number of minor plots during the previous term of her captivity, and one
in especial set on foot by the duke of Norfolk, who had not only aimed
at restoring her to liberty, but had looked forward to the obtaining her
hand. Norfolk's designs were discovered, and he perished on the scaffold.
Elizabeth's parliament now, therefore, alleged, that their sovereign's security was
incompatible with Mary's life, and urged her to give effect to the sentence of the
Star Chamber, by ordering her immediate execution.
Elizabeth affected to feel the utmost reluctance to proceed to the extremity recommended by the councillors, but at length gave way to their importunity, and signed the warrant for her unfortunate captive's execution, and a commission was given to the enrls of Shrewsbury, Kent, Derby and others, to see it carried into effect. Aware of her approaching fate, for the sentence of the commissioners had been early conveyed to her, with an intimation to prepare for the result, Mary calmly awaited its consummation, without stooping to any meanness to avert it, or discovering the slightest dread in its contemplation.
The fatal hour at length arrived. On the 7th of February, 1587, the earls who were appointed to superintend her execution arrived at Fotheringay, and requesting an audience of Mary, informed her of the purpose for which they cam*,, and that her execution would take place on the following morning at eight o'clock. Mary heard the dreadful intelligence without discovering the slightest trepidation. She said she had long been expecting the manner of her death, and was not unprepared to die. Having, with the utmost composure and self-possession, arranged all her worldly affairs, she retired to bed about tun in the morning; but, though she lay for some hours, she slept none. At break of day she arose, and surrounded by her weeping domestics, resumed her devotions. She was thus employed when a messenger knocked at the door to announce that all was ready, and in a short time afterwards, the sheriff, bearing in his hand the white wand of office, entered her apartment to conduct her to the place of execution.
Mary was now led into the hall in which her trial had taken place, and which had been previously fitted up for the dreadful scene about to be enacted. A scaffold and block, covered with black cloth, rose at the upper end, and on one side of the latter stood the earls of Shrewsbury and Kent, on the other, two executioners. Having ascended the scaffold, which she did with a dignity and composure that rather increased than diminished as her fate approached, Mary prepared for the fatal stroke. After spending a short time in prayer, she desired Jane Kennedy, one of two female attendants, for whom she had with difficulty obtained the melancholy privilege of accompanying her to the scaffold, to bind her eyes with a handkerchief which she had brought with her for the purpose. This done, she laid her head on the block, and the axe of the executioner descended. The severed head was immediately held up by the hair, which was now observed to have become grey, by the executioner's assistant, who called out "God save Elizabeth, queen of England!" To this sentence the earl of Kent added, "Thus perish all her enemies!"
Mary's remains were embalmed and buried in the cathedral at Peterborough, but, twenty-five years afterwards, were removed by her son James VI. to Henry VII.'s chapel in Westminster Abbey. She was at the time of her death in the forty-fifth year of her age, and the nineteenth of her captivity. Time and grief had greatly impaired the symmetry and beauty of her person; yet her figure, even at the hour of her death, was one of matchless elegance. Still mindful of her dignity, of her high birth, and of what she once had been,
