a great lack of zeal in them, and wondered that, without any one moving them to it, they had not found out some way to rid her of the Queen of Scots. It told them that for their own safeties, the public good, the prosperity of religion, they had ample warrant for the deed. That the satisfaction of their consciences towards God, and their reputation in the world as men who had sworn the oath of association, depended upon it: and, therefore, she took it very unkind that they cast the burden upon her, knowing how much she disliked to shed blood, especially the blood of one so near.

Davison the next day had confirmation doubly strong that she was watching to entrap him in the matter. She asked him if the warrant had passed the great seal. He said it had; on which she immediately said, "Why such haste?" He inquired whether, then, she did not wish the affair to proceed. She replied, certainly; but that she thought it might be better managed, as the execution of the warrant threw the whole burden upon her. Davison said he did not know who else could bear it, as her laws made it murder to destroy the meanest subject without her warrant. At this her patience appeared exhausted, and she exclaimed, Oh, if she had but two such subjects as Morton and Archibald Douglas.

Davison was terrified at the gulf on the edge of which he saw himself standing, with the queen ready and longing to drag him in. He went to Hatton, and told him that though he had her orders to send off the warrant to Fotheringay at once, he would not do it of himself. They therefore went together to Burleigh, who coincided with them in the demand for caution. He therefore summoned the Council the next morning, and it was there unanimously agreed, as the queen had discharged her duty, to do theirs, and to proceed on joint responsibility. That very morning, on his waiting on Elizabeth, she told him a dream she had had the preceding night, in which she had severely punished him as the cause of the death of the Scottish queen. Though she appeared to jest as she said it, there was something in the thing which made the secretary shudder with an ominous sensation. That day, being the 4th of February, the reply of Paulet reached him, and he went with it to the queen. This old Puritan officer of Elizabeth would have delighted to witness the legal execution of Mary, whom he hated for her religion and for the many sharp reproofs which the strictness of his gaolership had drawn from her; but he recoiled from the commission of murder. He lamented. he said, in bitterness of soul, that he had lived to see the day when he was required by his sovereign to do a deed abhorrent to God and the laws. His life, his property, he said, were at her majesty's command; she might take them to-morrow if she pleased; but God forbid that he should make so foul a shipwreck of his conscience, or leave so great a blot on his name, as to shed blood without law or warrant.

On hearing this letter the queen broke out into a violent rage, and forgetting in a moment all the fine promises which she had so lately made to Paulet, all the rewards which her profound gratitude for the secure keeping of Mary were to draw from her, she called him "a precise and dainty fellow," and declared that she could point to others who would do that, or greater things for her sake, naming expressly a man of the name of Wingfield. Davison again dared to suggest that if Paulet put Mary to death without a warrant, she would have to avow that it was by her order, in which case the guilt and disgrace would be hers; if she did not, she would have ruined her faithful servant. This language was not such as suited the impetuous queen; she abruptly rose and left him.

But on the 7th of February she called for him, and told him of the dangers with which she was surrounded on account of the Scottish queen; for, in fact, all sorts of rumours of invasion by the Duke of Guise, of the burning of London, and murder of the queen, were purposely propagated, in order to make the populace frantic for Mary's death. Elizabeth, therefore, declared that it was high time that the warrant was executed, and bade Davison, with a great oath, to write a sharp letter to Paulet ordering him to be quick. Davison, who knew that the warrant was gone, avoided the command by saying he did not think it necessary, but she repeated that Paulet would expect it, and whilst so saying, one of her ladies came to ask what she would have for dinner; she rose and went out with her, and her unfortunate secretary saw her no more.

That very day the order for Mary's death reached Fotheringay, and was probably being announced to her at the moment that Elizabeth was urging its dispatch to Davison. The Earl of Shrewsbury, who had guarded her so many years, as earl marshal, had now the painful office of carrying into effect her execution. There had been for some time a growing feeling at Fotheringay that the last day of Mary was at hand, for there had been a remarkable coming and going of strangers. When Shrewsbury was announced, his office proclaimed the fatal secret. The Scottish queen rose from her bed, and was dressed to receive him, having seated herself at a small table with her servants disposed around her. The Earl of Shrewsbury entered, followed by the Earls of Kent, Cumberland, and Derby, as well as by the sheriff and several gentlemen of the county. Beale, the clerk of the Council, read the order for the execution, to which Mary listened with the utmost apparent equanimity. When it was finished she crossed herself, bade them welcome, and assured them that she had long waited for the day which had now arrived; that twenty years of miserable imprisonment had made her a burden to herself and useless to others; and that she could conceive no close of life so happy or so honourable as