Mary ascended the platform and took her seat in the chair provided for her. With the exception of stifled sobs here and there to be heard, the room was still. An officer then advanced and read the warrant of execution, which the executioners listened to as their authority for doing the dreadful work which they were about to perform. The Dean of Peterborough, the Protestant ecclesiastic whom Mary had refused to see, then came forward to the foot of the platform, and most absurdly commenced an address to her, with a view to convert her to the Protestant faith. Mary interrupted him, saying that she had been born and had lived a Catholic, and she was resolved so to die; and she asked him to spare her his useless reasonings. The dean persisted in going on. Mary turned away from him, kneeled down, and began to offer a Latin prayer. The dean soon brought his ministrations to a close, and then Mary prayed for some time, in a distinct and fervent voice, in English, the large company listening with breathless attention. She prayed for her own soul, and that she might have comfort from heaven in the agony of death. She implored God's blessing upon France; upon Scotland; upon England; upon Queen Elizabeth; and, more than all, upon her son. During this time she held the ivory crucifix in her hand, clasping it and raising it from time to time toward heaven.
When her prayer was ended, she rose, and, with the assistance of her attendants, took off her veil, and such other parts of her dress as it was necessary to remove in order to leave the neck bare, and then she kneeled forward and laid her head upon the block. The agitation of the assembly became extreme. Some turned away from the scene faint and sick at heart; some looked more eagerly and intensely at the group upon the scaffold; some wept and sobbed aloud. The assistant executioner put Mary's two hands together and held them; the other raised his axe, and, after the horrid sound of two or three successive blows, the assistant held up the dissevered head, saying, "So perish all Queen Elizabeth's enemies."
The assembly dispersed. The body was taken into an adjoining apartment, and prepared for interment. Mary's attendants wished to have it delivered to them, that they might comply with her dying request to convey it to France; but they were told that they could not be allowed to do so. The body was interred with great pomp and ceremony in the Cathedral at Peterborough, where it remained in peace for many years.
* * * * *
Now that the deed was done, the great problem with Elizabeth was, of course, to avert the consequences of the terrible displeasure and thirst for revenge which she might naturally suppose it would awaken in Scotland and in France. She succeeded very well in accomplishing this. As soon as she heard of the execution of Mary, she expressed the utmost surprise, grief, and indignation. She said that she had, indeed, signed the death warrant, but it was not her intention at all to have it executed; and that, when she delivered it to the officer, she charged him not to let it go out of his possession. This the officer denied. Elizabeth insisted, and punished the officer by a long imprisonment, and perpetual disgrace, for his pretended offense. She sent a messenger to James, explaining the terrible accident, as she termed it, which had occurred, and deprecating his displeasure. James, though at first filled with indignation, and determined to avenge his mother's death, allowed himself to be appeased.
About twenty years after this, Elizabeth died, and the great object of Mary's ambition throughout her whole life was attained by the union of the Scotch and English crowns on the head of her son. As soon as Elizabeth ceased to breathe, James the Sixth of Scotland was proclaimed James the First of England. He was at that time nearly forty years of age. He was married, and had several young children. The circumstances of King James's journey to London, when he went to take possession of his new kingdom, are related in the History of Charles I., belonging to this series. Though James thus became monarch of both England and Scotland, it must not be supposed that the two kingdoms were combined. They remained separate for many years-two independent kingdoms governed by one king.
When James succeeded to the English throne, his mother had been dead many years, and whatever feelings of affection may have bound his heart to her in early life, they were now well-nigh obliterated by the lapse of time, and by the new ties by which he was connected with his wife and his children. As soon as he was seated on his new throne, however, he ordered the Castle of Fotheringay, which had been the scene of his mother's trial and death, to be leveled with the ground, and he transferred her remains to Westminster Abbey, where they still repose.
[Illustration: MARY'S TOMB AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
If the lifeless dust had retained its consciousness when it was thus transferred, with what intense emotions of pride and pleasure would the mother's heart have been filled, in being thus brought to her final home in that ancient sepulcher of the English kings, by her son, now, at last, safely established, where she had so long toiled and suffered to instate him, in his place in the line. Ambition was the great, paramount, ruling principle of Mary's life. Love was, with her, an occasional, though perfectly uncontrollable impulse, which came suddenly to interrupt her plans and divert her from her course, leaving her to get back to it again, after devious wanderings, with great difficulty and through many tears. The love, with the consequences which followed from it, destroyed her; while the ambition, recovering itself after every contest with its rival, and holding out perseveringly to the last, saved her son; so that, in the long contest in which her life was spent, though she suffered all the way, and at last sacrificed herself, she triumphed in the end.
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors, and to ensure consistent spelling and punctuation in this etext; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the original book.
2. The sidenotes used in this text were originally published as banners in the page headers, and have been collected at the beginning of each chapter for the reader's convenience.
3. The original Table of Engravings referenced an illuminated title page from the first edition of this book; this reference has been removed as that page does not occur in this e-text.