“As it has pleased the King to send me here to inform the Queen of England how greatly obliged he would be if, in this unfortunate matter which has happened to your Majesty, it might be her good pleasure to treat you with that kindness and humanity that he, his kingdom, and the other princes and States of Christendom would expect from so wise and virtuous a princess, I have set aside everything in order to obey his commands and to do the service that I wish to do to your Majesty, whom I have so long venerated, as the wife of my King, and as my Queen. I should desire above everything in the world that it had pleased God that this princess to whom I had spoken on your behalf would have honoured me with a satisfactory answer. I assure you, madam, of the very good and cordial will of the King towards you, of the Queen, her mother and yours, and of the reigning Queen, who all suffer extreme pain on your account; while they have written to the Queen of England with as much affection as if it were a question of their own lives. I should hope that this princess, being so wise, so magnanimous, and so well advised, would not allow the prayers of persons so great and so interested in your preservation to be made in vain. Nothing is done in this world without the permission of God, whose anger we cannot better appease than by the exercise of a holy and Christian patience. God permits us to be abandoned by all men when for our greater good He desires that we may have all our succour from Him. 'When we know not what to do,' says St. Bernard, 'to whom should we turn if it is not to thee, O our God!' He is not willing that we should be lost, and is able to give us in the future more consolation in one hour than the afflictions we have experienced during our whole life. If you think the Queen of England has not loved you, who knows that from this time it may please God to soften her heart towards you? ... It will be by God's grace that her good nature will soften her. It will be her generosity that will conquer and force her to love you, to take you under her protection, and join herself to you by the indissoluble ties of a good, happy, and perpetual friendship.” This letter seems to have been written when the Ambassador could in reality do no more for the unfortunate Queen. CHAPTER VI Proclamation by the Queen of England announcing Queen Mary's death—Elizabeth instructs Paulet to deliver Queen Mary to the Sheriff of Northampton—Memorial from Walsingham with instructions for the execution and interment—Unfinished paper by Lord Burghley on Mary's execution—Letter from King James to Elizabeth requesting her to spare his mother's life—Sir Robert Melville and the Master of Gray wait on her and petition for Mary's life—Extraordinary commission by Elizabeth to the Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent to execute the Scottish Queen—Letter of Queen Mary to Henry III.; being the last letter she ever wrote.