could box her generals upon occasion, could not bear to be surpassed in accomplishments purely feminine, by the most handsome, the most graceful, and the most improved princess of her age.
All united to make Elizabeth an enemy to Mary. As a queen, and as a woman; as actuated by political jealousies, as stimulated by personal humours; and as impelled by female vanities; she became at first a pretended friend to betray her, and at last she appeared an open enemy to destroy her. She lavished all her arts of deception upon her. She then found herself to be so entangled in the strings of her own nets, that she could not either retreat or advance: and she thought herself obliged in the end, for the sake of her own security, to terminate in desperation, what she had commenced in jealousy. She arraigned a queen of Scotland before a tribunal of English nobles; she thus set an example, infamous in itself, pernicious to society, and peculiarly pernicious and infamous to her own country, of having a sovereign condemned to the block by subjects: she urged her meaner dependents upon assassinating Mary,[1] that she might not behead her, but she found even their consciences revolting at the villainous intimation. She then signed the bloody warrant with her own hand. She could be wantonly jocular at doing it. She could pretend to recall it, when it had been sent away. She could pretend to lay the guilt of it upon her secretary's head.[2] She could yet deny to Mary for ever, what was never denied to the meanest criminal before, the favour of having a clergyman of her own communion to attend her. She could point her persecution against the soul, as well as the body, of Mary. And at length she stained her conscience with one of the foulest murders that the annals of the earth can produce; then felt herself almost petrified with horror, at the related execution of what she had commanded; peculiarly haunted, at the close of life, with the frightful image of the deed which she had committed; and killed herself at last with a sullen bravery of melancholy, the most extraordinary that is to be met with in history.
Conspiracies were from time to time set on foot by the catholic party, in order to liberate Mary, and place her on the English throne; but that which appeals to our sympathy, and almost demands our admiration, is that of Anthony Babington, a catholic; a youth of large fortune, the graces of whose person were only inferior to those of his mind. Some youths, worthy of ranking with the heroes, rather than with the traitors of England, had been practised on by the subtilty of Ballard, a disguished Jesuit of great intrepidity and talents, whom Camden calls "a silken priest in a soldier's habit:" for this versatile intriguer changed into all shapes, and took up all names; yet, with all the arts of a political Jesuit, he found himself entrapped in the nets of that more crafty one, the subdolous Walsingham.[3] Of the fourteen[4] persons implicated in this conspiracy, few were of the stamp of men ordinarily engaged in dark assassinations; and the greater number were surely more adapted for lovers than for politicians. The intimates of Babington were youths of congenial tempers and studies; and, in their exalted imaginations, they could only view in the imprisoned Mary of Scotland a sovereign, a saint, and a woman. But friendship, the most tender, if not the most sublime ever recorded, prevailed among this band of self-devoted victims; and the Damon and Pythias of antiquity were here surpassed. John Ballard himself commands our respect, although we refuse him our esteem; for he felt some compunction at the tragical executions which were to follow the trial, and "wished all the blame might rest on him, could the shedding of his blood be the saving of Babington's life!"
This extraordinary collection of personages must have occasioned many alarms to Elizabeth, at the approach of any stranger, till the conspiracy was sufficiently matured to be ended. Once she perceived in her walks a conspirator; and on that occasion erected her "lion port," reprimanding the captain of her guards, loud enough to meet the conspirator's ear, "that he had not a man in his company who wore a sword."—"Am not I fairly guarded?" exclaimed Elizabeth.
When the sentence of condemnation had passed, then broke forth among this noble band that
- ↑ Elizabeth gave orders for a letter to be sent to Pawlet and Drury, the keepers of Mary, at Fotheringay, which stated, that "they might surely ease her of that burden." Pawlet's answer was that he refused to do any thing inconsistent with the principles of honour and justice; the queen burst into a violent rage, and called Pawlet "a precise and dainty fellow, who would promise much and perform nothing; but others," said she, "will be found who are less scrupulous."
Sir Amias Pawlet, the keeper of Mary, reports June 3rd, 1586. The Scottish queen is getting a little strength, and has been out in her coach; and is sometimes carried in a chair to one of the adjoining ponds, to see the diversion of duck hunting; but she is not able to walk without support.
- ↑ William Davison, secretary to Elizabeth, was fined ten thousand pounds, which was most vigorously exacted; and though the queen survived the unfortunate Mary seventeen years, she was ever inexorable to every petition for his liberation. Died Dec. 23, l608.
- ↑ The spies of that singular statesman were the companions or the servants of the arch-conspirator Ballard; for the minister seems only to have humoured his taste in assisting him through this extravagant plot.—D'Israeli.
- ↑ John Ballard, Anthony Babington, John Savage, Robert Barnwell, Chidlock Titchburne, Charles Tilney, and Edward Abington, were executed in St. Giles's Fields, September 20, 1S86. Ballard was first executed. He was cut down and bowelled, with great cruelty, while he was alive. Babington was taken from the gallows alive too, and ready to be cut up, he cried aloud several times in Latin Parce mihi, Domine Jesu! Spare me, O Lord Jesus! Savage broke the rope, and fell down from the gallows, and was presently seized on by the executioner, his privities cut off, and his bowels taken out while he was alive. Barnevell, Titchburne, Tilney, and Abingdon, were executed with equal cruelty. On the following day, Thomas Salisbury, Henry Donn, Edward Jones, John Charnock, John Travers, Robert Gage, and Jerome Bellamy, suffered at the same place. Elizabeth, an enlightened politician commanded, that on the second day the odious part of the sentence against traitors should not commence till after their deaths.— See State Trials, vol. 1.
There is an interesting historical novel, entitled the Jeauit, whose story is founded on this conspiracy; remarkable for being the production of a lady, without, says Mr. D'Israeli, a single adventure of love. Hume has told the tale with his usual grace; but the fuller narrative may be found in Camden.
