, affection, and nobility of heart, which distinguished my

Matilda? and could I remember these, yet doubt that by whatever chance I was deserted, your will could have no share in it? Believe me, my sister, the first prayers I addressed to Heaven in my prison were for your safety.
When time and solitude restored me reason enough coolly to consider my own state, I saw no immediate danger it could teem with. Though a victim to the fears of Elizabeth, and the policy of Lord Bur∣leigh, I had not yet learnt to consider them as mere murderers, and if they were not so, imprisonment was the only evil I could have to apprehend, nay even that might per∣haps be short, as it was undoubtedly both illegal and unjust. Malice itself could affix on me no other crime than that of being daughter to the Queen of Scots; a fatal truth which Elizabeth would gladly forget, but surely never publish. Could I resolve, therefore, to endure with pa∣tience the punishment so unworthily im∣posed on me, I might in time emerge unsullied to distinction. I called upon the example of her who gave me being,

to support my drooping spirits, and should perhaps have vied with her in fortitude, but that one cherished grief wound round my aching heart, and often wrung forth its dearest drops. Essex, the most be∣loved of mankind; that faithful lover, whose ardent prayers, whose generous pro∣posals, I had obstinately resisted, when his irritated mind seemed daringly to lift the veil of futurity, and pierce through those complicated dangers which followed our parting—Ah, what should guard him, when my loss was discovered, from giving way to his injured and exasperated affection? If fortune should even separate him and Lord Leicester, how could I be certain Elizabeth herself would be safe from his reproaches, and who was ever safe from her vengeance, when once thus desperately awakened? The premature fate of my much-honoured father, the noble Norfolk, returned upon my me∣mory—the tower, the dismal tower, scaf∣folds, axes, a bleeding lover, and a broken heart, daily passed in long array before me,

and peopled the solitude to which I was so unjustly condemned.
The decency with which I was attend∣ed and served, convinced me both Eliza∣beth and her Minister had still terms to keep with me; but the servant who had ventured to answer me was impeached by those who waited without the door, and my purse being found upon her, no doubt became a sufficient proof of guilt. Certainly I saw her no more, and the wo∣men deputed in her place, were either too
