Mary had now reached the final stage of the journey which began forty-four years before in the palace of Linlithgow.

A trial was necessary to lend a legal aspect to the proceedings.   The French ambassador in the name of his King demanded that the Queen of Scots be allowed counsel and all things necessary for her defense.   He received a verbal answer from Queen Elizabeth that the civil law considered persons in the situation of the Scots Queen unworthy of counsel.

Mary's attitude was that she, an anointed Queen, was subject to no one but God, to whom alone she was accountable for her actions.  She was willing to answer all things that might be objected against her before a free and full Parliament (she knew she had a following amongst the English nobility), but she refused to admit the authority of any lesser court.   She agreed, however, to prove her goodwill, to answer the accusation that she had plotted against her sister Queen's life, because she knew the proceedings would be continued if she was absent.   She knew also she was already judged and condemned, `I adjure you', she warned Cecil and the Lord Chancellor, `to look to your consciences in this matter, for remember the theatre of the world is wider than the realm of England.'

When she entered the great hall of Fotheringay that October day, she was supported by her French physician on one side, and her Scots master of the household on the other.   She found, awaiting her, their faces implacable as a wall, the great law officers of the crown, peers, privy counsellors and judges-Englishmen all.   `Alas! how many counsellors are here,' she exclaimed, `yet not one for me.'

For two days she fenced and held her own with the ablest brains in England.   `I came to England', was her unassailable beginning, `to crave the aid that had been promised me, and it is well known that, contrary to all law and justice, I have been detained in prison ever since.'   Her knowledge of English law was searching, and she had an answer for every question.   When they produced copies of letters purporting to be written by her, she told them to bring her `mine own hand-writ, anything to suit a purpose may be put in what are called copies.'   `My crimes', she stated, `consist in my birth, the injuries that have been inflicted upon me, and my religion.   Of the first, I am justly proud, the second I can forgive, and the third has been my sole consolation and hope under all my afflictions.'   She spoke truly when she told them it was more in accordance with her nature to pray with Esther than to play the part of Judith.   `My lord,' she exclaimed to Cecil, `you are my enemy,' `yes,' he replied, compact with antagonism, `I am the enemy of all Queen Elizabeth's adversaries.'

She maintained throughout that she had longed for liberty and `earnestly labored to procure it.   Nature impelled me to ....I have written to my friends, and solicited them to assist me to escape from her (Elizabeth's) miserab le prisons, in which she has kept me now nearly nineteen years, till my health and hopes have been cruelly destroyed.'   But she called God to witness that she had never conspired the death of the Queen of England.   She may have left the method of her deliverance to her Catholic advisers but she certainly knew that her deliverance was bound to include what the conspirators referred to amongst themselves as `the principal execution'.   It was Protestants versus Catholics, Catholics versus Protestants.   The victory of one meant the extermination of the rival Queen, and Mary must have desired the death of the puissant Elizabeth even more heartily than Elizabeth desired that of her captive Mary.

She asked for an advocate to plead her cause, for one more day to be allowed for consideration and preparation of her defense.   She was refused both.   Then she rose from her seat to her full majestic height and demanded to be heard in Parliament in presence of the Queen of England and her Council.   Abruptly the court broke up.

Sentence of death was passed on her four weeks later.   She heard the intimation of it with composure; indeed the moment the bearers of it spoke of religion, she, and not they, was in command.   They told her to confess and acknowledge her offences against their Queen; that the reason shy her death was demanded by Elizabeth's subjects was because she was a competitor for her crown; that Elizabeth could have no security while she was alive for all the Catholics styled her their sovereign; and that, if she survived, Elizabeth's religion would not remain in security.

`I thank God and you for the honor you do me', she was swift to answer, "in regarding me as an instrument for the reestablishment of my religion in this isle, of which, however unworthy, I will undertake to be a zealous defender, and will cheerfully shed my blood in that cause."

`It is a fine thing', they said, taken aback, `for you to make yourself out a saint and a martyr; but you shall be neither, as you are to die for plotting the murder and deposition of our Queen.'

`I am not so presumptuous as to pretend to honor of saint and martyr,' she returned; `but although you have power over my body, by the Divine permission, you have none over my soul, nor can you prevent me from hoping that, by the mercy of God who died for me, my blood and life will be accepted as offerings freely made by me for the maintenance of His Church.'

No indignity was spared her.   She heard them working in the hall, erecting the scaffold.   Her room and even her bed were hung with mourning, to signify that already she was a dead woman.   On the order of Elizabeth, her canopy (the mark of royalty) was knocked down, that she be deprived of the honors and dignity of a Queen.   Poulet covered his head in her presence and, refusing to address her with her royal title, referred to her as `this lady'.

