An extraordinary contrast to the dignity and composure of the doomed woman in Fotheringay Castle was shown by the uncertainty, the tantrums, the perplexity, the wrathful outbursts of Elizabeth in London. Mary Stuart’s mind was composed and tranquil, whereas Elizabeth Tudor was still wrestling for a decision. Never had the Queen of England suffered so much at the hands of her rival the Queen of Scotland as when the latter defencelessly awaited an unjust doom. Elizabeth was unable to sleep; she passed day after day in gloomy silence; her spirit was obsessed with the intolerable problem as to whether she should have the death sentence carried out. She tried to thrust aside the thought as Sisyphus rolled his stone uphill, but always it rolled back again to crush her. Vainly did her ministers of state address her; she could listen only to the voice of her own conscience. Rejecting one proposal after another, she was continually asking for new ones. Cecil found her “as changeable as the weather”; at one time she was for death, at another for pardon; again and again she asked her friends whether there was not some alternative, although at the bottom of her heart she knew there could be no such thing. If only what was to happen could happen without her knowledge, without her express order, be done for her instead of by her! She feverishly struggled to evade responsibility, perpetually weighing and reweighing the advantages and disadvantages of so conspicuous a deed. To the despair of her advisers, she put off her decision with ambiguous, irritable, nervous and unintelligible phrases, always noncommittal. “With weariness to talk, Her Majesty left off all till a time I know not when,” complained Cecil, who, cold and reasonable, could not understand the distress of Elizabeth’s tortured soul. Though she had put a harsh jailer in charge of Mary Stuart, she was herself in thrall to a yet harsher one, the most cruel on earth, her conscience. This struggle of Elizabeth against Elizabeth, this inability to decide whether she should listen to the voice of reason or to the voice of humanity, went on for three months, four months, five months, nearly half a year. Her nerves being thus overwrought, it was but natural that the final decision, when it came, should take the form of an explosion.
On Wednesday, 1st February 1587, William Davison, Queen Elizabeth’s private secretary (Walsingham, by luck or cunning, was indisposed during, these days), in the gardens at Greenwich, was unexpectedly informed by Admiral Howard that Her Majesty needed his services on the instant, and that he was to bring her Mary Stuart’s death warrant for signature. Davison procured the document, which Cecil had written with his own hand, and conveyed it with a number of other papers to the Queen. But, strangely enough, Elizabeth, the great play-actress, now seemed in no hurry to sign. She counterfeited indifference, talked to Davison about other matters, looked out of the window and remarked what a bright and beautiful winter morning it was. Then she asked the secretary casually (had she really forgotten she had sent for him to bring the death warrant?) what those papers were on the table. Davison replied, “Instruments for Your Majesty’s signature,” and among them one which Lord Howard had specially charged him to bring. Elizabeth picked them up and signed them in rapid succession without looking at them, including, of course, Mary Stuart’s death warrant. This was according to plan, so that she could pretend, afterwards, that she had signed the fatal deed unsuspectingly among other papers of minor importance. But then came one of her weathercock changes. Her next remark showed that she knew perfectly well what she had been about, for she assured Davison that she had delayed so long in signing the warrant only in order to show clearly that her assent was most unwilling. Still, now it had been signed, he must take it to Cecil, that the Great Seal might be put to it. “Do it secretly,” she added, “for it may prove dangerous to me were it to be known before the execution actually takes place.” When the warrant had been sealed, it was to be carried into effect by the proper parties. The orders were clear, leaving Davison in no doubt that Her Majesty’s mind was made up. The fact that the Queen had long thought the affair over in all its details was shown by her further instructions to Davison. The execution was to take place in the great hall of Fotheringay Castle, for neither the front court nor the inner court was suitable. She reiterated her demand for secrecy as to the signing of the warrant. But having been able to make up her mind at last seemed to have relieved the strain. This put her in a merry mood. She chuckled as she told Davison that, when Walsingham learnt what she had done, “the grief thereof will go near to kill him outright.”
