Unknown to History: A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland

He asked if Mr. Tichborne wished to entrust to him aught that could be done by word of mouth, and a few commissions were given to him. Then Antony bethought him of thanks to Lord and Lady Shrewsbury for all they had done for him, and above all for sending Mr. Talbot; and a message to ask pardon for having so belied the loyal education they had given him. The divided religion of the country had been his bane: his mother's charge secretly to follow her faith had been the beginning, and then had followed the charms of stratagem on behalf of Queen Mary.

Perhaps, after all, his death, as a repentant man still single minded, saved him from lapsing into the double vileness of the veteran intriguers whose prey he had been.

"I commend me to the Mercy Master Who sees my heart," he said.

Herewith the warder returned, and at his request summoned Gillingham, a sturdy grizzled fellow, looking grim with grief. Babington told him of the arrangement made, and that he was to leave London early in the morning with Mr. Talbot, but the man immediately dropped on his knees and swore a solemn oath that nothing should induce him to leave the place while his master breathed.

"Thou foolish knave," said Antony, "thou canst do me no good, and wilt but make thyself a more piteous wretch than thou art already. Why, 'tis for love of thee that I would have thee spared the sight."

"Am I a babe to be spared?" growled the man. And all that he could be induced to promise was that he would repair to Bridgefield as soon as all was over—"Unless," said he, "I meet one of those accursed rogues, and then a halter would be sweet, if I had first had my will of them."

"Hush, Harry, or Master Warder will be locking thee up next," said Antony.

And then came the farewell. It was at last a long, speechless, sorrowful embrace; and then Antony, slipping from it to his knees, said—"Bless me! Oh bless me: thou who hast been mine only true friend. Bless me as a father!"

"May God in Heaven bless thee!" said Richard, solemnly laying his hand on his head. "May He, Who knoweth how thou hast been led astray, pardon thee! May He, Who hath felt the agonies and shame of the Cross, redeem thee, and suffer thee not for any pains of death to fall from Him!"

He was glad to hear afterwards, when broken-hearted Gillingham joined him, that the last words heard from Antony Babington's lips were—"Parce mihi, Domine JESU!"

CHAPTER XXXIV

FOTHERINGHAY

"Is this my last journey?" said Queen Mary, with a strange, sad smile, as she took her seat in the heavy lumbering coach which had been appointed for her conveyance from Chartley, her rheumatism having set in too severely to permit her to ride.

"Say not so; your Grace has weathered many a storm before," said Marie de Courcelles. "This one will also pass over."

"Ah, my good Marie, never before have I felt this foreboding and sinking of the heart. I have always hoped before, but I have exhausted the casket of Pandora. Even hope is flown!"

Jean Kennedy tried to say something of "Darkest before dawn."

"The dawn, it may be, of the eternal day," said the Queen. "Nay, my friends, the most welcome tidings that could greet me would be that my weary bondage was over for ever, and that I should wreck no more gallant hearts. What, mignonne, art thou weeping? There will be freedom again for thee when that day comes."

"O madam, I want not freedom at such a price!" And yet Cicely had never recovered her looks since those seventeen days at Tickhill. She still looked white and thin, and her dark eyebrows lay in a heavy line, seldom lifted by the merry looks and smiles that used to flash over her face. Life had begun to press its weight upon her, and day after day, as Humfrey watched her across the chapel, and exchanged a word or two with her while crossing the yard, had he grieved at her altered mien; and vexed himself with wondering whether she had after all loved Babington, and were mourning for him.

