Fotheringhay Castle.

Du Prean and her ladies ? Denied her ; but'the appeal— " I am cousin to your Queen , of the blood of Henry VII ., a married Queen of France , and anointed Queen of Scotland , " secures Elizabeth Kennedy and Barbara Mowbray as witnesses of her death . "Allan * done . " And in the great hall she sees three hundred knights and county gentlemen awaiting her . Outside , on these slopes and meadowsand in the villagethousands of people are collected *

, , What a scene ! The block is covered with black , the scaffold is covered with black ; the low rail is covered with black also ; the Sheriffs guard of halberdiers are ranged on the floor below ; the axe leans against the rail , and two masked figures stand on either side of tho scaffold at the back . Then comes the struggle between the old and vanishing world and the new , between the Dean of Peterborough and Mary of Scotland , in which Fletcher ' s tongue fails and

Mary triumphs . Then the white veil is removed , the robo of black satin , the jacket of black satin looped and . trimmed with velvet , aud after one of her ladies has handed her a pair of crimson sleeves , there she stands iu crimson velvet and crimson ^ satin , " on the black scaffold with the black figures , all around her , blood red from head to foot . " Then follows the end . This scene , with her sayingsis unequalled in dramatic force by anything in historyor in

, , the literatures that claim Sophocles , Schiller , and Shakesprare as their chiefs , and unparalleled also in its intense and awful reality . Thus came the endfor we must not linger , of Mary Stuart , and with it all historic interest in the Castle . Then that silence settled clown on Fotheringhay which has never since been broken—that silence in which I stood , that silence which I have

brought with me into this chamber , the silence of mystery , the silence of the past , the silence of death . One word—sitting in this ancient chamber , breathing the atmosphere of the past from our studies , and with that past looking at us from'ithese tomes , it is well we should recognise the truth that one of the most potent factors in our own lives , characters , and destinies worked in the events I we'have been reviewing . At Fotheringhayin the wisdom of Divine Providencewho brings liht

, , g out of darkness , the flames of war which had reddened the skies of two nations for nearly one thousand years began slowly to be quenched . Time completed the union , and now , after a vain attempt to rekindle the smouldering fires , the two peoples are happily united in affection aud loyalty to that throne on which , as the descendant of Mary Stuart , good Queen Victoria sits , reigning over a loyal and prosperous , a free and united people .

" The Scottish land Holds out her haud , No longer in gauntlet mailed , For Soot and Sothron each other have hailed A brother band , Whose hostile brand , Iu our halls of peace hangs only to rust , Since the wars of our fathers slept with them in dust . "f