if she were of a far inferior rank, and even to abstain from correspondence with her friends in Scotland; but that the only return she had experienced for her good intentions was neglect, calumny, and increasing severity. "To take away every foundation of dispute and misunderstanding between us," Mary continues, "I invite you, madam, to examine into every report against me, and to grant to every person the liberty of accusing me publicly; and while I freely solicit you to take every advantage to my prejudice, I only request that you will not condemn me without a hearing. If it be proved that I have done evil, let me suffer for it; if I am guiltless, do not take upon yourself the responsibility, before God and man, of punishing me unjustly. Let not my enemies be afraid that I aim any longer at dispossessing them of their usurped authority. I look now to no other kingdom but that of Heaven, and would wish to prepare myself for it, knowing that my sorrows will never cease till I arrive there." She then speaks of her son, and entreats that Elizabeth would interfere in his behalf. She concludes with requesting, that some honourable churchman should be sent to her, to remind her daily of the road she had yet to finish, and to instruct her how to pursue it, according to her religion, in which she would wish to die as she had lived. "I am very weak and helpless," she adds, " and do beseech you to give me some solitary mark of your friendship. Bind your own relations to yourself; let me have the happiness of knowing, before I die, that a reconciliation has taken place between us, and that, when my soul quits my body, it will not be

necessary for it to carry complaints of your injustice to the throne of my Creator." * The only result which this letter produced, was a remonstrance from Elizabeth, which she sent by Beal, › the Clerk of her Privy Council, against what she was pleased to term such unnecessary complaints. +

In Scotland, meanwhile, the event of the greatest consequence which had taken place, was the trial and execution of the Earl of Morton, for having been art and part in the murder of Darnley. His intolerable tyranny having rendered him odious to the greater part of the nobility, and the young King having nearly arrived at an age when he could act and think for himself, Morton had found it necessary, very unwillingly, to retire from office. He did not however desist, even then, from carrying on numerous intrigues. It was rumoured, among other things, that he intended seizing the King's person, and conveying him captive into England. Whether there was any truth in this report or not, it is certain that James became anxious to get rid of so factious and dangerous a nobleman. The only plausible expedient which occurred to him, or his Council, was, to accuse Morton of a share in

See the whole of this letter in WHITTAKER, vol. iv. p. 399. Camden translated it into Latin, and introduced it into his History; but he published only an abridged. edition of it, which Dr Stuart has paraphrased and abridged still farther; and Mademoiselle de Keralio has translated Dr Stuart's paraphrased abridgment into French, supposing it to have been the original letter. STUART, vol. ii. p. 164; KERALIO, Histoire d'Elisabethe, vol. v. p. 349. + CHALMERS, vol. i. p. 395.

Bothwell's guilt. His trial does not seem to have been conducted with any very scrupulous regard to justice. But a jury of his peers was allowed him; and they, having heard the evidence in support of the charges, found him guilty of having been in the counsel or knowledge of the conspiracy against the late King; of concealing it; and of being art and part in the murder. It was to the latter clause alone of this verdict that Morton objected. He confessed that he knew of the intended murder, and had concealed it, but positively disclaimed having been art and part in it. This seems, however, to have been a distinction without a difference. On the 1st of June, 1581, he was condemned to the block, and next day the sentence was executed. The instrument called the Maiden, which was used to behead him, he had himself brought into Scotland, and he was the first to suffer by it. His head was placed on the public gaol at Edinburgh, and his body buried privately by a few menials. He had been universally hated, and there was hardly one who lamented his death.

CHAPTER XI.

MARY'S TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION.

THE closing scene of Mary's life was now rapidly approaching. Debilitated as she was by her long confinement, and the many painful thoughts which had been incessantly preying on her peace of mind, it is not likely that she could have long survived, even though she had been left unmolested within the walls of her prison. But she had been the source of too much jealousy and uneasiness to Elizabeth, to be either forgotten or forgiven. Weak as she was in body, and destitute alike of wealth and power, her name had nevertheless continued a watchword and a tower of strength, not only to all her own friends throughout Christendom, but to all who were disposed, from whatever cause, to stir up civil dissensions and broils in England. Scarcely a conspiracy against Elizabeth's person and authority had been contrived for the last sixteen years, with which the Queen of Scots was not supposed to be either remotely or immediately connected. Nor is it to be denied, that appeals were made to her sufferings and cruel treatment, to give plausibility to many an enterprize which was anti-con

stitutional in its object, and criminal in its execution. Other less objectionable undertakings Mary herself expressly countenanced; for she always openly declared, that, being detained a captive by force, she considered herself fully entitled to use every means that offered to effect her escape. She acted solely upon a principle of self-defence. When a nobleman of influence like Norfolk, or a man of integrity like Lesley, promised to arrange a scheme for her release, it would have been madness in her not to have listened to their proposals, or to have refused to act in concert with them. She had been detained in strict ward in a realm into which she had come voluntarily, or rather into which she had been seduced by specious promises and offers of assistance; and common sense and common justice alike called out, that she had a right to free herself, if possible, from her unwarrantable imprisonment. It is true, that many of her attempts, mixed up as they were with the interested and ambitious projects of others, gave Elizabeth no little inconvenience and anxiety. But this was the price that sovereign should have laid her account with paying, for the pleasure of seeing the Queen of Scots a helpless hostage in her hands.

To discourage the numerous plots which were formed, either by Mary's real or pretended adherents, a number of persons of the first rank in the kingdom entered into a solemn " Association," in which they bound themselves to defend Elizabeth against all her enemies," and if any violence should be offered to her life, in order to favour the title of any pretender to the crown, not only never to allow or acknowledge the person or