Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/187

 together, and the letters ordering the execution of the warrant were immediately sent hy the hand of [q. v.] to the Earl of Kent and other commissioners. On Saturday 4 Feb. Davison again had an audience of the Queen, who told him that she had dreamed that Mary was executed, and reiterated her horror of taking the full burden on herself. On the following Sunday or Monday a similar conversation took place, and Elizabeth inveighed gainst the `daintiness' and `niceness' of Paulet and Davison in declining to help her to assassinate Mary—a step which, she hinted, Leicester approved. On Tuesday the 7th Davison had his fifth and last interview with the queen, when she told him to write to Paulet to hasten the execution—an order which Davison deemed unnecessary and did not obey. The next morning, 8 Feb., Mary was beheaded at Fotheringhay. On 9 Feb. Burghley sent for Davison and consulted with him how to communicate the news to Elizabeth. According to Davison, she first heard it unofficially, almost as soon as the news reached London, and appeared to treat it with calm indifference, but on the following morning she passionately declared to Hatton that she had never ordered the execution, and that it had been carried out by the privy council, and chiefly by Davison, against her known wish. At the moment Davison was suffering from an attack of palsy, and gladly took the advice of some of his fellow privy councillors to absent himself from court. A day or two later Lord Buckhurst received orders from the queen to arrest him. He was at first too ill to be moved, but recovered sufficiently by the 14th to be conveyed to the Tower. Lord Burghley protested against this injustice, and wrote a warm letter in Davison's behalf, for which he substituted at the last moment a more cautiously worded appeal. On 12, 14, and 16 March Davison was interrogated by Hatton in the Tower. The questions were constructed to show that Davison had disobeyed the queen's injunctions of secrecy; that he had been strictly forbidden to part with the warrant or show it to anybody, and that he was aware that Elizabeth had no immediate intention of executing the sentence on Mary. Davison described all that had taken place, but delined to incriminate the Queen by repeating the suggestions of assassination. He also drew up three statements addressed to Walsingham, detailing ` that which passed betwixt her majesty and him in the cause of the Scottish queen.' On 28 March 1587 he was brought before the Star-chamber,although his health was still very bad, and charged with `misprision and contempt.' In his defence he asserted that after the warrant was signed the queen distinctly said that 'she would not be troubled any more with it,' which fully justified him, he urged, in not bringing the warrant before her a second time. When he was pressed by his judges to explain why he had told Burghley that the queen meant to execute the sentence, Davison burst into tears and declined to argue the matter further, insisting that he had acted throughout ' sincerely, soundly, and honestly.' He was sentenced to a fine of ten thousand marks, and imprisonment in the Tower during the queen's pleasure. Many of the commissioners spoke highly of Davison's past services and habitual honesty, and acquitted him of all evil intention. Davison was not permitted to discuss the sentence, but was allowed to express his concern at the queen's displeasure. A careful perusal of the proceedings proves that no substantial case was made out against Davison, and that the signing of the warrant by the queen without any previous consultation with him justified all his subsequent conduct. He was deliberately made a scapegoat by his vacillating mistress. Although his private opinion was undoubtedly in favour of Mary's execution, he did not parade it offensively before either Elizabeth or the council.

The Earl of Essex did his best to procure Davison's pardon, and twice in 1587 he wrote to Davison that he had pleaded his cause with Elizabeth, who admitted his deserts, but would give no positive answer to his demands. Lord Grey also petitioned for his release. Lord Burghley's conduct was less explicit, and he evidently wished to defer Davison's restoration to the queen's favour. In 1589 Davison was released from the Tower. Essex promised to recommend him for official service, and in April 1590 even wrote to James VI, in order to enlist his influence on Davison's side. Here he failed, but on Walsingham's death in 1590, many persons urged Elizabeth to bestow the vacant secretaryship on Davison. Burghley, however, obtained the office for his son Robert [see ]. On 7 Dec. 1590 Davison petitioned the queen to rehabilitate him, but she declined to receive the letter. Finding all avenues to office thus closed against him, Davison retired to a house at Stepney, reduced by the payment of his fine to great poverty. He succeeded to the offices of custos brevium in the king's bench and clerk of the treasury and warrants, to which the reversion had been granted him in 1579, and on 25 July 1607 James I generously agreed to grant these offices on his death to George Byng of Wrotham, Kent, and Henry Byng of Gray's Inn, on trust, the profits to be applied to the payment of his debts