_That the Spanish Fleet was already landed at Milford Haven; That the Scots were come upon their borders; That the_ Guise _was in Essex with a mighty Armie; That the Queene of Scots had broken prison, raysed a great troope of Souldiers, and began to make a Rebellion in the North; That there were new plots in hand, for murthering the Queene, and to burne the Citie of London; yea, That the Queene of_ England _was dead_, and such like: which in those that are crafty and fearefull (by a natural desire) are nourished, and encreased; and Princes (credulous by curiositie) will soon lend their eares thereunto. By such divulged horrors, and fearefull arguments, they brought her Majestie into such trouble and perplexitie of minde, that she signed the Letters of Warrant to her deadly Sentence, and was perswaded most of all to it by Patricke Gray Scottishman, whom the King of Scotland had sent to disswade the Queene of England, from putting his mother to death; who many times put these words into her eares: Mortua non mordet: Being dead, she will byte no more. And notwithstanding, as she was naturally slow to anger, she had this custome, that she never would enter unadvisedly, or without premeditation, into any action: so she began to weighe in her minde, whether it were better to put her to death, or to let her live. From putting her to death she was disswaded, _By her owne naturall clemency, not to use cruelty to her who was a Princesse, and her next kinswoman; from the feare that she had, Histories should make her infamous to posterities, and from the dangers which might fall upon her, as from the part of the King of_ Scotland, _who then was the next in succession to the Crowne of_ England; _so also from the Catholick Princes, and from desperate people, who would attempt anything._ From pardoning of her likewise, she foresaw no lesse danger to ensue: _That the Nobility which had given the sentence against her, would covertly seeke to regaine the favour of her and her sonne; and that could not be done without danger to herselfe. That her own subjects would take it ill when they perceive their labour to be lost; and though then they were carefull for her wellfare, yet hereafter they might grow carelesse; and that many would change their religion, and become Popish, upon a supposition of greater hopes, seeing her preserved, as it were, by fatall providence, to inherite the Kingdome of_ England. _That the Jesuites and Seminaries, whose eyes were all cast upon her, seeing her sickly, and not like to live long, would be so much the more busie to procure the death of Q._ Elizabeth, _to set up their religion_. Her Courtiers propounded also to her domesticall examples, because that that which is warranted by president,[42] is the more tolerable: As