THE SCAPEGOAT.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10499, 6 July 1910, Page 6

THE SCAPEGOAT.

(By Martin ITume.)

The pale winter-sun streamed wanly i throuah the long, diamond-paned win- , dows of the Queen's private chamber in ] the Palace <if Greenwich on the Ist } February. 158(5. Upon a canopied red- , velvet chair sat great Elizabeth herself, , her thin, sour face still wearing some remains of the fair color which in youth had been her principal charm, though tiu> over-bedecked yellow wig that now replaced her own sunny hair matched ill with her faded eyes and abundant wrinkles. Upon a low stool at her feet «at a majestic-looking man of fifty, with great black eves and blanching hair, who was evidently urging upon his mistress, with grave earnestness, some point that irritated her. "By God! Charles," she burst out, "if I had any men about me there would be no need to drive me into a corner like this. Surely some other way may be found:••I heard vour Majesty say as much m the Council Chamber the other day, retorted Lord Admiral Howard, her cousin, who was her interlocutor; "but) with the exception of the Lord of Leicester, none could approve of such a thing. The Queen of Scots has been legallv tried and legally condemned three"months ago. Your Majesty, six weeks back, ordered the warrant for the- execution to be engrossed, and yet you persist in delaying its signature and sealing. Your Parliament has twice represented to you the grave danger in which vou and your realm stand, and has prayed you to let the law take its course; and yet your scruples or your tender heart prevent you from fulfilling the last'formality that shall rid you of the enemy who alone stands between you and security." "I know, I know, Charles," burst out the Queen peevishly. "I know that there is no peace or safety for me whilst the she-devil lives; but why must I take all the responsibility m the eyes of the world?" "Who else is to take it?" asked Howard. "Even if the course you suggest were- adopted, and Paulet or another consented to put the Queen out of the way without ceremony: either you must approve of the act in which case the responsibility would still be yours and the odium as well, or. you must disavow and punish the instrument, and that your Majesty s justice and honor would never allow Vou to do." "Believe me," urged Howard, "there is no other way but to despatch the warrant in legal form and end this intolerable state of things, lhe danger is pressing, and immediate. All over the country gossip is busy. Rumors are afloat that Mary has escaped, that Guise and the Spaniards have landed: to aid her, that London is sacked, and I know not what—even, and: God torsive me for saying such a thing, that vour Majestv yourself has been killed. ' Elizabeth flinched and grew pale at this, and with an angry oath she swore that no one cared what trouble or responsibility she incurred. "Send for Davison," she cried to Howard; tell him to bring me the warrant and I will sign it." Howard knelt and kissed.his unstress' hand and hurried out to do her bidding. "God's death! what I have to put up with!" she grumbled as he bowed himself out; "a set of mincing knaves who refuse to.get me out of'such ;i difficulty-as this." To a grave elderly man in a blackfurred gown who was "slowly pacing the leafless avenues, of . Greenwich lark there came a panting messenger..; "An , so please you Master Secretary, . the Lord Admiral craves your instant presence in the Privy Chamber" —and William Davison, the Queen's new assistant State Secretary, at once directed Ins steps towards the palace. When he arrived Howard led him into one of the deep window embrasures, and in low, rapid tones, told him that the Queen would at once sign the warrant that would finally remove Marv Stuart from her path. Davison, a man of little guile, had been somewhat puzzled by the recent course of events. He knew that public opinion in England was almost angrily demanding that the ceaseless plotter against the throne of England should be put to death, in accordance with the sentence already passed upon her; he was aware that "Elizabeth herself was convinced that she could never be secure whilst her cousin lived; he had seen the Scottish envoys who had halfheartedly pleaded for Mary's life dismissed with contumely, and the French Ambassador treated with very scant ceremony when he came on a similar insincere errand. Davison had been ordered to have the warrant engrossed six weeks before, and the Queen had then refused to sign it, talking vaguely of Other wavs of attaining the same end. Since that time the Lord Treasurer Burghley and the Earl of Leicester had reproved him more than once for not presenting it again to the Queen for signature. But Davison had not dared to do this -without orders from his mistress, for the senior Secretary, Walsingham, was away on the plea of illness, and the new Secretary was mystified and timid at the responsibility thrust upon him. He was delighted, therefore, to learn from Howard that at last the Queen had made up her mind, and had plainly ordered him to bring her the warrant for signature. So, with great relief of mind, he hastened to his apartment in the palace and brought the document and a sheaf of other papers for submission to her Majesty. When he was admitted to Elizabeth's presence he found her all smiles. "Ah! Mr Secretary," she said gaily, "and have ye been out walking this fine morning r" "Yes, and please your Majesty, 1 was taking the air in the park when your Majesty s orders reached me, and I have used what speed I might to obey." Elizabeth still affected to look upon the Secretary's visit as a complimentary I morning" call, and had much to say ! about the advisability of his taking ! mure recreation and looking to his i health better than he did; 'which cqnj (lesi-ii-ion left the Secretary, not quite ; certain whether he was on his head or

