nt of Mary on this trying emergency exhibited somewhat of
the dignity, but more of the spirit and adroitness, for which she has
been famed. She justified her negotiations, or intrigues, with foreign
princes, on the ground of her inalienable right to employ all the means
within her power for the recovery of that liberty of which she had been
cruelly and unjustly deprived. With great effrontery she persisted in
denying that she had ever entertained with Babington any correspondence
whatever; and she urged that his pretending to receive, or having in
fact received, letters written in her cipher, was no conclusive proof
against her; since it was the same which she used in her French
correspondence, and might have fallen into other hands. But finding
herself hard pressed by evidence on this part of the subject, she
afterwards hazarded a rash attempt to fix on Walsingham the imputation
of having suborned witnesses and forged letters for her destruction. The
aged minister, greatly moved by this attack upon his character,
immediately rose and asserted his innocence in a manner so solemn, and
with such circumstantial corroboration, as compelled her to retract the
accusation with an apology.

On some mention of the earl of Arundel and lord William Howard his
brother, which occurred in the intercepted letters, she sighed, and
exclaimed with a feeling which did her honor, "Alas, what has not the
noble house of Howard suffered for my sake!"

On the whole, her presence of mind was remarkable; though the quick
sensibilities of her nature could not be withheld from breaking out at
times, either in vehement sallies of anger or long fits of weeping, as
the sense of past and present injuries, or of her forlorn and afflicted
state and the perils and sufferings which still menaced her, rose by
turns upon her agitated and affrighted mind.

The commissioners, after a full hearing, of the cause, quitted
Fotheringay, and, meeting again in the Star-chamber summoned before them
the two secretaries, who voluntarily confirmed on oath the whole of
their former depositions: after this, they proceeded to an unanimous
sentence of death against Mary, which was immediately transmitted to the
queen for her approbation. On the same day a declaration was published
on the part of the commissioners and judges, importing, that the
sentence did in no manner derogate from the titles and honors of the
king of Scots.

Most of the subsequent steps taken by Eliz