Davison believed, as well he might, that his instructions were ended. He bowed and made for the door. Elizabeth, however, could never decide unhesitatingly, and those who thought she had done so were apt to find themselves mistaken. She called Davison back from the door, her merriment having passed, and her real or feigned resolution having been dissipated. Uneasily the Queen paced up and down the room. Was there not another way? After all, the “Members of the Association” had sworn to kill anyone who should attempt her assassination. Since Sir Amyas Paulet and his companion Sir Drue Drury at Fotheringay were members of the “Association”, was it not their unquestioned duty to do the deed, and to relieve her, the Queen, from the odium of a public execution? Let Walsingham write to the pair of them in that sense.
The worthy Davison became uneasy. It was plain to him the Queen wished the deed done without herself having part or lot in it. One may well suppose that the secretary regretted having had no witnesses to this important conversation. Still, what could he do? His orders were plain. He therefore went first to Cecil; the Great Seal was affixed to the warrant; then he went on to Walsingham, who forthwith composed a letter to Sir Amyas Paulet in the sense desired. Her Majesty, said Walsingham, “doth note in you both a lack of that care and zeal of her service that she looketh for at your hands … In that you have not in all this time of yourselves (without other provocation) found out some way to shorten the life of that Queen, considering the great peril she is subject unto hourly, so long as the said Queen shall live.” Especially the recipients of the letter should bear in mind that they had “good warrant and ground” for the satisfaction of their consciences towards God and the discharge of their credit and reputation towards the world, “in the oath of association which you both have so solemnly taken and vowed, especially the matter wherewith she stands in charge being so clearly and manifestly proved against her.” The letter went on to say that Elizabeth “taketh it most unkindly towards her, that men professing that love towards her that you do, should in any kind of thought, for lack of the discharge of your duties, cast the burthen upon her, knowing as you do her indisposition to shed blood, especially of one of that sex and quality, and so near to her in blood as the said Queen is.”
This letter can hardly have reached Sir Amyas Paulet, and certainly the answer from Fotheringay could not have got back to London, when a change of wind set in at Greenwich. Next morning, Thursday, a messenger knocked at Davison’s door with a note from the Queen. “If the secretary has not yet taken the warrant to the chancellor for the affixing of the Great Seal, let him wait until Her Majesty has had a further talk with him.” Davison hastened to the Queen and told her that, as ordered, he had already had the death warrant sealed. Elizabeth made her discontent plain, showing this by the expression of her countenance, but did not blame Davison in so many words and, above all, refrained from ordering him to bring back the signed and sealed death warrant. She complained once more of the fresh burdens that were continually being laid upon her shoulders. Restlessly she wandered up and down the room. Davison stood to his guns, humbly waiting for decisive orders. Suddenly Elizabeth quitted the room, without saying another word.
It was a Shakespearian scene that Elizabeth was playing before an audience of one. We cannot but think of Richard III complaining that his adversary Buckingham is alive without giving clear orders for the murder. The same injured look of King Richard III, when his vassals understand him and yet pretend not to understand, had been flashed by Elizabeth at the unhappy Davison. He felt that he was on slippery ground and tried to find securer footing. He did not wis
h to stand alone in a position of such overwhelming responsibility. Seeking out Sir Christopher Hatton, a close friend of the Queen who had been one of the commissioners at Fotheringay, Davison explained that he, the secretary, was in a ticklish position. Elizabeth had commanded him to have the Great Seal affixed to the death warrant, after she had signed it, but her demeanour that morning made it obvious that she was in a mood to repudiate her orders. Hatton knew Elizabeth’s whimsies too well not to understand, but he, likewise, was disinclined to speak in candid terms to poor Davison. The comedy of trying to shift responsibility was carried a stage further. Elizabeth had thrown the ball to Davison; Davison passed it on to Hatton; Hatton, in his turn, brought Cecil into the game. The Lord High Treasurer was no less disinclined than the others had been to shoulder full responsibility, but he summoned a meeting of the Privy Council for the next day. All Elizabeth’s intimates and closest confidants were present, Leicester, Hatton and ten other men of rank who had had ample experience of the Queen’s untrustworthiness. At the council, for the first time the matter was discussed in plain English. They were agreed that Queen Elizabeth, for the sake of her moral prestige, wished to avoid any appearance of having commanded the execution of Mary Stuart. She wanted to present herself before the world as “astonished” by an accomplished fact. It was, therefore, the duty of her loyal lieges to play up to her and, in apparent defiance of the Queen’s will, do what she really wanted and would not expressly command. Of course this was to take an enormous responsibility, and j therefore the weight of her genuine or simulated anger must not fall upon one individual. Cecil’s proposal was that they should jointly order the execution and jointly accept responsibility for it. Lord Kent and Lord Shrewsbury were instructed to see to the carrying out of the death sentence, and Beale, clerk of the Council, was sent with the necessary orders to Fotheringay. Thus the possible blame would fall upon all the members of the Privy Council who had been present at this meeting, and by their transgression of the limits of their powers—a transgression which Elizabeth secretly desired—they would remove the “burthen” from the Queen.