his lu.-eU. Then, by .the way, as if out of parsing curiosity, she asked him what were the papers lie had in his hand. "And please your Majesty," replied the Secretary, "they are some warrants and other documents for signature." "And have you not been told by the Lord Admiral to bring up the warrant for the Queen of Scots' execution?" asked Elizabeth. His lordship, replied Davison, had told him that .xueh was her Majesty's pleasure, and he had the warrant now with him. "Let me have it," snapped the (i-,i vii. and when it was' laid before liti- she took the qnill handed to her and drew carefully upon the paper her great stiff signature with its elaborate i.'.il-picco below. Then, throwing the document upon the rush-matting that covered the floor of the chamber, she ■. \jjlained that the reason why she ielaycd signing it so long was a reard for her own reputation. The ■ .: Id might perceive, she said, how | .'ustiy- pro', eked- alio felt at Mary's of- ;'«. weir,, but if any other means could

have been devised to p:oteet her own person and her realm, she would have endeavored to avoid the course she was now obliged to take. She would be very sorr3" now if anyone thought she had" been moved to it by any feeling of malice or revenge against her cousin. Then, changing her tone to one of ironical raillery, she said to Davison, "And you, Master Secretary, are not you very sorry to see the warrant signed?" Davison gave a diplomatic reply to this. He was sorry, he said, to see anyone's misfortune, and, above all, that a person .so highly placed and so nearly related to her Majesty as the Queen of Scots should have given occasion for the issue of tlie warrant. But his sovereign's life was in danger so long as Mary" lived, and the execution could not be further delayed without injustice to' Queen Elizabeth and her people. Smilingly she asked him what other papers he had for signature, and having signed what he laid before her, she directed him to take the warrant to be stamped with the great seal.

"But, look ye," she continued, "let it be done as privately as may be. There are those about the Lord Chancellor who may talk if they know of it. and if it be known before, its execution my jeopardy will be the greater. Use all dispatch." continued the Queen, "and send the warrant to the Commissioners at Fotlicringay with expedition. Let the act of justice be done in the Great Hi'il. ai:d not on the green outside the

<::--tie. But. above all, let me hear no .mure about it until it be over —I have <lo;'.e my part and you must ask me to do no more. Go to London this, afternoon tn the Lord Chancellor's," she directed, "and on your way ye may land at the Tower Stairs and call upon Sir Francis' Walsingham at Seething Lane, hard by. I know well that when

