ed the plot carefully;
letters from Mary were systematically intercepted and copied till the
moment came for striking; the conspirators were arrested, and suffered
the extreme penalty of the treason laws; and Elizabeth consented to have
Mary herself at last brought to trial. She was refused counsel; the
commission condemned her. Parliament demanded the execution of the death
sentence. Elizabeth had her own misgivings.

She was afraid of the responsibility. Leicester suggested poison, but
Burleigh and Walsingham stood by the law. A special embassy of
remonstrance came from France; Mary wrote a dignified letter, not an
appeal for her life, which moved the queen to tears; protests from the
King of Scotland only aroused indignation; Elizabeth was frightened by
rumours of fresh plots and of a French invasion.

At last she signed the death warrant, brought to her by Secretary
Davison; the Chancellor's seal was attached, and the council, fearing
some evasion on Elizabeth's part, issued the commission for Mary's
execution without further reference to the queen; she was kept in
ignorance of the fact till the tragedy was completed. She was furious
with the council, but powerless against their unanimity. She could
venture to make a scapegoat of Davison, and made a vain attempt to clear
herself of responsibility in a letter to James, which failed to soothe
the burst of indignation with which the news was received in Scotland.
But the one thing she feared--a coalition of France, Spain, and
Scotland--was made impossible by the antagonisms of the former and the
weakness of the last.

Another crisis was at hand. Philip of Spain, claiming the throne of
England as a descendant of John of Gaunt, was preparing the great
Armada; Pope Sixtus V. was proclaiming a crusade against the heretic
queen. Drake sailed into Cadiz harbour, and "singed the don's whiskers,"
but the vast preparations went on. A lofty spirit animated the queen and
the people. London undertook to provide double the number of ships and
men demanded from her. The militia was gathered at Tilbury, under
Leicester. Howard of Effingham was Lord Admiral, with Drake as
vice-admiral; in the enthusiasm of the moment, Elizabeth bestowed
knighthood on a valorous lady, Mary, the wife of Sir Hugh Cholmondeley.

A report that the Armada had been destroyed by a gale, which actually
drove it into Corunna for repairs, caused Elizabeth, with her usual
parsimony, to order four great vessel