reason.  If there was injustice done to her, it was in not allowing her claim to succeed Mary.  That she felt that Elizabeth was a usurper, and that the English throne belonged by right to her, I do not doubt.  It was natural that she should seek to regain her rights.  If she should survive Elizabeth, her claims as the rightful successor could not be well set aside.  That in view of these facts Elizabeth was jealous of Mary I do not doubt; and that this jealousy was one great cause of her hostility is probable.

The execution of Mary Stuart because she was a Catholic, or because she excited fear or jealousy, is utterly indefensible.  All that the English nation had a right to do was to set her succession aside because she was a Catholic, and would undo the work of the Reformation.  She had a right to her religion; and the nation also had a right to prevent its religion from being overturned or jeopardized.  I do not believe, however, that Mary’s life endangered either the throne or the religion of England, so long as she was merely Queen of Scotland; hence I look upon her captivity as cruel, and her death as a crime.  She was destroyed as the male children of the Hebrews were destroyed by Pharaoh, as a sultan murders his nephews,—­from fear; from a cold and cruel state policy, against all the higher laws of morality.

The crime of Elizabeth doubtless has palliations.  She was urged by her ministers and by the Protestant part of the nation to commit this great wrong, on the plea of necessity, to secure the throne against a Catholic successor, and the nation from embarrassments, plots, and rebellions.  It is an undoubted fact that Mary, even after her imprisonment in England, was engaged in perpetual intrigues; that she was leagued with Jesuits and hostile powers, and kept Elizabeth in continual irritation and the nation in constant alarm.  And it is probable that had she succeeded Elizabeth, she would have destroyed all that was dear to the English heart,—­that glorious Reformation, effected by so many labors and sacrifices.  Therefore she was immolated to the spirit of the times, for reasons of expediency and apparent state necessity.  That she conspired against the government of Elizabeth, and possibly against her life, was generally supposed; that she was a bitter enemy cannot be questioned.  How far Elizabeth can be exculpated on the principle of self-defence cannot well be ascertained.  Scotch historians do not generally accept the reputed facts of Mary’s guilt.  But if she sought the life of Elizabeth, and was likely to attain so bloody an end,—­as was generally feared,—­then Elizabeth has great excuses for having sanctioned the death of her rival.