One for each year of my life, she thought. Was it deliberate or a wink
from Him, reminding me of an order above all their arrangements?
Silence prevailed; the men were staring at her, gaping at the legendary
Bosom Serpent. Few in England had actually seen her in all the years
she had been among them; indeed, they were more likely to have seen a
ghost.
Was this the femme fat ak the woman who had driven so many men to
distraction, to their doom? Time had stilled her dangerous charms, had
utterly disarmed her. They felt a twinge of disappointment, mixed with
relief. The black-clad woman making her way through the door had a
double chin and a thick waist.
At the near end of the chamber, a canopied throne presided over the
gathering, on a small dais. Mary made her way to it before she was
gently stopped and pointed to a chair below it.
Mary cast a despairing look at the empty throne. "I am a queen by
birth, and my place should be there under the canopy!" she objected.
"That is Elizabeth's place," said the Lord Chancellor.
Elizabeth's place mockingly empty. Her absence seemed more solid than
the living presence of the judges.
Mary took her place in a velvet chair below the empty, lowering throne,
settling herself gingerly.
She looked round. Here were the faces to go with the names she had
heard for years. "So many councillors," she whispered to Melville,
"and not one for me!"
The Lord Chancellor rose and read the accusation against her. She was
to be tried for conspiring the destruction of Elizabeth's person and of
the realm of England, and for the subversion of the national religion.
She replied, as she had many times before, that she had been illegally
detained in England, and that she had agreed to appear only to show
that she was not guilty of the attempted murder of Elizabeth. She
would answer only on that question, she said. She did not recognize
the jurisdiction of the court over her, but came only to clear her good
name.
The Lord Chancellor read, in Latin, the commission to try her; Mary
protested that the new law had been enacted strictly to snare her.
Serjeant Gawdy, on behalf of the crown, now rose and accused her of
attempting to kill Elizabeth, and of inviting foreign invasion of
England; both were treason under the Act for the Queen's Safety, which
was law, regardless of how newly enacted or for what reason. He then
detailed the Babington Plot, accusing her of knowing about it,
assenting to it, promising her assistance to the rebels, and showing
them ways and means.
"I knew Babington as a page in Shrewsbury's household!" she replied.
"But since he departed from thence, I have never held conference with
him, written him, nor received letters, of that kind, from him; nor
have I ever plotted, or entered into plots, for the destruction of your
Queen." That was what he would want her to say; she owed him that
loyalty. That was what one always said, one always denied and dared
others to prove it.
"Babington confessed!" said Gawdy. "Yes, he eagerly confessed,
thinking that somehow that would buy him a privilege. As if to confess
to treason were to buy forgiveness!"
He confessed! thought Mary, with a sinking heart. He betrayed himself
and his beliefs. She winced inwardly to picture him broken, with the
kind of brokenness that was worse than death.
"He told us of the letters that passed between you; indeed, he kindly
reconstructed one. And it happens that he was telling the truth for we
have a certified copy of the original letter!"
Mary felt faint. How had they got it? The secret post .. . how had it
been breached?
Walsingham now spoke. "The business with the brewer was all our
doing," he explained, looking directly at her.
So this was Walsingham: this sallow-faced, ruff-clad Puritan, the dark
man who had been her adversary for so long. She stared at him, filled
with shock and anger.
All their doing! she thought. From the beginning ... to have taken
the bait so unquestioningly .. . She felt sick.
Walsingham now read Babington's letter in its entirety, followed by her
answer to it. She suddenly wondered if Babington had written the
letter at all; maybe the whole letter was merely a Walsingham
forgery.
"I It may be that Babington wrote that letter; but let it be proved
that I received it! And to prove that I have consented to any wicked
design, it will be necessary to produce my own handwriting! It is an
easy matter to counterfeit ciphers and characters!" she said.
"Besides, if Babington confessed such things, why was he put to death,
instead of being brought face-to-face with me as witness to convict
me?" She looked round in distress. "I appeal to the statute enacted
in the fifteenth year of Queen Elizabeth, which expressly provides that
no one should be arraigned for intending the destruction of the
sovereign's life but by the testimony and oath of two lawful witnesses,
brought face-to-face before him."
Cecil said sarcastically, "I thought you were so ignorant of English
law! You see, gentlemen, how much credence can be placed in her
statements and disclaimers."
"Perhaps the Babington letter is a forgery!" she cried. "How do you
know it was not tampered with? It has obviously passed through many
hands! This is Walsingham's doing! He will stop at nothing to achieve
my death!"
