Let not my enemies be afraid that I aim any longer at dispossessing them of their usurped authority. I look now to no other kingdom but that of Heaven, and would wish to prepare myself for it, knowing that my sorrows will never cease till I arrive there." She then speaks of her son, and entreats that Elizabeth would interfere in his behalf. She concludes with requesting, that some honourable churchman should be sent to her, to remind her daily of the road she had yet to finish, and to instruct her how to pursue it, according to her religion, in which she would wish to die as she had lived. "I am very weak and helpless," she adds, "and do beseech you to give me some solitary mark of your friendship. Bind your own relations to yourself; let me have the happiness of knowing, before I die, that a reconciliation has taken place between us, and that, when my soul quits my body, it will not be necessary for it to carry complaints of your injustice to the throne of my Creator."[186] The only result which this letter produced, was a remonstrance from Elizabeth which she sent by Beal, the Clerk of her Privy Council, against such unnecessary complaints.[187] In Scotland, meanwhile, the event of greatest consequence which had taken place, was the trial and execution of the Earl of Morton, for having been _art_ and _part_ in the murder of Darnley. Morton's intolerable tyranny having rendered him odious to the greater part of the nobility, and the young King having nearly arrived at an age when he could act and think for himself, he found it necessary, very unwillingly, to retire from office. He did not, even then, desist from carrying on numerous intrigues; and it was rumoured, that he intended seizing the King's person, and carrying him captive into England. Whether there was any truth in this report or not, it is certain that James became anxious to get rid of so factious and dangerous a nobleman. The only plausible expedient which occurred to him, or his Council, was, to accuse Morton of a share in Bothwell's guilt. His trial does not seem to have been conducted with any very scrupulous regard to justice. But a jury of his peers was allowed him; and they, having heard the evidence in support of the charges, found him guilty of having been in the council or knowledge of the conspiracy against the late King, of concealing it, and of being _art_ and _part_ in the murder. It was to the latter part of this verdict alone that Morton objected. He confessed that he knew of the intended murder, and had concealed it, but positively disclaimed having been _art_ and _part_ in it. This seems, however, to have been a distinction without a difference. On the 1st of June 1581, he was condemned to the block, and next day the sentence was executed. The instrument called the _Maiden_, which was used to behead him, he had himself brought into Scotland, and he was the first to suffer by it. His head was placed on the public gaol at Edinburgh, and his body buried