assertions were made! Obviously the English Queen was not endowed with the common feelings of humanity. If we wished to get a side-light into her character this paper would afford us as much information as we require. On the same day, 16th November, Queen Elizabeth wrote Paulet, authorising him to allow the commissioners an interview with Mary:— “We have thought it convenient, for sundry reasons, to send Lord Buckhurst and Beale to acquaint the Queen your charge, as well with the proceedings of the commissioners since their departure from Fotheringay, as with what hath been lately done in Parliament concerning the commissioners' proceedings. Our pleasure is that you permit them to have access to the said Queen, hoping in God that before they repair thither you will be restored to that good state of health, so that you may be able to assist and join them in the present service committed to them. And in case the said Queen shall desire to have any conference apart, upon pretence to reveal some secret matter to be communicated to us, either with Lord Buckhurst or with any one of our servants, we are willing to assent thereto if she shall request the same; otherwise we could best like that you should be present when any such remarks should be delivered.” When Parliament ordained the sentence to be carried out, Elizabeth was the more overjoyed at it as she believed herself thereby cleared, while she had accomplished her brutal purpose; and she took care to hint that but for the love of her people she could never have made up her mind to sign the death-warrant of Mary Stuart! She said, “I must tell you one thing, that by the last Act of Parliament you have reduced me to such straits and perplexities that I must resolve upon the punishment of her who is a princess, so nearly allied to me in blood, and whose practices against me have so deeply affected me with grief and sorrow that I have willingly chosen to absent myself from this Parliament lest I should increase my trouble by hearing the matter mentioned, and not out of fear of any danger or treacherous attempts against me, as some think. But I will now tell you a further secret (though it be not usual with me to blab forth in other cases what I know). It is not long since these eyes of mine saw and read an oath wherein some bound themselves to kill me within a month. Hereby I see your danger in my person, which I will be very careful to prevent and keep off.”[12] The unabated energy shown in the espionage of the Scottish Queen is evident from Paulet's letter to Walsingham under date 21st November 1586:—