made a little speech, saying that she
ought never to have allowed anyone to persuade her to be queen; but that
she was young--she had not known what was right. And then, without any
show of fear, she laid her head on the block, and it was cut off at one
blow.

So died the poor girl at only sixteen--a girl who loved her books, and
would have lived a quiet life if it had not been for the ambitious plans
of her own father and her father-in-law.

CHAPTER XV

GUNPOWDER PLOT

There is no need to tell anyone who lives in the country what happens on
the fifth of November, for they are sure to know well. The beautiful
fireworks, with their streams of coloured fire; the crackling of the
squibs; the gorgeous catherine-wheels and the coloured Roman candles;
the great rockets that shoot up into the air with a swish, leaving
behind them a long tail of golden fire, and then burst into showers of
stars--all these may be seen on the fifth of November; and if you are
really lucky children, there will follow the great bonfire, with barrels
of tar poured over it to make the flames roar upward. They lick the bare
sticks put ready for them, and climb over the logs until they reach the
figure of Guy Fawkes himself, a stuffed figure like a scarecrow, which
stands at the highest point. The flames crackle gaily; the heat is in
contrast with the fresh air of the November evening; all the people
standing by look strange and unlike themselves with that weird glow on
their faces. Then Guy's hands curl up, an arm wavers, and he topples
headlong into the glowing flames, to be burnt up altogether. Guy is only
made of straw, so we need not be sorry for him; but it is a curious
custom, and we have to go to history to find out what it means. That
there was a real man, a Guy Fawkes, who lived in James I.'s reign, you
know perhaps. This Guy was at first a Protestant, and as a little boy
used to go to church with his mother; but as he grew older he became a
Roman Catholic. Now, at that time in England there were many very hard
and unjust laws against the Roman Catholics, not allowing them to hold
offices in the State, and preventing them from doing many things that
Protestants might do. People are wiser now, and realize that a man may
be a good man and a good servant of the country whatever his religion so
long as he is in earnest, but in those days it was not so. Well, a
certain number of lords and gentlemen who were Roman Catholics tried to
ge