t be brought to admit
that the two cases were other than parallel. But, except for this single
instance of oversight or perversity, her defence was throughout a
masterpiece of indomitable ingenuity, of delicate and steadfast courage,
of womanly dignity and genius. Finally, she demanded, as she had
demanded before, a trial either before the states of the realm lawfully
assembled, or else before the Queen in council.

So closed the second day of the trial; and before the next day's work
could begin, a note of two or three lines hastily written at midnight
informed the commissioners that Elizabeth had suddenly determined to
adjourn the expected judgment and transfer the place of it to the
star-chamber. Here, on October 25th, the commissioners again met; and
one of them alone, Lord Zouch, dissented from the verdict by which Mary
was found guilty of having, since the 1st of June preceding, compassed
and imagined divers matters tending to the destruction of Elizabeth.
This verdict was conveyed to her, about three weeks later, by Lord
Buckhurst and Robert Beale, clerk of the privy council. At the
intimation that her life was an impediment to the security of the
received religion, "she seemed with a certain unwonted alacrity to
triumph, giving God thanks, and rejoicing in her heart that she was held
to be an instrument" for the restoration of her own faith. This note of
exultation as in martyrdom was maintained with unflinching courage to
the last. She wrote to Elizabeth and the Duke of Guise two letters of
almost matchless eloquence and pathos, admirable especially for their
loyal and grateful remembrance of all her faithful servants. Between the
date of these letters and the day of her execution wellnigh three months
of suspense elapsed.

Elizabeth, fearless almost to a fault in face of physical danger,
constant in her confidence even after discovery of her narrow escape
from the poisoned bullets of household conspirators, was cowardly even
to a crime in face of subtler and more complicated peril. She rejected
with resolute dignity the intercession of French envoys for the life of
the Queen Dowager of France; she allowed the sentence of death to be
proclaimed, and welcomed with bonfires and bell-ringing throughout the
length of England; she yielded a respite of twelve days to the pleading
of the French ambassador, and had a charge trumped up against him of
participation in a conspiracy against her life; at length, on Februar