abiding faith and trust in a wise and merciful Providence, which we inherited from our fathers, and from our mothers also, and which is emblazoned on the very seal of our city,Sicut Patribus, sit Deus nobis. While we are true to that motto, and to the spirit of that motto, Boston will never be called "Lost-town," either proverbially or otherwise, however it may have been so called in the days which Cotton Mather described.

And now let me turn from this painful topic, which could not fail to be uppermost in all our thoughts and hearts to-night, let me turn to a word of welcome to our distinguished guest. He needs no introduction to any of us. His elaborate and brilliant History has introduced him, long before his arrival, to every reader of the English tongue. Whether or not he has absolutely reversed or even modified our views of some of the great figures of the period which he describes, we all feel that he has gone down deeper into the mines of history than any of his predecessors in the same field, and has brought up things rich and rare for our entertainment and instruction, weaving them with surpassing skill into the most attractive and effective form. He has given a new zest to the reading and the study of that English history, which I well remember that Daniel Webster, when I was a law student in his office, so emphatically enjoined upon me as furnishing the key to all our own free institutions. He has given us, too, the history of the old mother country during the very period when the founders of the American colonies, as he has reminded us this evening, were being shaped and moulded for their great wilderness work, under that Maiden Queen, as she was wont to be called, in honor of whom our whole continent, or certainly our whole coast, once bore the name, which one of our largest and most ancient commonwealths still bears, the name of Virginia. You all remember that even the Pilgrim Fathers, in the ever memorable compact which they signed in the cabin of the Mayflower on the 11th (21st) of November, 1620, designated their voyage as undertaken "to plant the first colony in the northern part of Virginia."

Elizabeth had then been dead for seventeen years, but her imperious refusal of all suitors for her hand had been inscribed where it was never to be forgotten. The great events of the latter part of her reign, at least, were familiar as household words to those by whom our colonies were founded. It was but yesterday that I was showing to Mr. Froude a contemporary account of "the Order and Manner of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots," which I had found

carefully copied into the common-place book of Adam Winthrop, the father of our Governor. And as he thinks that it may never yet have been printed, I propose, with our Secretary's leave, that it shall go into the next serial number of our printed Proceedings.

But I have said more than enough for the introduction of one who, as I have suggested, in writing the history of his own country at a period when it was our country also, or certainly the country of our fathers, has long ago secured for himself the most respectful and cordial welcome to our shores, and who we rejoice has at length come over to receive that welcome. I present to you, gentlemen, our distinguished Honorary Member, Mr. Froude.

Mr. FROUDE made a graceful response to the welcome extended to him, and acknowledged the satisfaction he felt on receiving notice a few years since of his enrolment as a member of this Society. It was a compliment for which he felt at the time most grateful as one of his earliest recognitions.

The following is the account of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, referred to by the President:

The manner & order of y execution of y late Queene of Scottes, why wordes w she spake at her Deathe, truely sett downe by Doctor" fletcher Deane of Peterborowe.

On Wednesday y viii of ffebruary ño 1586 there assembled at y Castle of ffordringham y Earles of Shrewsbury & Kent, wth divers Knightes & gentlemen Justices of y peace of y yeare in those Countries. About viii of y clocke, yo Earles & Sherifes of y Shire went upp to y Scottish Queene, whom they fownde prayinge on hir knees, wth hir gentlewomen & men. And the Sherifes rememberinge hir y! y time was at hand, she awnswered & sayde she was readie. Then she was ledde by y armes from hir chamber into the y chamber of presence, where wth many exhortacions to hir people to feare God, & to live in obedience, kissinge hir women, she gave hir hande to hir men to kisse: prayinge them all not to sorowe, but reioice & pray for hir. She was brought downe y stayers by two Souldiers: Then beinge belowe she stayed, & lookinge backe she sayed she was evill attended, & desired y Lordes she might for woman hoodes sake, have two of hir women to wayte uppon hir. Then they sayde, they were onely withholden for y it was feared, by their passionate cryinge they would disquiet hir Spirit, & disturbe y execution. She sayde, I will promise for them y they shall not doe so. Then two of them whom she willed were brought unto hir. Then she spake muche unto Welbin hir man, & charged him as he woulde answere before God, to deliver

