At
night she took a graceful and affectionate leave of her attendants,
distributed among them her money and jewels, wrote out in full the
various legacies to be conveyed by her will, and charged her apothecary
Gorion with her last messages for the King of Spain. In these messages
the whole nature of the woman was revealed. Not a single friend, not a
single enemy, was forgotten; the slightest service, the slightest wrong,
had its place assigned in her faithful and implacable memory for
retribution or reward. Forgiveness of injuries was as alien from her
fierce and loyal spirit as forgetfulness of benefits; the destruction of
England and its liberties by Spanish invasion and conquest was the
strongest aspiration of her parting soul.
At eight o'clock next morning she entered the hall of execution, having
taken leave of the weeping envoy from Scotland, to whom she gave a brief
message for her son; took her seat on the scaffold; listened with an air
of even cheerful unconcern to the reading of her sentence; solemnly
declared her innocence of the charge conveyed in it, and her consolation
in the prospect of ultimate justice; rejected the professional services
of Richard Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough; lifted up her voice in Latin
against his in English prayer; and when he and his fellow-worshippers
had fallen duly silent, prayed aloud for the prosperity of her own
Church, for Elizabeth, for her son, and for all the enemies whom she had
commended over night to the notice of the Spanish invader; then, with no
less courage than had marked every hour and every action of her life,
received the stroke of death from the wavering hand of the headsman.
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