She wrote to her faithful Archbishop Beaton in Paris, recommending her poor servants to him, in the name of God.   `Console them of your charity, for in losing me they lose everything....Adieu!   For the last time.   Be mindful of the soul and honor of who has been your Queen, mistress and good friend.'

In her last letter to Elizabeth she denied having borne her malice or cherished murderous intentions against her.   She entreated her to prevent her from being poisoned or secretly assassinated, `not from fear of the pain, which I am ready to suffer, but on account of the reports they would circulate of my death.'   Mary's dread was that her enemies would impute to her the crime of suicide, or pretend she had confessed guilt or been unfaithful to her religion.   That was why she desired her servants to be present at her death, `to remain the witnesses and attestators of my end, my faith in my Savior, and obedience to his Church ....   From Fotheringay this 19th of December, 1586.   Your sister and cousin wrongfully a prisoner, Marie Royne.'

The English Queen shed tears when she read this letter, but she wrote bitterly through her secretaries to Mary's guardians, complaining that they had not rid the world of their change by having her secretly murdered.   The puritan Poulet refused to make so foul a shipwreck of his conscience by doing any such thing.   It was more than three months before Queen Elizabeth could bring herself to sign the warrant for the execution, and she only did so when she realized that her statesmen had no intention of saving her the inculpation of her signature.   There is a theory that she never signed the warrant, that her ministers, alarmed at her procrastination, caused her signature to be forged.   For weeks after the execution, Cecil did not dare come near Queen Elizabeth.

The Earl Marshal, who was the Earl of Shrewsbury, and the Earl of Kent broke the communication to the Scots Queen that on the morrow she was to die.   She remarked that she had not thought the Queen her sister would ever have consented to her death, but God's will be done.   It was reported to Cecil how she heard the news:   `She seemed not to be in any terror, for anything that appeared by her outward gesture or behavior, but rather, with smiling cheer and pleasing countenance, digested and accepted the admonition of preparation to her unexpected execution, saying "that her death should be welcome unto her"'.

When she, the smile still faint upon her face, was left along with her attendants and servants, they came round her, weeping and kissing her hands.   `Now, then, take it patiently', she tol them.   She busied herself making provision for them to return to France and Scotland, arranging the little money she had in her possession into different bundles for them.   She asked them to pray for her and climbed on to her bed.

They knelt on the floor, their beads heavy in their hands, praying until the agitated air in the shrouded room hung with words and the sobbing intake of their breath.   Two or three times an unquiet silence passed over the mourning figures as they listened for some movement to come from the woman on the bed.   She lay so still they thought she too must be praying and once more their fingers felt for their beads.

At six in the morning she tole her attendants she had but two hours to live, and bade them dress her as for a festival.   She had long been denied her almoner, and entered her oratory alone, kneeling at the miniature alter where he had been accustomed to celebrate mass.

The Sheriff with his white wand entered her bedchamber where she and her attendants knelt in prayer.   `Madam.' he said, and his voice wavered, `the Lords have sent me for you.'   Mary turned her face towards him.   `Yes, she replied, `let us go.'

She could not walk alone, but her servants said there was one thing they could not and would not do--lead her to the scaffold, although they would wait upon her to her last sigh and were prepared to die with her.   Two of Poulet's servants were appointed to assist her.

She passed from her chamber through the entry into the great hall up to the scaffold.   She answered steadfastly the Protestant Dean of Peterborough, who called on her to change her opinion and repent.   `Mr. Dean, I am settled in the ancient Catholic Roman religion, and mind to spend my blood in defense of it,' When he would have pressed her further, she replied, `Mr. Dean, trouble not yourself any more, for I am settled and resolved in this my religion, and am prepared there to die.'   He began to pray, but she resolute and with vehemence prayed through him in Latin.

The executions knelt before her and asked her to forgive them her death.   `I forgive you with all my heart,' she answered readily, `for now, I hope, you shall make an end of all my troubles.'

She started to disrobe hurriedly as though anxious to be gone.   An executioner grasped from her neck the Agnus Dei as his perquisite but she took it out of his hands and gave it to one of her women, telling him he would be given money for it.   He with his fellow and her two women took off her chain of pomander beads and some of her apparel.   `I never had such grooms to make me unready,' she told them, smiling, `and never did I put off my clothes before such a company.'

Still smiling, she suffered her eyes to be bond and with no token of hesitancy knelt on the cushion.   Uttering the words, `In manus tuas Domine me commendo', her hands thrummling for the block, she bent down that pilgrim head which had lain on so many pillows.