Truly, even without the passion of love, there had been much to shock and appal a young heart in the fate of the playfellow of her childhood, the suitor of her youth. It was the first death among those she had known intimately, and even her small knowledge of the cause made her feel miserable and almost guilty, for had not poor Antony plotted for her mother, and had not she been held out to him as a delusive inducement? Moreover, she felt the burden of a deep, pitying love and admiration not wholly joined with perfect trust and reliance. She had been from the first startled by untruths and concealments. There was mystery all round her, and the future was dark. There were terrible forebodings for her mother; and if she looked beyond for herself, only uncertainty and fear of being commanded to follow Marie de Courcelles to a foreign court, perhaps to a convent; while she yearned with an almost sick longing for home and kind Mrs. Talbot's motherly tenderness and trustworthiness, and the very renunciation of Humfrey that she had spoken so easily, had made her aware of his full worth, and wakened in her a longing for the right to rest on his stout arm and faithful heart. To look across at him and know him near often seemed her best support, and was she to be cut off from him for ever? The devotions of the Queen, though she had been deprived of her almoner had been much increased of late as one preparing for death; and with them were associated all her household of the Roman Catholic faith, leaving out Cicely and the two Mrs. Curlls. The long oft-repeated Latin orisons, such as the penitential Psalms, would certainly have been wearisome to the girl, but it gave her a pang to be pointedly excluded as one who had no part nor lot with her mother. Perhaps this was done by calculation, in order to incline her to embrace her mother's faith; and the time was not spent very pleasantly, as she had nothing but needlework to occupy her, and no society save that of the sisters Curll. Barbara's spirits were greatly depressed by the loss of her infant and anxiety for her husband. His evidence might be life or death to the Queen, and his betrayal of her confidence, or his being tortured for his fidelity, were terrible alternatives for his wife's imagination. It was hard to say whether she were more sorry or glad when, on leaving Chartley, she was forbidden to continue her attendance on the Queen, and set free to follow him to London. The poor lady knew nothing, and dreaded everything. She could not help discussing her anxieties when alone with Cicely, thus rendering perceptible more and more of the ramifications of plot and intrigue—past and present—at which she herself only guessed a part. Assuredly the finding herself a princess, and sharing the captivity of a queen, had not proved so like a chapter of the Morte d'Arthur as it had seemed to Cicely at Buxton.

It was as unlike as was riding a white palfrey through a forest, guided by knights in armour, to the being packed with all the ladies into a heavy jolting conveyance, guarded before and behind by armed servants and yeomen, among whom Humfrey's form could only now and then be detected.

The Queen had chosen her seat where she could best look out from the scant amount of window. She gazed at the harvest-fields full of sheaves, the orchards laden with ruddy apples, the trees assuming their autumn tints, with lingering eyes, as of one who foreboded that these sights of earth were passing from her.

Two nights were spent on the road, one at Leicester; and on the fourth day, the captain in charge of the castle for the governor Sir William Fitzwilliam, who had come to escort and receive her, came to the carriage window and bade her look up. "This is Periho Lane," he said, "whence your Grace may have the first sight of the poor house which is to have the honour of receiving you."

"Perio! I perish," repeated Mary; "an ominous road."

The place showed itself to be of immense strength. The hollow sound caused by rolling over a drawbridge was twice heard, and the carriage crossed two courts before stopping at the foot of a broad flight of stone steps, where stood Sir William Fitzwilliam and Sir Amias Paulett ready to hand out the Queen.

A few stone steps were mounted, then an enormous hall had to be traversed. The little procession had formed in pairs, and Humfrey was able to give his hand to Cicely and walk with her along the vast space, on which many windows emblazoned with coats of arms shed their light—the western ones full of the bright September sunshine. One of these, emblazoned with the royal shield in crimson mantlings, cast a blood-red stain on the white stone pavement. Mary, who was walking first, holding by the arm of Sir Andrew Melville, paused, shuddered, pointed, and said, "See, Andrew, there will my blood be shed."

"Madam, madam! speak not thus. By the help of the saints you will yet win through your troubles."

"Ay, Andrew, but only by one fate;" and she looked upwards.

Her faithful followers could not but notice that there was no eager assurance that no ill was intended her, such as they had often heard from Shrewsbury and Sadler.

Cicely looked at Humfrey with widely-opened eyes, and the half-breathed question, "What does it mean?"

He shook his head gravely and said, "I cannot tell," but he could not keep his manner from betraying that he expected the worst.

Meanwhile Mary was conducted on to her apartments, up a stair as usual, and forming another side of the inner court at right angles to the Hall. There was no reason to complain of these, Mary's furniture having as usual been sent forward with her inferior servants, and arranged by them. She was weary, and sat down at once on her chair, and as soon as Paulett had gone through his usual formalities with even more than his wonted stiffness, and had left her, she said, "I see what we are come here for. It is that yonder hall may be the place of my death."

Cheering assurances and deprecations of evil augury were poured on her, but she put them aside, saying, "Nay, my friends, trow you not that I rejoice in the close of my weary captivity?"

