queen had swollen limbs and was dropsical, while, on the
contrary, there was not one of the spectators but was obliged to confess
that he had never seen the body of a young girl in the bloom of health
purer and lovelier than that of Mary Stuart, dead of a violent death
after nineteen years of suffering and captivity.

When the body was opened, the spleen was in its normal state, with the
veins a little livid only, the lungs yellowish in places, and the brain
one-sixth larger than is usual in persons of the same age and sex;
thus everything promised a long life to her whose end had just been so
cruelly hastened.

A report having been made of the above, the body was embalmed after a
fashion, put in a leaden coffin and that in another of wood, which was
left on the table till the first day of August--that is, for nearly five
months--before anyone was allowed to come near it; and not only that,
but the English having noticed that Mary Stuart's unhappy servants,
who were still detained as prisoners, went to look at it through the
keyhole, stopped that up in such a way that they could not even gaze at
the coffin enclosing the body of her whom they had so greatly loved.

However, one hour after Mary Stuart's death, Henry Talbot, who had been
present at it, set out at full speed for London, carrying to Elizabeth
the account of her rival's death; but at the very first lines she read,
Elizabeth, true to her character, cried out in grief and indignation,
saying that her orders had been misunderstood, that there had been too
great haste, and that all this was the fault of Davison the Secretary
of State, to whom she had given the warrant to keep till she had made up
her mind, but not to send to Fotheringay. Accordingly, Davison was
sent to the Tower and condemned to pay a fine of ten thousand pounds
sterling, for having deceived the queen. Meanwhile, amid all this grief,
an embargo was laid on all vessels in all the ports of the realm, so
that the news of the death should not reach abroad, especially France,
except through skilful emissaries who could place the execution in the
least unfavourable light for Elizabeth. At the same time the scandalous
popular festivities which had marked the announcement of the sentence
again celebrated the tidings of the execution. London was illuminated,
bonfires lit, and the enthusiasm was such that the French Embassy was
broken into and wood taken to revive the fires when they began to die
down.