Her Majesty then began to make her protestations, namely: that never had she plotted against the State, nor against the life of the queen, her good sister,--except in trying to regain her liberty, as all captives may. But she saw plainly that the cause of her death was religion, and she esteemed herself very happy to finish her life for that cause. She begged the queen, her good sister, to have pity upon her poor servants whom she held captive, because of the affection they had shown in seeking the liberty of their mistress, inasmuch as she was now to die for all.
They then brought to her a minister to exhort her [the Dean of Peterborough], but she said to him in English, "Ah! my friend, give yourself patience;" declaring that she would not hold converse with him nor hear any talk of his sect, for she had prepared herself to die without counsel, and that persons like him could not give her consolation or contentment of mind.
Notwithstanding this, seeing that he continued his prayers in his jargon, she never ceased to say her own in Latin, raising her voice above that of the minister. After which she said again that she esteemed herself very happy to shed the last drop of her blood for her religion, rather than live longer and wait till nature had completed the full course of her life; and that she hoped in Him whose cross she held in her hand, before whose feet she was prostrate, that this temporal death, borne for Him, would be for her the passage, the entrance to, and the beginning of life eternal with the angels and the blessèd, who would receive her blood and present it before God, in abolition of her sins; and them she prayed to be her intercessors for the obtaining of pardon and mercy.
Such were her prayers, being on her knees on the scaffold, which she made with a fervent heart; adding others for the pope, the kings of France, and even for the Queen of England, praying God to illuminate her with his Holy Spirit; praying also for her son and for the islands of Britain and Scotland that they might be converted.
That done, she called her women to help her to remove her black veil, her headdress, and other ornaments; and as the executioner tried to touch her she said, "Ah! my friend, do not touch me!" But she could not prevent his doing so, for after they had lowered her robe to the waist, that villain pulled her roughly by the arm and took off her doublet [_pourpoint_] and the body of her petticoat [_corps de cotte_] with its low collar, so that her neck and her beautiful bosom, more white than alabaster, were bare and uncovered.