you tell liim what has been done he will well nigh die with sorrow;" Davison discreetly smiled at the Queen's' joke, for he knew that Walsingham had been ceaselessly urging the Queen to carry out the sentence upon Mary: then, gathering up his papers and bowing low, the Secretary made for the door. But before he ""ached it the Queen, to his surprise, opped him peevishly. "If Paulet had )t been such a hair-splitting felw she would have been saved from le jieed of signing the warrant at 1, she complained. "You and Walngham had better write to him and ir Drue Drury, and sound them ; to despatching this woman priitely, without alt these ceremonies of arrants and executions." Davison ;miuded the Queen that he had sil;ady refused more than once to have nything to do with so illegal a pro- , ceding, and he was sure from his nowledge of Paulet and Drury that ley would indignantly repel any such iggestion. The Queen's .brow lowered ud the angry flush that mantled :'t 'lamed the rouge upon her cheeks, lavison, fearing an outbreak of profane iige such as usually followed any liwarting of her will, hastened to say bat he would tell Walsingham what or Majesty's wishes were. Before taking boat to London that fternoon Davison saw Lord Burghley nd Leicester in the apartment of -the/ord Treasurer, and repeated to them he conversation he had had with the Jueen. They, too, were in a hurry to ;et the warrant sealed and despatched, ud urged speed in the matter. Then )avison called upon Secretary Walsinglam in Seething Lane and' agreed witli um as to the wording of the letter, to le written to Paulet, the custodian of ihe Queen of Scots, suggesting that he should be- quietly poisoned without ifficial warrant. By five o'clock that svening the great seal was affixed to he warrant, and £hen, after another :all upon Walsingham, Davison went id lis boat to Wapping Stairs, not far rom his own -house at Stepney, wdiere ie passed the night. •■ Before he was up in the morning iame one of the Queen's gentlemen-in-vaiting, William Killigrew, with the istouiKling command from her Majesty ;hat the warrant was not to be sealed ay the Lord: Chancellor until she had been again consulted. What, could this- new vagary mean, thought Davison. Had she not enjoined him to have bhe document sealed with all possible speed and not to speak to her any more about it? Could she think that lie would he so neglectful of her commands ia a matter of such importance ;is to waste a whole day before obeying her? To Killigrew, a mere messenger , Davison, • of. ■■ course, '.said nothing except that he would hasten to the Queen as soon as she was up. Without .waiting.--for breakfast, he hurried to his boat~and was at Greenwich almost as soon as. Killigrew. As he entered- Elizabeth's private- chamber she cried out pettishly, "Well.iias the warrant passed the seal?" "Yes, your Majesty," replied the astonished Secretary. "Why so, much haste, man?" she asked impatiently. "I have' used no more haste, an' please your Majesty, than the occasion required. The affair is not one to be trifled with, and 'tis twenty-four hours since your Majesty ordered me to. seal and despatch the document with all speed. But does not your Majesty now wish to proceed in the matter'?" "Yes," replied the Queen irritably; "Yes; but I think it might be done in a .more convenient way." .."Surely,?' she added, "it might be managed privately, as if the prisoner had died a natural death The warrant, she complained, threw the whole weight of the act upon her. "I know . not, your Majesty," replied Davison, "who else can bear it but yourself. It is murder, as you know, to take the life of the meanest of your subjects without your • authority "Ah!" burst out the Queen, 'I wish I had some servants about me. as ready and faithful as Archibald Douglas"' The shocked "Secretary made no reply to the Queen's praise of the notorious clerical scoundrel who had been so active in the murders of Rizzio and vt Darnley; but when his mistress left him to go to dinner lie sought us friend, Sir Christopher Hatton, the Queen's favorite, in no very tranquil frame of mind. He recollected, and recalled to Hatton's memory, that for years the Queen had thrown upon Bur"hlev the blame for the execution of the Duke of Norfolk, though she herself had ordered it. But here was a much more serious case: The victmi was a ladv and a queen, allied not only to Elizabeth, but to foreign Royal Houses, and the temptation to disavow the act and sacrifice her instrument, would now be doubly strong upon the Queen of England. "I," said Davison, "have done all that appertains to my office, and I will do-no more in trhe matter alone. You, the Vice-Chamber-lain, and others are equally concerned in preserving her Majesty's life and the quietude of her realm, and you and tlis rest of the Councillors must take your share of the responsibifcty. ISot another inch will I budge alone, even though her Majesty orders it. Together Davison and Hatton went to wile old Lord Burghley, who affected to approve entirely of Davison s resolve and promised to convene tne whole Privy Council the next day and inform them \of what the Queen had i'one and said. Davison, glad of the Dpportunity of shrinking into the background, left with Lord Burghley the fatal instrument which legalised the doom af Mary Stuart. This was on lliurs;lay afternoon, the 2nd February, and, without waiting until the next day, no sooner was Davison's back turned than the Lord Treasurer began to draw up in his own formal hand the declaration to be secretly subscribed by the Coimjillors next dav, ready to be presented to the Queen when her pre-arranged anger should burst forth at the execution of Mary unknown to her. Everything was foreseen by the cunning old Douneillor. 'The Lords were to express themselves heartbroken at her anger, jut they had concluded as soon as Mr Davison had shown them the warrant,hat no time should be lost m putting t into execution without further troubin<f her Majesty with details.. .lliey md acted for the best, and prayed or her Majesty's forgiveness. All this, ie it understood, before even the Oounsil had decided to send the warrant :o Potheringay, for it had been quietly ettled that the Queen should be very mgry indeed when she heard that tier >wn/'warrant had ,been executed, and, lie whole of the tragic comedy.was pre,ared before the first blow was struck. When the Council met m the mornno- of the 3rd February,; Walsingham s [raft • for the exact procedure to oe ollowed in the execution was approved