Eyes flashing, Walsingham rose. "I call God to witness," he said
loudly, "that as a private person I have done nothing un beseeming an
honest man, nor, as I bear the place of a public man, have I done
anything unworthy of my place. I confess that being very careful for
the safety of the Queen and the realm, I have curiously searched out
all the practices against the same. If Ballard or Babington had
offered me his help in this matter, I should not have refused it; yea,
I would have recompensed the pains they had taken. If I have practised
anything with them, why did they not utter it to save their lives?"
"I speak only what I have been told, sir, that you are not above
creating your own evidence!" said Mary. "You can see by that how
dangerous it is to believe ill-wishers. I pray you not credit my
slanderers any more than I credit yours."
The hearing went on, with the confessions of Nau and Curie read out.
The secretaries had confirmed the text of the Babington letter.
"Then they were threatened with torture," Mary insisted.
On and on went the hearings, pausing only to take midday refreshment.
Mary found herself thirsty and faint. Her composure was starting to
slip, and she felt as if she were being attacked by a pack of wolves.
In the afternoon, more details were paraded out. Nau and Curie's state
merits were reexamined, then Cecil accused her of refusing to sign the
Treaty of Edinburgh. Next the Parry Plot and Morgan's part in it was
brought up, and Mary was questioned as to why she had paid Morgan a
pension. She countered by asking why Elizabeth had given Lord James
and the other Scottish rebels a pension.
Other accusations were thrown at her: her assumption of the arms and
title of England in 1558, her declaring herself the sole legitimate
descendant of Henry VII, her presumption in drawing up a pedigree
proving herself a representative of the ancient British monarchs by
descent from Edmund Ironside, her failure to reprove the Pope for
naming her Queen of England the commissioners not even waiting their
turns, shouting that she was "guilty, guilty, guilty!" The sound rose
to a babble, drowning out the cheerful crackling of the fire in the
huge fireplace. The hearing broke up, dismissed by the Lord Chancellor
until the morrow.
Mary was so drained she could scarcely walk unaided back to her
quarters. But she was determined to stand erect while she was still in
sight of the commissioners. When she reached her room, she had only
the strength to say, "It is not finished," to the waiting attendants.
Lying on her bed, stretched out full length, she gradually stopped
shaking. The hearing had gone on for almost eight hours. Their
evidence was damning; it was clear that she was doomed.
Yet I believe I answered well and nimbly, she thought. Perhaps there
will be some who will carry away a kindlier impression of me than they
came with. Jesu, so many of them, and ones I had wished to see. And
dear old Shrewsbury there. He scarcely said a word.. .. Hatton, grown
so worn .. . Sir Ralph Sadler, who saw me naked when I was just a baby,
inspecting me ... who would ever have thought he would outlive me? All
these gentlemen, what did they say they were? Nine earls, thirteen
barons, six privy councillors .. .
The trial resumed the next morning. Mary again entered the room
leaning on her servants' arms, and took her place in the crimson velvet
chair. The forty-four faces appeared eager to resume; their colour was
high and their voices loud. As she looked round the room, she was
struck with a subtle difference between today and yesterday, but she
could not immediately name it.
Now Mary rose and addressed the assembly. "Friends," she began. Then
she saw how the use of that word unleashed a volley of head-shaking.
"Judges," she amended it, "I came here voluntarily, out of regard for
my own honour, to vindicate myself from the horrible imputation of
having been a party to the hurt of Queen Elizabeth. But instead I have
been attacked on many other issues; you have attempted to confuse me
and lead away from the main charge. And as to the main accusation, you
have produced no witnesses; neither have you produced any original
writings, but only
'certified copies." If you can condemn me by my own words or writing,
I will submit. But I am sure you cannot produce any."
It is true I agreed to it, she thought, in a moment of weakness. But I
refuse to be condemned on false or tampered evidence. God has
mercifully seen to it there is no earthly evidence of my lapse. He is
my shield and protection.
"Listen to how sure she is! It is not innocence speaking, but craft!
She knows full well they do not exist because she systematically
destroyed them proving her wiliness!"
"Hear, hear!" seconded other voices.
The noise rose until it was a rumble. Suddenly she realized what was
different about the men this day: they already wore their riding
clothes, they were booted and spurred. They meant to end the hearing
early enough to leave while it was yet daylight. The time was already
set; it mattered not what she said.
"My crimes, for which I am really on trial here today," she continued,
holding her head high, "consist of my birth, the injuries that have
been inflicted on me, and my religion. Of the first I am justly proud,
the second I can forgive, and the third has been my sole consolation
and hope under all my afflictions. I am the last Catholic member of
both royal houses of England and Scotland, and I would cheerfully give
my best blood to procure relief for the suffering Catholics of the
realm; but not even for their sake would I purchase it at the price of
religious war and the blood of many others, having always been tender
of the lives of God's meanest creatures."
"Yet he who is tender with foals and piglets is often cruel to his
wife!" cried one man.