in one of her withdrawing chambers, sitting low upon her cushions. She called me to her. I kissed her hand, and told her it was my chiefest happiness to see her in safety, and in health, which I wished might long continue. She took me by the hand, and wrung it hard, and said ‘No, Robin, I am not well,’ and then discoursed with me of her indisposition, and that her heart had been sad and heavy for ten or twelve days; and in her discourse she fetched not so few as forty or fifty great sighs. I was grieved at the first to see her in this plight; for in all my lifetime before I never knew her fetch a sigh, but when the Queen of Scots was beheaded.” This interview was on the night of Saturday, the 19th of March; and it was within the next day or two that, learning from his sister that the Queen had become worse and worse, and that there was no hope of her recovery, and remembering his friendly intercourse with the Scottish King on former occasions, he despatched a letter to James announcing the condition of affairs at Richmond, and resolved moreover that, when the Queen was actually dead, he would be himself the first man to carry the great news to Edinburgh. Once again he was in the death-chamber. It was on the day before the Queen’s death,—that Wednesday, the 23d of March, on which, lying speechless in bed, she gave the sign which Cecil and the other councillors construed as they desired. Among those who stood by her bedside on the evening of that day, while Archbishop Whitgift prayed with her several times in succession, was Sir Robert Cary. It was late, he tells us, when the group broke up, and the Queen was left to die, with only her waiting-women around her. Sir Robert had then gone to his lodgings in the town, and had given instructions that he should be called at the proper moment. Accordingly, about three o’clock on the following morning, when he knew for certain that the Queen was dead, he was at the palace gate. The porter had just received his orders not to admit any one that was not privileged; and even the bribe with which Sir Robert had already primed that official would not have been enough, had not one of the councillors, who chanced to be at the gate at the time, taken the responsibility of passing him in. He made his way through the chamber in which the weeping ladies were to that in which the councillors were assembled and were drafting their documents. His brother, Lord Hunsdon, and his sister, Lady Scroope, being already in his confidence, and his purpose having been guessed by Cecil and the rest, he found that they were very angry with him, and were making arrangements of their own for the necessary despatches to Edinburgh. In fact, they laid hold of him, told him he must remain where he was till their pleasure should be known, and, to show that they were in earnest, sent peremptory fresh orders to the porter that no one was to be allowed to pass the gates except the servants that were to be sent presently to get ready the