Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/394

Mary Stuart mother in the treaty. Thereupon she expressed her resolve to grant his rights to the crown, which he had usurped, to his greatest enemy rather than that he should enjoy them (12 May 1585,, vi. 126). Among the papers subsequently seized at Chartley was a will by her bequeathing her crown to Philip II of Spain.

In the beginning of 1585 Mary was subjected to more rigorous treatment. She was again removed to the cold and unhealthy castle of Tutbury, her retinue was reduced, and in April she was placed under the harsh and morose guardianship of Sir Amyas Paulet [q. v.] In January 1585-6 she was transferred to the neighbouring house of Chartley. Shortly after, through the contrivance of Walsingham, facilities were afforded her for fatally entangling herself in the Babington conspiracy [see ; ; and ]. As soon as she had unconsciously supplied sufficient evidence against herself to incur capital punishment, she was arrested at Tixall Park, whither she had been allowed to go on pretence of a hunting party, and detained there till her papers at Chartley had been searched.

She was removed to the castle of Fotheringay on 25 Sept., and was there brought to trial on 14 and 15 Oct. The skill with which she parried the most dangerous points of the evidence against her, and her complete command of all the resources of advocacy, are alone sufficient testimony to her great personal gifts (see State Trials, i. 1162-1227). Since, however, she denied having any communication with Babington, a supposition which cannot be entertained, her denial of any knowledge of that part of the conspiracy touching Elizabeth's life was necessarily robbed of all value. Besides, it was her usual habit to approve the assassination of her prominent enemies, and on Elizabeth she had the wrongs of a lifetime to revenge. She knew also that Elizabeth had more than once meditated her death, and was only restrained from carrying out her purpose by considerations of prudence. She had therefore in Elizabeth's case the justification that she was acting in self-defence. In truth Elizabeth or her ministers had no reason to suppose, and scarcely any right to expect, that Mary would interfere to save Elizabeth from the worst that Elizabeth's enemies might contrive against her.

After much hesitation and uncertainty, and an attempt to induce the keepers to assume the responsibility of putting Mary to death, Elizabeth signed the warrant for the execution, and it took place in the great hall of Fotheringay on the morning of 8 Feb. 1586-7. Mary was only informed of the fate that was in store for her on the previous day, but she must from the time of her trial have contemplated such a possibility, and she expressed her joy that her miseries were so near an end, and that the grace had been granted her by God to 'die for the honour of his name and of his Church, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman.' By all her words and bearing it was her purpose to impress on the spectators of her last moments, and on the world to whom the story of her execution would be told, her royal andn sacred dignity, as the sole rightful queen, not only of Scotland but of England, and vicegerent, of the catholic church in Britain. But although she met her fate with unsurpassable courage, and acted her part with appropriate dignity and grace, her preparations lacked the essential virtue of simplicity. Elizabeth strenuously maintained that she never intended the execution to take place, and conferred on her victim the honour of a royal burial in Peterborough Cathedral on 1 Aug. The body was transferred by her son, on his accession to the English throne, to Henry VII's Chapel in Westminster Abbey, where he erected to her memory a monument with recumbent effigy (for description of the execution see especially 'Reporte of the Manner of the Execution of the Scots Queene' in, Original Letters, 2nd ser. iii. 113-18; 'Examvnacioun and Death of Mary the Queen of Skottes, Ao 1586, 8 Feb., by R. W.,' the original manuscript of which was exhibited at Peterborough in 1887, and was, it appears, written by R. Wynkfielde, not by Richard Wigmore, as previously supposed: ' Le Rapport de la Manière de l'Execution de la Royne d'Écosse,' by Thomas Andrewes, in , Lettres Inédites de Marie Stuart, pp. 246-7; 'La Mort de la Royne d'Écosse,' 1589, republished in , ii. 609-70; and the very minute 'Le vray rapport' in, iv. 153-64, on which the narrative of Mr. Froude is chiefly founded. The matter is also discussed in Notes and Queries, especially 7th ser. vols. iv. v.)

The religious issues involved in the fate of Mary Stuart are in themselves sufficient to assign her a place in the first rank of historic personages. In her were concentrated the last hopes of catholicism in Britain. Still the story of her life will probably attract the attention of the world when the ecclesiastical questions with which it was associated are forgotten. It is as a woman, rather than a queen or a religious champion, that she specially appeals to the interest of mankind. Her story is, in truth, one of the most moving of human tragedies.