| Her
prayers being ended, the executioners asked her Grace to forgive them
her death. She answered, "I forgive you will all my heart, for I
hope you shall make an end of my troubles." Then they began to take
off her outer clothes.
This done, one of the women put a holy
cloth over the Queen of Scot's face, and pinned it fast to her hair
covering. Then the queen knelt down on the cushion and, without any
token, sign of fear of death, she spoke aloud a psalm in Latin.
Then, groping for the block, she laid
down her head. Lying most quietly upon the block and stretching out her
arms, she cried in Latin "Into your hands, o Lord" three or
four times.
One of the executioners held her
slightly with one of his hands and she endured two strokes of the axe,
making very small noise or none at all.
He lifted up her head to the view of
all and bade "God save the Queen". Then, her head-dress
falling off, her hair was as grey as someone of threescore and ten years
old and cropped short.
Then one of the executioners noticed
her little dog which had hidden under her clothes. Afterwards, it would
not leave the corpse, but came and lay between head and shoulders. |
