"To whom? To James she did deny it as far as she dared. She wrote him that the execution was a 'miserable accident.' To her council she made no denial because the forger was the tool of the council, and had but carried out their will. Elizabeth could storm at her councilors, but, Tudor as she was, she had not the power to oppose their united determination." So the discussion has gone on for three hundred years. The surest way for a wrongdoer to have his crimes forgotten and forgiven is to meet with dignity and resignation the death that his deeds have made his lawful punishment. Whether Mary deserved this penalty or not, her calmness on the scaffold and her gentle submission to the death from which there was no escape have won friends and admirers for her even among the sternest critics of her life and her acts. When the time was come for her execution, she went quietly to the hall of Fotheringay Castle, supported by two attendants, while a third bore her train. With a calm and cheerful face she stepped upon the low platform where lay the block. Platform, railing, block, and a low stool were heavily draped with black. She seated herself on the stool. On her right sat the two nobles to whom the charge of her execution had been committed, on her left stood the sheriff, and in front of her the two executioners, while around the railing stood many knights and other gentlemen who had come to see her die. Her robes belonged to the executioners, and when they began to remove her gown, as the custom was, she smiled and said she had never before been disrobed by such grooms. She had begged that some of her women might be with her to the last, and when they could no longer control themselves but began to weep and lament, she kissed them and said gently, "Do not weep, my friends, I have promised that you will not. Rejoice, for you will soon see an end of all your mistress's troubles." She repeated a Latin prayer, and then an English prayer for the church, for her son James, and for Queen Elizabeth, "that she might prosper and serve God aright." Her women pinned a linen cloth over her face. She knelt down upon the cushion and laid her head upon the block. "Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit," she cried, and so died Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland and heir to the throne of England. CHAPTER XV THE SPANISH ARMADA An Englishman living in Lisbon hastened home to England and demanded audience with the queen. "Your Majesty," said he, "King Philip is making great preparations for some warlike enterprise. In the Lisbon harbor are twenty galleons and forty other vessels. Men from Italy and Germany are coming in by hundreds. What can this mean but an attack upon England?" Two months later came a message to the queen from her spies in Spain:--