; and at length in allowing Elizabeth to bring
this amiable Woman to an untimely, unmerited, and scandalous Death. Can
any one if he reflects but for a moment on this blot, this everlasting
blot upon their understanding and their Character, allow any praise to
Lord Burleigh or Sir Francis Walsingham? Oh! what must this bewitching
Princess whose only freind was then the Duke of Norfolk, and whose
only ones now Mr Whitaker, Mrs Lefroy, Mrs Knight and myself, who was
abandoned by her son, confined by her Cousin, abused, reproached and
vilified by all, what must not her most noble mind have suffered when
informed that Elizabeth had given orders for her Death! Yet she bore
it with a most unshaken fortitude, firm in her mind; constant in her
Religion; and prepared herself to meet the cruel fate to which she
was doomed, with a magnanimity that would alone proceed from conscious
Innocence. And yet could you Reader have beleived it possible that
some hardened and zealous Protestants have even abused her for that
steadfastness in the Catholic Religion which reflected on her so
much credit? But this is a striking proof of THEIR narrow souls and
prejudiced Judgements who accuse her. She was executed in the Great Hall
at Fortheringay Castle (sacred Place!) on Wednesday the 8th of February
1586--to the everlasting Reproach of Elizabeth, her Ministers, and of
England in general. It may not be unnecessary before I entirely conclude
my account of this ill-fated Queen, to observe that she had been accused
of several crimes during the time of her reigning in Scotland, of which
I now most seriously do assure my Reader that she was entirely innocent;
having never been guilty of anything more than Imprudencies into which
she was betrayed by the openness of her Heart, her Youth, and her
Education. Having I trust by this assurance entirely done away every
Suspicion and every doubt which might have arisen in the Reader's mind,
from what other Historians have written of her, I shall proceed to
mention the remaining Events that marked Elizabeth's reign. It was about
this time that Sir Francis Drake the first English Navigator who sailed
round the World, lived, to be the ornament of his Country and his
profession. Yet great as he was, and justly celebrated as a sailor,
I cannot help foreseeing that he will be equalled in this or the next
Century by one who tho' now but young, already promises to answer all
the ardent and sanguine expectations of his