use all her energy to regain her liberty, or that powerful parties at home and abroad would not make the captive’s cause their own? Certainly not the crafty Elizabeth. Yet a simple act of justice--the release of the prisoner whom she unjustly and ungenerously detained--would have removed the cause of half her anxieties. Elizabeth’s troubles, therefore, were voluntarily assumed, and were part of the price which she was content to pay for the gratification of having in her power the woman and queen whose superior beauty, and title to the throne of England, had long before aroused her undying hatred. It is childish and ridiculous for historians to excuse Elizabeth’s harshness on the plea that Mary’s plotting and intriguing rendered severe treatment necessary. The same argument would justify the bandit in maltreating his victim who would be so ungrateful as to attempt escaping from his custody. CHAPTER XI. THE BEGINNING OF THE END. The spacious park of Sheffield, in which Mary’s prison was situated, beautiful as was the natural scenery of river, mountain and cultivated slope, that extended far beyond it, could offer no antidote to the "_dura catena, et misera paena_," in which she languished. Her mind had already been stored with pictures of the choicest rural scenery in France, and of the rugged grandeur of Aberdeen and Perthshire; and the variegated charms on which she could now gaze from her prison window only served to produce that sad pleasure which we feel in renewing memories of joys that have forever departed. Well, has Mr. Samuel Roberts (in his feeling lines in reference to her stay at Sheffield Lodge) presumed that she gazed upon the "lovely scene" "through tears":-- Alone, here oft may Scotia’s beauteous queen, Through tears have gazed upon the lovely scene, Victim of villainy, of woman’s hate, Of fiery zeal, of wiles and storms of state; Torn from her throne, her country and her child, And cast an exiled monarch in this wild, She here was taught, what youthful beauty ne’er While seated on a throne, had deigned to hear, To say submissive, at the closing scene, "’Tis well that I have thus afflicted been;" Then calmly on the block, in faith, resign Three heart-corrupting crowns, for one divine. Reader,--the ways of God are not like thine. In August, 1584, Shrewsbury was released of his charge. He had served long and faithfully in a capacity that was repulsive to his instincts; and after fifteen full years of close acquaintance with the captive Queen, he was able to assure Elizabeth "that if the Queen of Scotland promise anything she will not break her word."