One of Elizabeth’s most conspicuous characteristics was her curiosity. She always wanted to know, and to know forthwith, everything that was going on in her palace and throughout her realm. Yet on this occasion, strangely enough, she asked neither Davison nor Cecil nor anyone else what had been done with the death warrant she had signed. For three whole days she seemed to have utterly forgotten a matter upon which her mind had been concentrated for months past. She did not ask once more whether the document had been sealed, and in whose hands it then was. As if she had drunk of the waters of Lethe, this momentous affair seemed to have vanished from her memory. When next morning, Sunday, Sir Amyas Paulet’s answer to her proposal that he and Drury should murder Mary arrived, she never enquired where the signed and sealed death warrant might be. Paulet’s answer was by no means to the Queen’s taste. He instantly perceived how ungrateful a task was being assigned to him. He was to make an end of Mary Stuart, and for what reward? The Queen would then have him accused of the murder and hand him over to justice. Sir Amyas Paulet did not expect gratitude from any member of the House of Tudor, and had no inclination to be made a scapegoat of. Lest he might seem disobedient, the shrewd puritan appealed to a yet higher authority than the Queen’s, namely to God. He wrapped his refusal in the cloak of morality. His reply was, of course, to Sir Francis Walsingham, and not to Queen Elizabeth direct.
Your letter of yesterday coming to my hand this present day at five in the afternoon, I would not fail, according to your directions, to return my answer with all possible speed, which shall deliver unto you with great grief and bitterness of mind, in that I am so unhappy to have lived to see this unhappy day, in the which I am required by direction from my most gracious Sovereign to do an act which God and the law forbid it. My good living and life are at Her Majesty’s disposition, and am ready to so lose them this next morrow if it shall so please her, acknowledging that I hold them as of her near and most gracious favour, and do not desire them to enjoy them, but with Her Highness’ good liking. But God forbid that I should make so foul a shipwreck of my conscience, or leave so great a blot to my poor posterity, to shed blood without law or warrant. Trusting that Her Majesty, of her accustomed clemency, will take this my dutiful answer in good part (and the rather by your good mediation), as proceeding from one who will never be inferior to any Christian subject living in duty, honour, love and obedience towards his sovereign. And thus I commit you to the mercy of the Almighty.
But Elizabeth was by no means inclined to take in good part this dutiful answer of her trusty Paulet, whom shortly before she had so enthusiastically praised on account of his “spotless actions, wise orders and safe regards.” Angrily she tramped up and down the room, shouting that she could not stomach those “dainty and precise fellows” who would promise everything and perform nothing. Paulet was a perjurer. He had signed the Bond of Association undertaking to serve the Queen at risk of his own life. “But I can do without him,” she screamed. “I have Wingfield, who will not draw back.” With real or pretended wrath she stormed at the unhappy Davison (Walsingham was better advised in being laid up at the moment!), who, with lamentable simplicity, assured her that the legal method was best. “Wiser men than you,” said Elizabeth contemptuously, “hold different opinions.” It was time that the matter was settled once for all, and a scandal to everyone concerned that she had not been freed from the “burthen” of responsibility.