of; all the Councillors present agread "to share the responsibility of acting without -any ■ fresh -orders ; from tne Queen,: knowing full ( well. : that the responsibility ; was to.be artfully shitted to the shoulders of one man only when the time-came; and before dusk Secretary Beale was posting northward as fast as horses could gallop, bearing with him the warrant and letters'to the Commissioner of Fothenugay charged with its execution. Tlie next morning, Saturday, February 4th, the Queen was gaily flirting with" her prime favorite, Raleigh, in her own chamber, when grave Secretary Davison entered with a bundle of papers in his hand for her inspection. •"Ah, Mr Secretary," she cried, as soon as she caught sight of him, "such a dream as I have had-" The Secretary bowed interrogatively, and the Queen went on with more than her usual vivacity, as if she was telling a good joke: "I dreamed that the Queen of Scots had been executed! I was in such a passion at it that I could have done I know not what to you, , Mr Secretary, if you had been near me." "Glad am I, your Majesty, thai. I was not near you whilst that temper lasted," said Davison; but gay and smiling as the Queen was, he did not like the situation, and earnestly asked her after a pause what it meant. Did she really not intend her warrant to be carried into effect? "Yes, by God,, I do!" shouted the Queen, stiddenly changing her tone; "but it might have . been done in another way. This throws the whole of the responsibilicy upon me." Davison could only' repeat s what he had so often said before, namely, that the only legal way of finishing Mary Stuart was by warrant under the sign manual, 1 and that he who proceeded illegally would have to be disavowed and .punished. No other could either be honorable or safe.

"Ah!" replied the Queen crossly, as she turned her back upon him, "there are other men wiser than you who think differently."

All this was disquieting enough to the perplexed Secretary, but it distressed him less than her hints had pre-

viously done, for the Lords of the Council, and not ho, had dealt with the warrant; and upon them the responsibility, lie thought, must fall. Alas! poor man, he little knew how cunningly the plot had been woven, co that when the time eame he alone should have to bear the blame. On that Saturday afternoon Davison, rowing up the river to Stepney, again called upon the diplomatically ailing Chief Secretary, Walsingham in Seething Lane, before going to his own home, and found that a courier had just brought the answer from Sir Amyas Paulot and Sir Drue Drury to the Queen's suggestion that they should poison Mary Stuart without the warrant. The two noble gentlemen, as Davison had foretold, in dignified words placed their lives and gods at the disposal of their mistress: "But God forbid," wrote Paulet, "that I should make so foul a' shipwreck of my conscience, or leave so great a blot upon my posterity, as to shed blood without law and warrant."

