s of this ill-fated princess, have exhausted all the arts of
eloquence, would be equally needless and presumptuous. It is, however,
important to remark, that she died rather with the triumphant air of a
martyr to her religion, the character which she falsely assumed, than
with the meekness of a victim or the penitence of a culprit. She bade
Melvil tell her son that she had done nothing injurious to his rights or
honor; though she was actually in treaty to disinherit him, and had also
consented to a nefarious plot for carrying him off prisoner to Rome; and
she denied with obstinacy to the last the charge of conspiring the death
of Elizabeth, though by her will, written the day before her death, she
rewarded as faithful servants the two secretaries who had borne this
testimony against her. A spirit of self-justification so haughty and so
unprincipled, a perseverance in deliberate falsehood so resolute and so
shameless, ought under no circumstances and in no personage, not even in
a captive beauty and an injured queen, to be confounded, by any writer
studious of the moral tendencies of history and capable of sound
discrimination, with genuine religion, true fortitude, or the dignity
which renders misfortune respectable.

Let due censure be passed on the infringement of morality committed by
Elizabeth, in detaining as a captive that rival kinswoman, and pretender
to her crown, whom the dread of still more formidable dangers had
compelled to seek refuge in her dominions: let it be admitted, that the
exercise of criminal jurisdiction over a person thus lawlessly detained
in a foreign country was another sacrifice of the just to the
expedient, which none but a profligate politician will venture to
defend; and let the efforts of Mary to procure her own liberty, though
with the destruction of her enemy and at the cost of a civil war to
England, be held, if religion will permit, justifiable or venial;--but
let not our resentment of the wrongs, or compassion for the long
misfortunes, of this unhappy woman betray us into a blind concurrence in
eulogiums lavished, by prejudice or weakness, on a character blemished
by many foibles, stained by some enormous crimes, and never under the
guidance of the genuine principles of moral rectitude.

CHAPTER XXI.

1587 AND 1588.

Small political effect of the death of Mary.--Warlike preparations of
Spain destroyed by Drake.--Case of lord Beauchamp.--Death and character
of the duchess o