Then one Doctor Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough, standing directly before
her, without the rail, bending his body with great reverence, began to
utter this exhortation following: "Madam, the Queen's most excellent
Majesty," &c, and iterating these words three or four times, she told
him, "Mr. Dean, I am settled in the ancient Catholic Roman religion, and
mind to spend my blood in defence of it." Then Mr. Dean said: "Madam,
change your opinion, and repent you of your former wickedness, and
settle your faith only in Jesus Christ, by Him to be saved." Then she
answered again and again, "Mr. Dean, trouble not yourself any more, for
I am settled and resolved in this my religion, and am purposed therein
to die." Then the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Earl of Kent, perceiving
her so obstinate, told her that since she would not hear the exhortation
begun by Mr. Dean, "We will pray for your Grace, that it stand with
God's will you may have your heart lightened, even at the last hour,
with the true knowledge of God, and so die therein." Then she answered,
"If you will pray for me, my Lords, I will thank you; but to join in
prayer with you I will not, for that you and I are not of one religion."
_THE EARL OF KENT_
Then the Lords called for Mr. Dean, who, kneeling on the scaffold
stairs, began this prayer, "O most gracious God and merciful Father,"
&c, all the Assembly, saving the Queen of Scots and her servants, saying
after him. During the saying of which prayer, the Queen of Scots,
sitting upon a stool, having about her neck an _Agnus Dei_, in her hand
a crucifix, at her girdle a pair of beads with a golden cross at the end
of them, a Latin book in her hand, began with tears and with loud and
fast voice to pray in Latin; and in the midst of her prayers she slided
off from her stool, and kneeling, said divers Latin prayers; and after
the end of Mr. Dean's prayer, she kneeling, prayed in English to this
effect: "For Christ His afflicted Church, and for an end of their
troubles; for her son; and for the Queen's Majesty, that she might
prosper and serve God aright." She confessed that she hoped to be saved
"by and in the blood of Christ, at the foot of whose Crucifix she would
shed her blood." Then said the Earl of Kent, "Madam, settle Christ Jesus
in your heart, and leave those trumperies." Then she little regarding,
or nothing at all, his good counsel, went forward with her prayers,
desiring that "God would avert His wrath from this Island, and that He
would give her grief and forgiveness for her sins." These, with other
prayers she made in English, saying she forgave her enemies with all her
heart that had long sought her blood, and desired God to convert them to
the truth; and in the end of the prayer she desired all saints to make
intercession for her to Jesus Christ, and so kissing the crucifix, and
crossing of her also, said these words: "Even as Thy arms, O Jesus, were
spread here upon the Cross, so receive me into Thy arms of mercy, and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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