Davison held his tongue. He might have replied to his royal mistress that steps to make an end to the matter once for all had already been taken. He knew, however, that nothing he could say would be more distasteful to the Queen than an honest assurance of what she already knew and pretended not to know—that the messenger carrying the signed and sealed death warrant was on his way to Fotheringay, accompanied by a thickset and burly man who was to translate words into blood, commands into performance—the London executioner.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“En Ma Fin Est Mon Commencement”
(8th February 1587)
“EN MA FIN EST MON COMMENCEMENT”—In my end is my beginning. Such was the device, not then comprehensible, which, years before, Mary had stitched into one of her embroideries. Her foreboding was to be realised. Her tragic death was the true beginning of her fame; it only would compensate in the eyes of posterity for the offences of her youth, would transfigure her crimes and follies. For weeks the condemned woman had been circumspectly and resolutely preparing for this last ordeal. Twice, as a young queen, she had looked on while a nobleman perished beneath the executioner’s axe, and had thus learnt that heroism on the scaffold is the only way of compensating for so cruel a death. Mary Stuart knew that the contemporary world and posterity would scrutinise her behaviour closely when, an anointed queen, she perished by a public execution, and that to show the white feather in this decisive moment would be treason to her royal reputation. Thus, during the weeks of waiting, she concentrated her energies. Creature of impulse though she had always been, for this last hour of her life she tranquilly made ready—with the result that there might have been written of her what Andrew Marvell wrote of her grandson Charles I on the like occasion: “She nothing common did or mean, upon that memorable scene.”
She gave no sign of terror or astonishment when, on Tuesday, 7th February 1587, her servants told her that Shrewsbury, Kent and Beale had arrived from London, that they were accompanied by the High Sheriff of Northampton, and that they and Sir Drue Drury had news to communicate to her. She summoned her ladies and most of the members of her domestic staff. Then the visitors were admitted. She wanted to be surrounded by friendly witnesses, who would declare that she had been stalwart to the last, that she, daughter of James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise, she, in whose veins flowed the blood of the Tudors, the Valois and the Stuarts, could be steadfast in this terrible emergency. Shrewsbury, under whose care she had lived for the greater par
t of her long imprisonment, bent his knee and bowed his grey head. His voice trembled as he announced that Queen Elizabeth had found it necessary to yield to the urgent petition of her subjects and to command that the death-penalty should be carried into effect. Then he read the death warrant, to which Mary listened without a sign of emotion. Having crossed herself, she said: “In the name of God, these tidings are welcome, and I bless and pray Him that the end of all my bitter sufferings is at hand. I could receive no better news, and thank the Almighty for His grace in allowing me to die for the honour of His name and of His Church, the ancient Catholic and Romaine religion.” She made no further protest—except insofar as a protest was implied in her placing her hand on a Bible which lay on the table near her, and swearing: “I have never either desired the death of the Queen, or endeavoured to bring it about, or that of any other person.”
Herself a queen, she no longer wished to defend herself against the injustice perpetrated against her by another queen, but was ready, as a Christian woman, to accept the afflictions imposed on her by God’s will, and perhaps welcomed her martyrdom gladly as the last triumph He might vouchsafe her in this life. She made only two requests: that her chaplain should assist her to the last with ghostly consolation, and that the sentence should not be executed the very next morning, that she might have more time to prepare herself for death. Both petitions were rejected. The Earl of Kent, a fanatical Protestant, answered vehemently that she needed no priest of the Popish faith, but he would see to it that she should have the ministrations of a cleric of the Reformed Church, who would instruct her in the True Religion. Of course, at this supreme hour when Mary Stuart wished to avow before the eyes of the Catholic world her faith in the creed in which she had been brought up, she would hold no commerce with a heretic. Less cruel than the refusal of the consolations of her religion to a dying woman, was the rejection of her plea for a postponement of the execution. Once the matter had been decided, the less time between the announcement and the act of doom the better. The few hours that remained to her would be so busily occupied that little opportunity was left for the intrusion of fear or unrest. One of God’s gifts to mortals is that, for the dying, time is always too short.