ELIZABETH, by the Grace of God, Queen of England, France, and Ireland, defender of the Faith, etc.: WHEREAS we were given to understand very credibly (though to our great grief) that divers things were, and of late had been compassed, imagined, and resolutely intended, tending directly to the hurt and destruction of our royal person, and to the subversion of the estate of our realm by foreign invasions and rebellions at home, as well by the Queen of Scots remaining in our realm under our protection, as by many divers other wicked persons with her privity, who had freely confessed the same, and had thereupon received open trial, judgment, and execution according to law for their deserts. And though in very truth we were greatly and deeply grieved to think or imagine that any such unnatural and monstrous acts should be either devised or willingly assented to against us, by her being a princess born, and of our sex and blood, and one also whose life and honour we had many times before saved and preserved. Yet were we so directly drawn to think the same to be true by the sight and understanding of such proofs as were produced before us upon matters that had proceeded from herself, as well as from the conspirators themselves, who voluntarily and freely confessed their doings jointly with her, and directed by her, against our person and realm. Therefore we saw great reason to think the same too dangerous to be suffered to pass onward to take their full effect. Wherefore we were by sundry of our nobility, and others our loving subjects, earnestly moved and counselled to take order for the investigation and examination of these dangerous enterprises and conspiracies avowed to be by the said Queen of Scots against us and our realm; and also to use all present means with expedition, to withstand and prevent the same. We were very unwilling to proceed against her, considering her birth and estate, by such means as by the common laws of the realm we might have lawfully done, which was by indictment and arraignment before ordinary juries; therefore in respect both of our own honour and of her person we yielded by advice, to proceed in the most honourable way that could be devised for the examination, according to a late Act of Parliament made 23rd November in the 27th year of our reign. Whereupon by our commission under the Great Seal of England, bearing date Windsor, 6th October last, we did according to the said statute assign, name, and appoint the lords and others of our Privy Council, and so many other earls and barons, lords of Parliament, of the greatest degree and most ancient of the nobility, as with the lords and others of the Privy Council made the number forty-two, adding also a further number according to the tenor of the aforesaid Act of Parliament, of certain of the chief and other principal judges of the courts of Record, Westminster, amounting in the whole to forty-seven, to examine all things compassed and imagined, tending to the hurt