The day of her execution was the second Wednesday in February, 1587. Three hundred knights were assembled in the hall of Fotheringay Castle. When the Provost-Marshal and the Sheriff came to fetch her from her room, they found her no longer dressed in the customary grey cloth, but clothed in a robe of black satin. Her hand on the arm of one of the guard, she passed tall and erect down the broad oak staircase to the hall. At the end of the hall loomed the scaffold swathed in black; the dancing flames of a great crackling wood fire moved light shadows across its blackness, and flickered on the bright steel of the axe which was leaning against the block. By the block stood the executioners, masked and in black. She who was cousin to the Queen of England, who was a married Queen of France and anointed Queen of Scotland, passed up the hall, followed by her six friends. Her waiting women tried and tried vainly to keep back their sobs--Elizabeth Kennedy and Barbara Mowbray. She ascended the black scaffold and sat down--smiling. Beale read aloud the sentence. "Madam," said Lord Shrewsbury, "you hear what we are commanded to do." "You will do your duty," was her reply. Then the Dean of Peterborough endeavoured to play his accorded part, but three times he broke down in addressing her. When he at length began to pray, Mary too prayed in Latin, and at length her voice alone sounded through the hall. No longer she prayed in Latin as she had prayed at first, she prayed in English without a falter in her voice. With sublime audacity she prayed that God might forgive and bless her son, James VI. of Scotland, and her cousin, Elizabeth of England, and that He might avert His wrath from Elizabeth's country. She finished; the black mutes stepped forward. The scaffold creaked under their movement. They asked her forgiveness for what they were going to do, according to the custom; and forgiveness was granted them. "I forgive you," she said, "because now I hope that you will end all my troubles." Her ladies, Elizabeth Kennedy and Barbara Mowbray, mounted the steps of the black scaffold in order that they might help her to make ready. They lifted the lawn veil carefully, not to disarrange her hair. Swiftly they removed the black robe; swiftly they took her arms from out the black jacket, slashed with velvet, and set the jacket on one side. Dazzling in crimson satin she stood on the black scaffold, revealed in red satin between the black mutes, as she drew over her white arms crimson sleeves, which her ladies, now trembling, handed to her. But she drew them on as a lady her gloves, without haste. "Ne criez-vous, j'ai promis pour vous," she turned to them and said. She knelt and laid her head on the block: it was hard to her soft neck, so she put her hand underneath, murmuring the Psalm "In Te, Domine, confido." But the headsman moved her hand away, fearing its softness might hinder his business. Then he struck, but the blow fell lightly,