PTER XII.

THE END.

1586-1587

Plots and intrigues.--How far Mary was involved.--Babington's
conspiracy.--Secret correspondence.--Seizure of Mary's papers.--Her
son James.--Elizabeth resolves to bring Mary to trial.--Fotheringay
Castle.--Great interest in the trial.--Preparations for it.--The
throne.--Mary refuses to plead.--The commission.--The great
hall.--Mary pronounced guilty.--Elizabeth's pretended sorrow.--Signing
the warrant.--Shuffling of Elizabeth.--Mary's letter to
Elizabeth.--Interposition of Mary's friends.--Elizabeth signs the
warrant.--It is read to Mary.--Mary hears the sentence with
composure.--Protests her innocence.--Mary refused a priest.--Mary
alone with her friends.--Affecting scene.--Supper.--Mary's farewell
to her attendants.--Mary's last letters.--Her directions as to the
disposal of her body.--Arrangements for the execution.--The
scaffold.--Proceeding to the hall.--Interview with Melville.--Mary's
last message.--She desires the presence of her attendants.--Mary's
dress and appearance.--Symbols of religion.--Mary's firmness in her
faith.--Her last prayer.--The execution.--Heart-rending
scene.--Disposition of the body.--Elizabeth's affected surprise.--Her
conduct.--The end of Mary's ambition realized.--Accession of James
I.--Tomb of Mary at Westminster Abbey.--Mary's love and ambition.--She
triumphs in the end.

Mary did not always discourage the plots and intrigues with which her
name was connected. She, of course, longed for deliverance from the
thraldom in which Elizabeth held her, and was ready to embrace any
opportunity which promised release. She thus seems to have listened
from time to time to the overtures which were made to her, and
involved herself, in Elizabeth's opinion, more or less, in the
responsibility which attached to them. Elizabeth did not, however, in
such cases, do any thing more than to increase somewhat the rigors of
her imprisonment. She was afraid to proceed to extremities with her,
partly, perhaps, for fear that she might, by doing so, awaken the
hostility of France, whose king was Mary's cousin, or of Scotland,
whose monarch was her son.

At length, however, in the year 1586, about eighteen years from the
commencement of Mary's captivity, a plot was formed in which she
became so seriously involved as to subject herself to the charge of
aiding and abetting in the high treason of which the leaders of the
plot were proved to be guilty. This plot is known in his