Burleigh or Sir Francis Walsingham? Oh! what must this
bewitching Princess whose only freind was then the Duke of
Norfolk, and whose only ones now Mr Whitaker, Mrs Lefroy, Mrs
Knight and myself, who was abandoned by her son, confined by her
Cousin, abused, reproached and vilified by all, what must not her
most noble mind have suffered when informed that Elizabeth had
given orders for her Death! Yet she bore it with a most unshaken
fortitude, firm in her mind; constant in her Religion; and
prepared herself to meet the cruel fate to which she was doomed,
with a magnanimity that would alone proceed from conscious
Innocence. And yet could you Reader have beleived it possible
that some hardened and zealous Protestants have even abused her
for that steadfastness in the Catholic Religion which reflected
on her so much credit? But this is a striking proof of THEIR
narrow souls and prejudiced Judgements who accuse her. She was
executed in the Great Hall at Fortheringay Castle (sacred Place!)
on Wednesday the 8th of February 1586--to the everlasting
Reproach of Elizabeth, her Ministers, and of England in general.
It may not be unnecessary before I entirely conclude my account
of this ill-fated Queen, to observe that she had been accused of
several crimes during the time of her reigning in Scotland, of
which I now most seriously do assure my Reader that she was
entirely innocent; having never been guilty of anything more than
Imprudencies into which she was betrayed by the openness of her
Heart, her Youth, and her Education. Having I trust by this
assurance entirely done away every Suspicion and every doubt
which might have arisen in the Reader's mind, from what other
Historians have written of her, I shall proceed to mention the
remaining Events that marked Elizabeth's reign. It was about
this time that Sir Francis Drake the first English Navigator who