the pressure of the Council, Elizabeth shrank from her death. The force of public opinion, however, was now carrying all before it, and the unanimous demand of her people wrested at last a sullen consent from the Queen. She flung the warrant signed upon the floor, and the Council took on themselves the responsibility of executing it. Mary died [February 8, 1587] on a scaffold which was erected in the castle hall at Fotheringay, as dauntlessly as she had lived. 'Do not weep,' she said to her ladies, 'I have given my word for you.' 'Tell my friends,' she charged Melville, 'that I die a good Catholic.'" _J. R. Green, Short History of the English People, chapter 7, section 6._ "'Who now doubts,' writes an eloquent modern writer, 'that it would have been wiser in Elizabeth to spare her life?' Rather, the political wisdom of a critical and difficult act has never in the world's history been more signally justified. It cut away the only interest on which the Scotch and English Catholics could possibly have combined. It determined Philip upon the undisguised pursuit of the English throne, and it enlisted against him and his projects the passionate patriotism of the English nobility." _J. A. Froude, History of England, volume 12, chapter 34._ ALSO IN: _A. De Lamartine, Mary Stuart, chapter 31-34._ _L. S. F. Buckingham, Memoirs of Mary Stuart, volume 2, chapter 5-6._ _L. von Ranke, History of England, book 3, chapter 5._ _J. D. Leader, Mary Queen of Scots in Captivity._ _C. Nau, History of Mary Stuart._ _F. A. Mignet, History of Mary Queen of Scots, chapters 9-10._ England: A. D. 1587-1588. The wrath of Catholic Europe. Spanish vengeance and ambition astir.