There are some who have said and written, even the English who have made a book on this death and its causes, that the spoils of the late queen were taken from the executioner by paying him the value in money of her clothes and her royal ornaments. The cloth with which the scaffold was covered, even the boards of it were partly burned and partly washed, for fear that in times to come they might serve superstition; that is to say, for fear that any careful Catholic might some day buy and preserve them with respect, honour, and reverence (a fear which may possibly serve as a prophecy and augury), as the ancient Fathers had a practice of keeping relics and of taking care with devotion of the monuments of martyrs. In these days heretics do nothing of the kind. _Quia omnia quæ martyrum erant_, cremabant, as Eusebius says, _et cineres in Rhodanum spargebant, ut cum corporibus interiret eorum quoque memoria_. Nevertheless, the memory of this queen, in spite of all things, will live forever in glory and in triumph. Here, then, is the tale of her death, which I hold from the report of two damoiselles there present, very honourable certainly, very faithful to their mistress, and obedient to her commands in thus bearing testimony to her firmness and to her religion. They returned to France after losing her, for they were French; one was a daughter of Mme. de Raré, whom I knew in France as one of the ladies of the late queen. I think that these two honourable damoiselles would have caused the most barbarous of men to weep at hearing so piteous a tale; which they made the more lamentable by tears, and by their tender, doleful, and noble language. I also learned much from a book which has been published, entitled “The Martyrdom of the Queen of Scotland, Dowager of France.” Alas! that being our queen did her no service. It seems to me that being such they ought to have feared our vengeance for putting her to death; and they would have thought a hundred times before they came to it, if our king had chosen to take the initiative. But, because he hated the Messieurs de Guise, his cousins, he took no pains except as formal duty. Alas! what could that poor innocent do? This is what many asked. Others say that he made many formal appeals. It is true that he sent to the Queen of England M. de Bellièvre, one of the greatest and wisest senators of France and the ablest, who did not fail to offer all his arguments, with the king’s prayers and threats, and do all else that he could; and among other things he declared that it did not belong to one king or sovereign to put to death another king or sovereign, over whom he had no power either from God or man.