eple to steeple at the
news of Mary's condemnation; but in spite of the prayer of Parliament
for her execution and the pressure of the Council Elizabeth shrank from
her death. The force of public opinion however was now carrying all
before it, and after three months of hesitation the unanimous demand of
her people wrested a sullen consent from the Queen. She flung the
warrant signed upon the floor, and the Council took on themselves the
responsibility of executing it. On the 8th of February 1587 Mary died on
a scaffold which was erected in the castle-hall at Fotheringay as
dauntlessly as she had lived. "Do not weep," she said to her ladies, "I
have given my word for you." "Tell my friends," she charged Melville,
"that I die a good Catholic."

[Sidenote: Philip and England.]

The blow was hardly struck before Elizabeth turned with fury on the
ministers who had forced her hand. Cecil, who had now become Lord
Burghley, was for a while disgraced, and Davison, who carried the
warrant to the Council, was sent to the Tower to atone for an act which
shattered the policy of the Queen. The death of Mary Stuart in fact
seemed to have removed the last obstacle out of Philip's way. It had put
an end to the divisions of the English Catholics. To the Spanish king,
as to the nearest heir in blood who was of the Catholic Faith, Mary
bequeathed her rights to the Crown, and the hopes of her more passionate
adherents were from that moment bound up in the success of Spain. The
blow too kindled afresh the fervour of the Papacy, and Sixtus the Fifth
offered to aid Philip with money in his invasion of the heretic realm.
But Philip no longer needed pressure to induce him to act. Drake's
triumph had taught him that the conquest of England was needful for the
security of his dominion in the New World, and for the mastery of the
seas. The presence of an English army in Flanders convinced him that the
road to the conquest of the States lay through England itself. Nor did
the attempt seem a very perilous one. Allen and his Jesuit emissaries
assured Philip that the bulk of the nation was ready to rise as soon as
a strong Spanish force was landed on English shores. They numbered off
the great lords who would head the revolt, the Earls of Arundel and
Northumberland, who were both Catholics, the Earls of Worcester,
Cumberland, Oxford, and Southampton, Viscount Montacute, the Lords
Dacres, Morley, Vaux, Wharton, Windsor, Lumley, and Stourton. "All
thes