On Sunday morning ■. Davigon was again rowed down the river to Greenwich, and told the Queen the purport of Paulet's letter. She. was sarcastically angry at what she called his daintiness. "It is flat perjury," she cried; "he has sworn to protect me against my enemies, and now.iihe will throw all the responsibility upon me." ; Pacing angrily up and down the chamber, with the poor- Secretary humbly following her, she at last flung out into the long gallery overlooking the river below, still declaiming against "these precise fellows who professed so great zeal for her safety with their lips, but would perform nothing with their arms. If I had known they were such paltry sticklers, by God, I could have done without them altogether! Wingfield, I know, would have done what I wanted with none of this cavilling." Davison again did his best to justify a legal procedure rather than so dishonorable a one as that proposed by the Queen, but it was time for her Majesty to go to church, and she proceeded to her prayers with what conscience she might. The Secretary did not see her on the morrow, but on Tuesday, 7th February, he had to submit some letters for signature ; and the Queen again opened tlie subject that was uppermost in her mind and his; This time it was with self-pity that'-'she spoke at first: how' great the danger was, and that it was more than time that the affair of the Queen of Scots was made an. end'of. And then, • growing [angry as she-went on, she shouted: "God's death! Davison, it is shameful of you and the rest of the Council that you are so careless of my safety and negligent of your own duty as not to have finished the business before this." "Write to Paulet a sharp letter," she continued, /'telling him to hasten the event: the longer it is deferred the more my dan-ger-increases." The Secretary did not ; kiibw what to make of it. He felt sure that Leicester, who kept, nothing from her, would certainly have told her that the warrant had been despatched, even in the extremely improbable' event of Lord Burghley not having done so. And.yet she spoke as if she knew nothing of it! So he replied cautiously that he did not think that such a letter to Paulet as that suggested by her was needful. Her Majesty's warrant, he said, would be quite sufficient, and Paulet he knew would act upon that, and not upon a private letter. "I think Amyas will look for such a letter," the Queen replied, as she rose to go to dinner' in an adjoining chamber. This was in the forenoon of Tuesday, : the 7th February, and at the ' same time' sixty miles 1 away, at Fotheringay, Mary Stuart was listening, to the dread intelligence brought by Beale with the warrant, that soon after daybreak on the morrow her sufferings would be ended by death. It w-as already late at night on the Bth February when young Harry Talbot rode into London, his horse dripping with foam and sweat, to bring the news to Burghley that the tragedy in the great hall at Fotheringay had been consummated. In the morning a special messenger- 'summoned Davison to the presence of' the Lord Treasurer, and there, with Hatton and some others of the Councillors, they decided not to break the news suddenly to the Queen. All that day they held silence, for Davison had gone back to London at once without even seeing the Queen. Late that evening, however, she learnt the news from one of her ladies and expressed no surprise or disturbance at the intelligence. But when the doomed Secretary arrived at Greenwich Palace on the following morning, he learnt to his dismay that the Queen was in a tearing rage, inconsolable in her grief, terrible in her anger. Sending first for Hatton early that morning, she swore with many oaths that she never ordered or intended the warrant to be carried out. All the ; Councillors,, she raved, were perjured traitors —even the Lord Treasurer, who ought to have known better —for having her cousin killed upon her warrant and without her knowledge. But, whilst blaming them all for form s sake, it was for poor Davison that the torrent of her wrath was principally reserved. How dared the knave, she asked, how dared he, let her warrant leave his hands or repeat to others confidential conversations witli him? If was treason and nothing else, she shouted between Iter outbursts of tears ; and let the knave look to it, or by God, she would have his head! So Davison found in the Lord Treasurer's apartment at Greenwich a muster of Councillors with very long faces, who condoled most feelingly with him that he had been unfortunate enough to incur her Majesty's special displeasure. He was not so very seriously alarmed at first; for the Council, and not he, had sent the .-.warrant off, and had written the full directions for its execution; but he acquiesced in the advice of his double-dealing colleagues to absent himself from Court on the plea of illness for. a few days.,: tiatil.thc Queen's anger had blown over. Trembling with apprehension, he entered his boat again and rowed to Stepney, where reflection seems to have aggravated his nervousness, anil he took to his bed in real earnest —struck with palsy. The absent are always in the wrong, as doubtless Davison's colleagues knew when they advised him to retire from Court; and great as was the wrath expressed by the Queen against all of the Councillors, and not least against old Lord Burghley, Davison was singled out for special condemnation for having divulged the Queen's instructions and- allowing the warrant to pass from his possession. Burghley feigned deep grief at his mistress' well-acted anger, and- went so far as to intercede for Davison to some extent. When he heard that it was the Queen's intention to commit the unhappy Secretary to the Tower, he reminded his mistress that this course would have to be followed by a trial for treason, and' to .Burghley's prudent mind this seemed dangerously likely to bring the action of the Council at large into question. But Elizabeth had to act her part in her own way before the world, and no considerations of justice or magnanimity were allowed to stand in the way. Davison, after all, was a mere nobody,, raised to the place he occupied in order that he might serve as a scapegoat; and if by the sacrifice of such a man the Queen's own immunity from blame for the death of Mary could be. bought, the object would be cheaply attained.-

In the Tower Davison was interrogated and browbeaten again and again by those who had been his colleagues. His own assertions went for nothing as against jthose of the Queen. She swore that she had directed him not to let the warrant out of his possession. He could only appeal beseechingly to her better memory, and declare solemnly that she had given him no such command. At his trial before the Star Chamber, though a stroke of paralysis caused by grief had disabled him, he had to struggle against the greatest judges and ablest jurists of England, all pledged to justify the Queen at his expense. Only one result of such trial was possible. The Queen's conduct in the matter was enthusiastically approved, and the Court agreed with her that the Council having been deceived by Davison as to her intentions, he alone, and none of the other Councillors, was to blame. He was condemned to pay a fine large enough to reduce him to beggary, and to be confined to the Tower during the Queen's pleasure. He was not allowed even to ask a question but was hurried off to his dungeon, whilst Elizabeth de- j plored Mary's death with crocodile tears ' and protested to the foreign Powers

that tho Calvinistio kiiiivo Davison Avas nlono responsible. Even Burghley, when the fareo of his disgrace with tin- Queen was ended, sought to wash his hands of the blame and to throw it all upon tho wretched Secretary in tho Tower, who had no friends, until years afterwards hotheaded young Essex chivalrously took up his cause and loudly demanded justice Tor an ill-used man. But. the advocacy of Essex wiuj prompted as much by enmity towards the Cecils as iby friendship to Davison, and the ex-Sec-retary was still struggling in poverty and obscurity when Essex himself fell a sacrifice to his own rashness and the wiles of his foes. Curiously enough it was James 1., the son of Mary Stuart, who, at last, lightened the sorrow oi Davison's death-bed by granting him means sufficient to pay his debts. James, at all events, knew that his mother had been done to death; by Elizabeth lierself, and not by William Davison, the scapegoat.