Strickland's Letters of Mary Queen of Scots, vol. ii. p. 200. Fotheringay, December 19, 1586.

Madame,—Having with difficulty obtained leave from those to whom you have committed me to open to you all I have on my heart, as much for exonerating myself from any illwill, or desire of committing cruelty, or any act of enmity against those with whom I am connected in blood; as also, kindly, to communicate to you what I thought would serve you, as much for your weal and preservation as for the maintenance of the peace and repose of this isle, which can only be injured if you reject my advice. You will credit or disbelieve my discourse, as it seems best to you.

I am resolved to strengthen myself in Christ Jesus alone, who, to those invoking Him with a true heart, never fails in His justice and consolation, especially to those who are bereft of all human aid; such are under His holy protection: to Him be the glory! He has equalled my expectation, having given me heart and strength, in spe contra spem, to endure the unjust calumnies, accusations, and condemnations (of those who have no such jurisdiction over me) with a constant resolution to suffer death for upholding the obedience and authority of the Apostolical Roman Catholic Church.

Now, since I have been on your part informed of the sentence of your last meeting of Parliament, Lord Buckhurst and Beale having admonished me to prepare for the end of my long and weary pilgrimage, I beg to return you thanks on my part for these happy tidings, and to entreat you to vouchsafe to me certain points for the discharge of my conscience. But since Sir A. Paulet has informed me (though falsely) that you had indulged me by having restored to me my almoner, and the money that they had taken from me, and that the remainder would follow; for all this I would willingly return you thanks, and supplicate still further as a last request, which I have thought for many reasons I ought to ask of you alone, that you will accord this ultimate grace, for which I should not like to be indebted to any other, since I have no hope of finding aught but cruelty from the Puritans, who are at this time, God knows wherefore! the first in authority, and the most bitter against me.

I will accuse no one: nay, I pardon with a sincere heart every one, even as I desire every one may grant forgiveness to me, God the first. But I know that you, more than any one, ought to feel at heart the honour or dishonour of your own blood, and that, moreover, of a queen and the daughter of a king.

Then, Madame, for the sake of that Jesus to whose name all powers bow, I require you to ordain that when my enemies have slaked their black thirst for my innocent blood, you will permit my poor desolated servants altogether to carry away my corpse, to bury it in holy ground with the other queens of France, my predecessors, especially near the late queen, my mother; having this in recollection, that in Scotland the bodies of the kings, my predecessors, have been outraged, and the churches profaned and abolished; and that as I shall suffer in this country, I shall not be given place near the kings, your predecessors, who are mine as well as yours: for according to our religion, we think much of being interred in holy earth. As they tell me that you will in nothing force my conscience nor my religion, and have even conceded me a priest, refuse me not this my last request, that you will permit free sepulchre to this body when the soul is separated, which, when united, could never obtain liberty to live in repose, such as you would procure for yourself; against which repose—before God I speak—I never aimed a blow: but God will let you see the truth of all after my death.

And because I dread the tyranny of those to whose power you have abandoned me, I entreat you not to permit that execution be done on me without your own knowledge, not for fear of the torment, which I am most ready to suffer, but on account of the reports which will be raised concerning my death unsuspected, and without other witnesses than those who would inflict it, who, I am persuaded, would be of very different qualities from these parties whom I require (being my servants) to stay spectators, and with witnesses of my end in the faith of our sacrament, of my Saviour, and in obedience to His Church. And after all is over, that they together may carry away my poor corpse (as secretly as you please), and speedily withdraw, without taking with them any of my goods except those which in dying I may leave to them, which are little enough for their long and good services.

One jewel that I received of you I shall return to you with my last words, or sooner if you please.

Once more I supplicate you to permit me to send a jewel and a last adieu to my son, with my dying benediction, for of my blessing he has been deprived since you sent me his refusal to enter into the treaty whence I was excluded by his wicked council; this last point I refer to your favourable consideration and conscience as the others, but I ask them in the name of Jesus Christ, and in respect of your consanguinity, and for the sake of King Henry VII., your grandfather and mine, and by the honour of the dignity we both hold, and of our sex in common, do I implore you to grant these requests.

As to the rest, I think you know that in your name they have taken down my dais, but afterwards they owned to me that it was not by your commandment, but by the intimation of some of your privy council. I thank God that this wickedness came not from you, and that it serves rather to vent their malice than to afflict me, having made up my mind to die. It is on account of this, and some other things, that they debarred me from writing to you, and after they had done all in their power to degrade me from my rank, they told me "that I was but a mere dead woman, incapable of dignity." God be praised for all!

I could wish that all my papers were brought to you without reserve, that at last it may be manifest to you that the sole care of your safety was not confined to those who are so prompt to persecute me. If you will accord this my last request, I would wish that you would write for them, otherwise they do with them as they choose. And, moreover, I wish that to this, my last request, you will let me know your last reply.

To conclude, I pray God, the just Judge, of His mercy that He will enlighten you with His Holy Spirit, and that He will give you His grace to die in the perfect charity I am disposed to do, and to pardon all those who have caused, or who have co-operated in, my death. Such will be my last prayer to my end, which I esteem myself happy will precede the persecution which I foresee menaces this isle, where God is no longer seriously feared and revered, but vanity and worldly policy rule and govern all. Yet will I accuse no one, nor give way to presumption. Yet while abandoning this world, and preparing myself for a better, I must remind you that one day you will have to answer for your charge, and for all those whom you doom, and that I desire that my blood and my country may be remembered in that time. For why? From the first days of our capacity to comprehend our duties, we ought to bend our minds to make the things of this world yield to those of eternity!

From Fotheringay, this 19th December, 1586.
Your sister and cousin,

Prisoner wrongfully,

Marie Royne.