privately by a few menials. He had been universally hated, and there was hardly one who lamented his death. CHAPTER XI. MARY'S TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION. The closing scene of Mary's life was now rapidly approaching. Debilitated as she was by her long confinement, and the many painful thoughts which had been incessantly preying on her peace of mind, it is not likely that she could have long survived, even though she had been left unmolested within the walls of her prison. But she had been the source of two much jealousy and uneasiness to Elizabeth, to be either forgotten or forgiven. Weak as she was in body, and destitute alike of wealth and power, her name had nevertheless continued a watchword and a tower of strength, not only to all her own friends throughout Christendom, but to all who were disposed, from whatever cause, to stir up civil dissensions and broils in England. Scarcely a conspiracy against Elizabeth's person and authority had been contrived for the last sixteen years, with which the Queen of Scots was not supposed to be either remotely or immediately connected. Nor is it to be denied, that appeals were made to her sufferings and cruel treatment, to give plausibility to many an enterprise which was anti-constitutional in its object, and criminal in its execution. Other less objectionable enterprises Mary herself expressly countenanced, for she always openly declared, that being detained a captive by force, she considered herself fully entitled to take every means that offered to effect her escape. She acted solely upon a principle of self-defence. Whenever a nobleman of influence like Norfolk, or a man of integrity like Lesley, undertook to arrange a scheme for her release, she willingly listened to their proposals, and was ever ready to act in concert with them. She had been detained in strict ward in a realm into which she had come voluntarily, or rather into which she had been seduced by specious promises and offers of assistance; and it would have been against every dictate of common sense and common justice, to suppose that she had not a right to free herself from her unwarrantable imprisonment. It is true, that many of her attempts, mixed up as they were with the interested and ambitious projects of others, gave Elizabeth no little inconvenience and anxiety. But this was the price she must have laid her account with paying for the pleasure of seeing the Queen of Scots a helpless hostage in her hands.