showed no inclination to proceed to violent measures against her during the course of the ensuing fifteen years. In fact, she relied so entirely upon the vigilance and policy of Burghley, whom (upon the death of the Marquis of Winchester, in 1572) she had raised to the office of Lord High Treasurer, that she gave herself little or no concern about the captive princess, till such daring attempts were made against her personal safety, that she began to fear she should fall a victim to her moderation. Hence, upon the conviction of Babington, who appeared to have been countenanced by Mary and her party, she was more closely confined, and at length removed to Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire, in order to take her trial; a commission being issued for that purpose in October, 1586.

It is a difficult matter to determine whether Mary was guilty or not, as an accomplice, in any direct attempt against the life of Elizabeth; and charity should incline us, upon this tender point, to believe her own dying words: the whole charge of being privy to Babington's conspiracy* resting principally on the evidences of Nau and Curle, her two secretaries, who had been encouraged by the English ministry to betray her.

It would have evinced more temper indeed, and

* The correspondence between Mary and Babington had been detected by the sagacity of Sir Francis Walsingham: but the bringing of the royal criminal to punishment required a degree of firmness suited to the crisis; and nothing but a consciousness of the rectitude of the measure, his own ascendency over the Queen, and the popularity which he had acquired by his public and private virtues, could have supported Cecil under the load of censure which fell upon him from all quarters, as the chief cause of Mary's execution.

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a sounder discretion, to have proceeded upon the accusations brought against her by her own subjects, particularly with respect to the murther of her second husband Lord Darnley. From the character, however, and number of the Commissioners,* the majority of our chroniclers decide, that she had an impartial trial, and was clearly convicted of conspiring the destruction of the Queen, the realm of England, and the Protestant religion. Thuanus, the celebrated French historian, likewise observes, that even the Popish lords included in the commission found her guilty of the impeachment.

She suffered in the great hall of Fotheringay Castle, February 8, 1587, in the forty-sixth year of her age; and from the noble fortitude with which she encountered death, it may be truly asserted, that 'her last moments did her more honour than all those, by which they had been preceded.'

Apprehensive that Mary's treatment would excite loud clamors against her in all the Popish courts of Europe, Elizabeth ungenerously endeavoured to throw the blame of it upon Davison, one of the Secretaries of State, through whose department the warrants for the execution of criminals passed. She had signed that of Mary without hesitation; but at the same time, as she subsequently avowed, she had charged the Secretary not to part with it, nor even to let any person know that it had her signature affixed.' Davison however, from various significant hints dropped by Elizabeth, thought it his duty to inform the Privy Council, that it lay signed in his office;

*Being no fewer than forty-two of the chief persons of the kingdom, including five of the judges.

upon which some of the lords, knowing the Queen had privately censured them for their dilatoriness in the affair, moved that orders should be given to Davison to forward it without her Majesty's knowledge to Fotheringay Castle.' This was, of course, followed by the execution of Mary; for which Elizabeth prosecuted Davison, her own immediate agent, in the Star-Chamber, where he was fined 10,000l., and condemned to imprisonment during her royal pleasure! Against this sentence Burghley, convinced that he had acted agreeably to his mistress' wish, remonstrated with great freedom, in a letter to her Majesty which is still extant.

One of the chief objects of the mighty preparations made in Spain in 1587, for the invasion of England, was to replace Mary on the Scottish throne: but by the assiduity and abilities of Cecil, and of his collegues, the expedition was thwarted for a twelvemonth.*

The following year, however, the Spaniards resolved upon ample vengeance; and the spiritual artillery of the Vatican was fulminated in aid of more formidable arms. Excommunications and anathemas, with every other Popish engine of terror, were adopted to shake the allegiance of the English, and to terrify them into defection from their Sovereign. But Burghley had taken advantage of ten years of peace, to put the nation into an admirable posture of defence. The navy had been considerably improved and augmented, and the seamen kept in practice by frequent naval expeditions sent out in quest of discoveries. The army likewise was well-disciplined, and had

* See the Life of Drake.

gained experience by several campaigns in Holland and in Ireland. And so exact was his intelligence in foreign parts, that (to use the words of Lloyd) "he could write to a friend in Ireland, what the King of Spain could do for two years together, and what he could not do."

The defeat of the Armada* having delivered the nation from all apprehensions of a revolution in religion, and the Queen from her personal dangers, universal transport pervaded all orders of people.

But the satisfaction Burghley must have felt upon this fortunate issue of his political measures, was che quered by a stroke of domestic misfortune, which cast a gloom of melancholy over his remaining days. In 1589, he lost his second wife; a lady not less celebrated for her piety and learning,† than for those

* Burghley is said, upon this occasion, to have drawn up all the plans of defence; and his eldest son served on board Lord Howard's fleet.

+ Learned herself, she was the constant patroness of learned men. A beautiful copy of the O Mirificam Greek Testament of R. Stephens, with the name Mildreda Cecilia, neatly written in her own hand in Greek letters, is still extant. Dean Nowell, whom she had often consulted and employed as her almoner, was called upon to preach her funeral sermon. Her afflicted husband soothed his sorrow for her loss by recounting some of the deeds of charity, great, numerous, and permanent, which she had devised and conducted in her life-time; chiefly without his knowledge, but with the advice of the Deans of St. Paul's and Westminster, she injoining them secrecy, and "forcing upon them some fine pieces of plate, to be used in their chambers, as remembrances of her good-will for their pains." He also drew up a paper of instruction for the Dean, preparatory to his discourse; stating, among other particulars, that he had "lived with her in the state of matrimony forty and two years without any unkindness.”

private virtues, which rendered her the ornament and the example of her sex. This affliction was the more severely felt from their long and happy union, Lady Burghley having been his faithful companion and comfort upward of forty years.

It was now that, drooping under this heavy dispensation, almost exhausted by incessant application to public business, and agonised occasionally by the gout, this illustrious statesman earnestly solicited leave to resign his employments, especially as his son Robert began to stand high in the Queen's favour: but Elizabeth, who knew his value, would by no means consent to it. To console him for his loss, she paid him frequent visits, and took every opportunity to do him honour in the eyes of the people, than which nothing could be better calculated to sooth his declining age, and to excite it to fresh exertions in the public service. Accordingly, we find him extremely active, upon sundry occasions, during the last ten years of his life. In 1591, the Queen by his advice founded the University of Dublin, and by him the plan of education was drawn up; and in 1593, he had the sole management of every branch of administration, filling the delicate and difficult post of Prime Minister, and acquitting himself of it's extensive duties with as much ability and despatch, as if he had been in the very vigour of manhood.

"To him (says one of his earliest biographers) all ranks of people addressed themselves, to the very last. The Bishops and clergy for encouragement, protection, and preferment: the Puritans (who were persecuted, against his opinion, in council) for favourable treatment and relief from the oppressions of the