Having thus recorded the relative strength and merits of the contending parties, the poet completes his picture of the lamentable state to which the kingdom has been reduced by civil discord; then, with his natural inclination to give prominence to his own troubles, bewails the "unrest" which embitters his life and is "powdering the heires upon his head". For solace he "retyres unto his booke a space", there to contemplate, "with rufull eye, what bale is incident in everie estate where tirants do prevale", and to gather "examples that bloodye feicts dothe aske vengiance and thrists for bloode againe". Cyrus, Tomiris, Cambyses, Brutus, Cassius, Bessus, Alexander, and Dionysius are called up "to represent the fine of tirants' force", and to show "howe the gwiltless bloode that is vniustlie shede dothe crave revenge". Sheer weariness, however, puts an end to the dismal meditation, and as the poet sinks into "swete slepe" it seems to him that a messenger is "thrust in at the doore" to inform him that the Queen herself is at hand. Hereupon Mary enters, and without further preface begins "her tale", to which the second part of the _Fantasie_ is devoted. The opening words of the Queen's confession, for such is the form into which her "complante" is thrown, assume that she is acquainted with Randolph's purpose of recording the events of which he has been a witness, and are a request that he will "inwrape her woos within his carefull clewe, that when the recorde is spread everywhere, the state of her comber first may appear". Her grief, however, as she at once explains, is not for herself--there is no cause why she should repine, for all things have succeeded according to her will--it is for the miserable state to which her headstrong resistance to the advice of those who counselled wise and moderate government has reduced her realm. But, before entering fully into her subject, by a clever paralepsy she digresses into an account of her birth and accomplishments. Written as it is by a professed enemy of Mary Stuart's the passage is of considerable interest, and may help to settle the disputed question of her personal gifts:-- I hold it nedles to bragg of my birthe, by loyall dascent endowed a quene; my ffather doth wytness it even to his death, who in this weale most noblie did reigne; and that halffe a Gwyssian[172] by birth I bene, and howe the Frenshe Kinge in marag did endowe me with royall right, a madlie[173] widowe. But I cold bost of bewtie with the best, in skilfull poincts of princelie attire, and of the golden gwiftes of nature's behest who filed my face of favor freshe and fayre; my bewtie shynes like Phebus in the ayre, and nature formed my feater beside in such proport[174] as advanseth my pride.