hir Speache& message to hir Sonne in suche sorte as she did speake them, all we tended onely to will him to governe wisely, in y feare of God, & to take heede to whom he betooke his chiefest trust; & not to geve an occasion to be evill thought of by the Queene of Inglande, hir good sister, to certefie him she dyed a true Skotte, a true ffrenche, & a true Catholique. Aboute X of y clocke she was brought downe into y greate hall, where in y middest of y howse, & agaynste y chimnie, (wherein was a greate fire) was a skaffolde sett upp of twoe foote height, & xii foote broade, havinge two steppes to come upp; about y scaffold went a rayle halfe a yarde highte rownde covered wth black cotten: So was hir stoole, y Lordes forme, y: blocke, & a pillowe for hir to kneele uppon. There did sitt uppon y: skaffolde y two Earles, y Sherife stoode there, & y two executioners. When they were sett, M: Beale, Clerke of y: Cowncell did reade hir Maties Commission for hir execution, under y broade Seale, after wch y Deane of Peterborowe beinge directed by y Lordes to speake unto hir, for y better piparation to dye a penitent Christian, in y true faythe of Christ, began at y motion of y Earle of Shrewsbury his exhortation, we as sone as he had begoñe, she sayde wth a lowd voice, peace M! Deane, I will not heare you. I say nothinge sayde he, but y! I will iustifie before y mate of y most highest. So proceedinge, she cryed alowde agayne, peace M! Deane, I will not heare you, you have nothinge to doe w me, nor I wyth you. Then was he willed to silence, for any further molestinge hir mynde. She sayed, so it is best, for I am fully setled & resolved to dye in y Catholique Romishe faythe. Wch when y Lordes hearde; the Earle of Kent sayde, albeit Madam, you refuse y offered mercies of y most highest, yet we will offer of prayers to God for you; hopinge he will heare us. And if it might stande w his good will, he would vouchsafe to open your eies, & to lighten your hearte, wth y true knowledge of his will, & to dye therin. She sayed, doe, & I will pray. Then y Deane pronounced a prayer, wch y standers by folowed; all weh while she havinge a crucifixe betwene hir handes prayed much lowder in latin. The prayer beinge done, she kneeled downe, & prayed to this effect: for Christ his afflicted Churche, & for an ende of their troubles, for hir Sonne y he might rule uprightly, & be converted to y Catholique Romishe Churche. She prayed y! y Queenes Mae might longe reigne peaceably, might prosper, & serve God. She confessed she hoped to be saved onely by y bloude of Christe, at y foote of whose picture presented on y crucifixe she woulde willingly shedd hir bloude. prayed to all y Sayntes of heaven to pray for hir, & y y God of heaven woulde of his goodnes averte his plauges from this silly Ilande, & y God would geve hir life, & forgeve hir sinnes, & y he woulde receave hir Soule into his heavenly handes. And then she rose upp, & was by two of hir women, & y two executioners disrobed into hir peticoote. Then she sayed, she was not wont to be undressed before such a number, nor by such gromes. Then she kissed hir women, & one of them began to crye, to whom she sayed, peace, cry not, I haue promised y contrarie: Črye not for me, but reioice, & lifted upp hir

She

handes & blessed them, & likewise hir men not farre of. Then sodenly she kneeled downe most resolutly, & why: least token of any feare of deathe y might be. And after y one of hir women had knitte a kertcher about hir eies, she spake alowde this psalme in latin — In te Domine confido, ne confundar in æternū. Then lay she downe very quietly stretchinge out hir body, & layinge hir necke over y: blocke, cryed, in manus tuas Domine, &c. One of y executioners helde downe hir two handes: & y other did at two strokes wh an axe cutt of hir heade, wch fallinge out of hir atyre appeared very graye, & neare powlde. So houldinge it upp, y people sayed, God save y Queene, & so perishe all hir enemies, & y enemies of the gospell. All thinges about hir, & belonginge to hir, were taken from y executioners, & they were not suffered so muche as to haue their aprons before them till they were washed. The bloudy clothes, y: blocke, & whatsoever els bloudy, was brent in y chymny fire. The body was caryed upp into y: chamber, hir boweles taken out, embawmed, seared, & resteth to the buriall.

[Then follows in a different style of chirography, though by the same hand:]

Shee was first roiallie buried in the Cathedrall Churche of Peterburroughe. But afterwardes shee was brought from thence to Westminster, & buried in Kinge Henry the Seventhes chapple, where a princely tombe was made over her, by the Kinges mate her Sonne in the yere of his reigne of Greate Britayne, &c.

