And so we commit you to the protection of the Almighty.--Your most assured friends, FRANCIS WALSINGHAM. WILLIAM DAVISON. _At_ LONDON, _1st February 1586._ A few hours after the despatch of this letter, Davison, who trembled lest it should ever be made public, sent the following postscript by a fresh messenger: "I pray you let this and the enclosed be committed to the fire, which measure shall be likewise mete to your answer after it hath been communicated to Her Majesty for her satisfaction." And on the 3rd of February Davison sent another anxious reminder: "I entreated you in my last to burn my letters sent unto you for the argument sake, which, by your answer to Mr. Secretary (which I have seen), appeareth not to have been done. I pray you let me entreat you to make heretics of the one and the other, as I mean to use yours, after Her Majesty hath seen it." This second urgent note was written before Davison was aware how little "satisfaction" Paulet's answer was likely to give his mistress. In fact the letter had been received with horror and indignation by Paulet and his colleague. Although we know by Paulet's own extravagant expressions of his evident wishes for Mary's death, and while we may conclude with Mr. Hosack that he sought his own safety in refusing the assassin's part proposed to him, he apparently retained enough honourable feeling to feel keenly the degradation implied in such a proposal, and sent at once a manly and energetic refusal. A. PAULET--D. DRURY.[96] [Footnote 96: Paulet's _Letter Books_, p. 361.] (A copy of a letter to Sir Francis Walsingham, of the 2nd of February 1586, at six in the afternoon, being the answer to a letter from him, the said Sir Francis, of the 1st of February 1586, received at Fotheringay the 2nd day of February, at five in the afternoon.)