ply bring you my commands. Ignore, I beg you,
that he told you anything in particular; for envy might injure him. I
have suffered a great deal for two years and more, and have not been
able to let you know, for an important reason. God be praised for all,
and give you grace to persevere in the service of His Church as long as
you live, and never may this honour pass from our race, while so many
men and women are ready to shed their blood to maintain the fight for
the faith, all other worldly considerations set aside. And as to me, I
esteem myself born on both father's and mother's sides, that I
should offer up my blood for this cause, and I have no intention of
degenerating. Jesus, crucified for us, and all the holy martyrs, make
us by their intercession worthy of the voluntary offering we make of our
bodies to their glory!

"From Fotheringay, this Thursday, 24th November.

"They have, thinking to degrade me, pulled down my canopy of state, and
since then my keeper has come to offer to write to their queen, saying
this deed was not done by his order, but by the advice of some of the
Council. I have shown them instead of my arms on the said canopy the
cross of Our Lord. You will hear all this; they have been more gentle
since.--Your affectionate cousin and perfect friend,

"MARY, Queen of Scotland, Dowager of France"

From this day forward, when she learned the sentence delivered by the
commissioners, Mary Stuart no longer preserved any hope; for as she knew
Elizabeth's pardon was required to save her, she looked upon herself
thenceforward as lost, and only concerned herself with preparing to die
well. Indeed, as it had happened to her sometimes, from the cold and
damp in her prisons, to become crippled for some time in all her limbs,
she was afraid of being so when they would come to take her, which would
prevent her going resolutely to the scaffold, as she was counting on
doing. So, on Saturday the 14th February, she sent for her doctor,
Bourgoin, and asked him, moved by a presentiment that her death was
at hand, she said, what she must do to prevent the return of the pains
which crippled her. He replied that it would be good for her to medicine
herself with fresh herbs. "Go, then," said the queen, "and ask Sir Amyas
Paulet from me permission to seek them in the fields."

Bourgoin went to Sir Amyas, who, as he himself was troubled with
sciatica, should have understood better than anyone the need of the
remedies fo