inst her, who derived her descent from these
monarchs.[**] Paulet, her keeper, received orders to take down her
canopy, and to serve her no longer with the respect due to sovereign
princes. He told her, that she was now to be considered as a dead
person, and incapable of any dignity.[***] This harsh treatment produced
not in her any seeming emotion. She only replied, that she received her
royal character from the hands of the Almighty, and no earthly power was
ever able to bereave her of it.

* See note AA, at the end of the volume.

** Camden, p. 528.

*** Jebb, vol. ii. p. 293.

The queen of Scots wrote her last letter to Elizabeth; full of dignity,
without departing from that spirit of meekness and of charity which
appeared suitable to this concluding scene of her unfortunate life. She
preferred no petition for averting the fatal sentence: on the contrary
she expressed her gratitude to Heaven for thus bringing to a speedy
period her sad and lamentable pilgrimage. She requested some favors of
Elizabeth; and entreated her that she might be beholden for them to her
own goodness alone, without making applications to those ministers who
had discovered such an extreme malignity against her person and her
religion. She desired, that after her enemies should be satiated with
her innocent blood, her body, which it was determined should never
enjoy rest while her soul was united to it, might be consigned to her
servants, and be conveyed by them into France, there to repose in a
Catholic land, with the sacred relics of her mother. In Scotland, she
said, the sepulchres of her ancestors were violated, and the churches
either demolished or profaned; and in England, where she might be
interred among the ancient kings, her own and Elizabeth's progenitors,
she could entertain no hopes of being accompanied to the grave with
those rites and ceremonies which her religion required. She requested,
that no one might have the power of inflicting a private death upon her,
without Elizabeth's knowledge; but that her execution should be public,
and attended by her ancient servants, who might bear testimony of her
perseverance in the faith, and of her submission to the will of Heaven.
She begged that these servants might afterwards be allowed to depart
whithersoever they pleased, and might enjoy those legacies which she
should bequeath them. And she conjured her to grant these favors by
their near kindred; by the soul and mem