The saide Queene of Scottes was the daughter & sole heire of James the 5. Kinge of Scotts, & was borne the 8 daye of December, 1542. beinge but 5. daies olde when her father died. Shee was first maried to Francys the eldest sonne of Henry y Seconde, Kinge of France, who reigned 2 yeres after his father, by whom shee had no issue. Then shee retourned into Scotlande, & maried Henry the lorde Darly, the eldest sonne unto Mathewe, Erle of Lenox, by whom shee had issue the Kinges mat James the 6. who was but a yere olde when his father was slayne, & his mother fled into Englande, where shee remained pisoner till she died, wch was the 8 daie of February, 1586, in the 44 yere of her age, & in the 29 yere of the reigne of Queene Elizabethe.*

*The following letter from Queen Elizabeth to Sir Amias Paulet is also taken from the Common Place Book of Adam Winthrop (b. 1548, d. 1623). William Tytler, in his "Inquiry, Historical and Critical, into the Evidence against Mary, Queen of the Scots" (4th ed. 1790, vol. ii. pp. 320, 403), prints this letter from "a collection of remarkable trials published, London, 1715." In commenting on the letter, he says: "What a picture we have here of the heroine of England! Wooing a faithful servant to commit a clandestine murder, which she herself durst not avow!" Tytler feels that he is justified in giving this interpretation to the letter, by others which followed, from Walsingham and Davison, written by order of the Queen, in which the proposal is made in plain terms. Miss Aikin also prints the letter in her History of Queen Elizabeth; and so does Froude, from "MSS. Mary Q. of Scots." But the text in no two of these copies is alike; and the copy from which we now print varies from all these. Neither copy bears a date, but Froude refers the letter to "August, 1586," which was probably just before Queen Mary

DECEMBER MEETING, 1872.

A stated meeting was held on the 12th inst. in the room of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in the Athenæum Building, on Beacon Street; the President in the chair.

The Recording Secretary read the records of the two preceding meetings.

The Librarian read the list of donations to the Library. The Corresponding Secretary read a letter from Mr. Seth Reed, of Baltimore, enclosing a statement recently made at a meeting of the Maryland Historical Society; viz., that the burning of a vessel, the "Peggy Stewart," laden with tea, in Annapolis Harbor, occurred prior to the destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor. The Corresponding Secretary then gave the circumstances of the destruction of the " Peggy Stewart," it having been burnt by the owner himself to allay public excitement, after the duties on the tea had been paid. This occurred the year following the destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor.

The gift of two books to the Library by our associate Mr. Whitmore was noticed; viz., A Memoir of Edward A. Holyoke, M.D., LL.D., and the first volume of Lossing's "Life and Times of Philip Schuyler." Mr. Whitmore said that the concluding volume of the latter work might soon be expected.

left Chartley Manor for Fotheringay Castle, under the conduct of Sir Amias Paulet, one of her keepers. Sir Drue Drury, another of them, was a Suffolk man, not far off from Groton, and Adam Winthrop might have had the letter from him. She was executed on the 8th of February following.

A copie of y Q. Maties Lre to Sir Amias Pawlett:

Amias, my most faythfull & carefull servaunt. God rewarde the treble folde for thy most troublesome charge so well discharged, if you knewe, my Amias, howe kindely my gratefull harte accepteth your speedie endevours, faythfull actions, yo! wise orders, & safe regarde, performed in so dangerous & craftie a charge, it would ease your travailes, & reioice your harte: In wch I charge you to carry this most iust thought, y'. I cannot ballance in any waight of my judgment y value y! I prise you att. And suppose y no treasure can countervayle so greate a fayth. And I shall condemne myselfe in y faulte wh I never committed, if I rewarde not such desertes, yea, lett me lacke when I most neede, if I acknowledge not suche a meritt, with a reward non omnibus datu. But lett yo wicked murtheresse knowe, howe wth hartie sorowe hir vile desertes compell these orders, & bidde hir from me aske God forgevenes, for hir treacherous dealinge towardes y saver of hir life many yeres: to y intollerable perill of hir owne: and yet not content with so many forgevenesses, must fall agayne so horrebly, farre passinge a womans thought, muche more a princes. In steade of excusinge[s] whereof not one can serve, it beinge so playnely confessed by y actours of my guiltlesse deathe, lett repentance take place, & lett not ye fiende possesse hir so as hir better parte be loste, woh I pray with haudes lifted upp to him y! may both save & spill, with my most lovinge adieu, & pray[er] for thy longe life.

To my faythfull AMIAS.

Your assured & lovinge Soveraigne
as therto by good desert enduced,

ELIZA: REGINA.