The queen of Scots wrote her last letter to Elizabeth; full of dignity, without departing from that spirit of meekness and of charity which appeared suitable to this concluding scene of her unfortunate life. She preferred no petition for averting the fatal sentence: on the contrary she expressed her gratitude to Heaven for thus bringing to a speedy period her sad and lamentable pilgrimage. She requested some favors of Elizabeth; and entreated her that she might be beholden for them to her own goodness alone, without making applications to those ministers who had discovered such an extreme malignity against her person and her religion. She desired, that after her enemies should be satiated with her innocent blood, her body, which it was determined should never enjoy rest while her soul was united to it, might be consigned to her servants, and be conveyed by them into France, there to repose in a Catholic land, with the sacred relics of her mother. In Scotland, she said, the sepulchres of her ancestors were violated, and the churches either demolished or profaned; and in England, where she might be interred among the ancient kings, her own and Elizabeth’s progenitors, she could entertain no hopes of being accompanied to the grave with those rites and ceremonies which her religion required. She requested, that no one might have the power of inflicting a private death upon her, without Elizabeth’s knowledge; but that her execution should be public, and attended by her ancient servants, who might bear testimony of her perseverance in the faith, and of her submission to the will of Heaven. She begged that these servants might afterwards be allowed to depart whithersoever they pleased, and might enjoy those legacies which she should bequeath them. And she conjured her to grant these favors by their near kindred; by the soul and memory of Henry VII., the common ancestor of both; and by the royal dignity of which they equally participated.[*] Elizabeth made no answer to this letter; being unwilling to give Mary a refusal in her present situation, and foreseeing inconveniencies from granting some of her requests. * Camden p. 529. Jebb, vol. ii. p. 295.