[Footnote 71: Paulet to Walsingham, _The Letter Books_, p. 325.]
On the 18th December Paulet wrote on the same subject to Burleigh:[72] "Mr. Secretary Walsingham had authorised me to send for this Queen's priest, and to let him visit her. He arrived here on the 17th,[73] so that if the execution of this Queen is deferred it may be repented of, as much from the political point of view as from that of religion, if he shall have stayed with her so long."
[Footnote 72: Paulet to Burleigh, _The Letter Books_, p. 328.]
[Footnote 73: Bourgoing's Journal says that M. de Préau arrived on the 16th about four o'clock in the evening.]
We must now return to the 15th December, as upon that day began the curious series of facts connected with Queen Mary's letter to her cousin.
After her interview with Lord Buckhurst and Beale, Mary had discussed this question of correspondence. I here use Bourgoing's words:--
"Her Majesty said that in former times she could write when she would, and then when it would have been profitable for both the Queen and herself, it had not been permitted; that since her enemies had procured and given the sentence against her, she had not thought it could be profitable, or of any use for her to write to the Queen; added to which, having been so humbled and deprived of all dignity or title, she did not see in what quality she could write for the present."
Mary, however, now desired to write to Elizabeth, and on the 15th she sent Melville to Paulet with a message to this effect, adding that in so doing she was not impelled by any desire to save her life, to receive pardon, or to escape, but only "for the peace of her soul and as a last farewell." Sir Amyas declared that this was not a request to which he could give a reply on the spot, but that if Her Majesty liked to prepare her letter, he would forward it as soon as he should receive permission from court to do so. On hearing this Mary begged Paulet to come to her, but he objected that his colleague, Sir Drue Drury, was ill, and "they did nothing one without the other"; he would therefore defer visiting Her Majesty till the next day, when he hoped Drury would be better.
The following day--16th December--accordingly, after dinner Paulet and Drury visited the Queen, and the latter, to remove all suspicion of a danger too much in keeping with the spirit of the age to be unusual, offered to take it upon herself to _test her letter_ before it should be sent to Elizabeth, in order that Paulet might be assured that no subtle poison was conveyed in it. This offer did not satisfy Paulet, and he said he wished "to read the letter and handle it himself before it was sealed, lest anything should be put inside the letter, as sometimes happened."