She resumed her usual habits very calmly, as far as her increased rheumatism would permit, and showed anxiety that a large piece of embroidery should be completed, and thus about a fortnight passed. Then came the first token of the future. Sir Amias Paulett, Sir Walter Mildmay, and a notary, sought her presence and presented her with a letter from Queen Elizabeth, informing her that there were heavy accusations against her, and that as she was residing under the protection of the laws of England, she must be tried by those laws, and must make answer to the commissioners appointed for the purpose. Mary put on all her queenly dignity, and declared that she would never condescend to answer as a subject of the Queen of England, but would only consent to refer their differences to a tribunal of foreign princes. As to her being under the protection of English law, she had come to England of her own free will, and had been kept there a prisoner ever since, so that she did not consider herself protected by the law of England.

Meanwhile fresh noblemen commissioned to sit on the trial arrived day by day. There was trampling of horses and jingling of equipments, and the captive suite daily heard reports of fresh arrivals, and saw glimpses of new colours and badges flitting across the court, while conferences were held with Mary in the hope of inducing her to submit to the English jurisdiction. She was sorely perplexed, seeing as she did that to persist in her absolute refusal to be bound by English law would be prejudicial to her claim to the English crown, and being also assured by Burghley that if she refused to plead the trial would still take place, and she would be sentenced in her absence. Her spirit rose at this threat, and she answered disdainfully, but it worked with her none the less when the treasurer had left her.

"Oh," she cried that night, "would but Elizabeth be content to let me resign my rights to my son, making them secure to him, and then let me retire to some convent in Lorraine, or in Germany, or wherever she would, so would I never trouble her more!"

"Will you not write this to her?" asked Cicely.

"What would be the use of it, child? They would tamper with the letter, pledging me to what I never would undertake. I know how they can cut and garble, add and take away! Never have they let me see or speak to her as woman to woman. All I have said or done has been coloured."

"Mother, I would that I could go to her; Humfrey has seen and spoken to her, why should not I?"

"Thou, poor silly maid! They would drive Cis Talbot away with scorn, and as to Bride Hepburn, why, she would but run into all her mother's dangers."

"It might be done, and if so I will do it," said Cicely, clasping her hands together.

"No, child, say no more. My worn-out old life is not worth the risk of thy young freedom. But I love thee for it, mine ain bairnie, mon enfant a moi. If thy brother had thy spirit, child—"

"I hate the thought of him! Call him not my brother!" cried Cicely hotly. "If he were worth one brass farthing he would have unfurled the Scottish lion long ago, and ridden across the Border to deliver his mother."

"And how many do you think would have followed that same lion?" said Mary, sadly.

"Then he should have come alone with his good horse and his good sword!"

"To lose both crowns, if not life! No, no, lassie; he is a pawky chiel, as they say in the north, and cares not to risk aught for the mother he hath never seen, and of whom he hath been taught to believe strange tales."

The more the Queen said in excuse for the indifference of her son, the stronger was the purpose that grew up in the heart of the daughter, while fresh commissioners arrived every day, and further conversations were held with the Queen. Lord Shrewsbury was known to be summoned, and Cicely spent half her time in watching for some well-known face, in the hope that he might bring her good foster-father in his train. More than once she declared that she saw a cap or sleeve with the well-beloved silver dog, when it turned out to be a wyvern or the royal lion himself. Queen Mary even laughed at her for thinking her mastiff had gone on his hind legs when she once even imagined him in the Warwick Bear and ragged staff.

At last, however, all unexpectedly, while the Queen was in conference with Hatton, there came a message by the steward of the household, that Master Richard Talbot had arrived, and that permission had been granted by Sir Amias for him to speak with Mistress Cicely. She sprang up joyously, but Mrs. Kennedy demurred.

"Set him up!" quoth she. "My certie, things are come to a pretty pass that any one's permission save her Majesty's should be speired for one of her women, and I wonder that you, my mistress, should be the last to think of her honour!"

"O Mrs. Kennedy, dear Mrs. Jean," entreated Cicely, "hinder me not. If I wait till I can ask her, I may lose my sole hope of speaking with him. I know she would not be displeased, and it imports, indeed it imports."

"Come, Mrs. Kennett," said the steward, who by no means shared his master's sourness, "if it were a young gallant that craved to see thy fair mistress, I could see why you should doubt, but being her father and brother, there can surely be no objection."