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

"And who," asked the lady, "may be yon, with the strangely-plumed hat and long, yellow hair, like a half-tamed Borderer?"

"He?" said Humfrey. "He is my Lord of Cumberland. I marvelled to see him back so soon. He is here, there, and everywhere; and when I was in London was commanding a fleet bearing victuals to relieve the Dutch in Helvoetsluys. Had I not other work in hand, I would gladly sail with him, though there be something fantastic in his humour. But here come the Knights of the Privy Council, who are to my mind more noteworthy than the Earls."

The seats of these knights were placed a little below and beyond those of the noblemen. The courteous Sir Ralf Sadler looked up and saluted the ladies in the gallery as he entered. "He was always kindly," said Jean Kennedy, as she returned the bow. "I am glad to see him here."

"But oh, Humfrey!" cried Cicely, "who is yonder, with the short cloak standing on end with pearls, and the quilted satin waistcoat, jewelled ears, and frizzed head? He looks fitter to lead off a dance than a trial."

"He is Sir Christopher Hatton, her Majesty's Vice-Chamberlain," replied Humfrey.

"Who, if rumour saith true, made his fortune by a galliard," said Dr. Bourgoin.

"Here is a contrast to him," said Jean Kennedy. "See that figure, as puritanical as Sir Amias himself, with the long face, scant beard, black skull-cap, and plain crimped ruff. His visage is pulled into so solemn a length that were we at home in Edinburgh, I should expect to see him ascend a pulpit, and deliver a screed to us all on the iniquities of dancing and playing on the lute!"

"That, madam," said Humfrey, "is Mr. Secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham."

Here Elizabeth Curll leant forward, looked, and shivered a little. "Ah, Master Humfrey, is it in that man's power that my poor brother lies?"

"'Tis true, madam," said Humfrey, "but indeed you need not fear. I heard from Will Cavendish last night that Mr. Curll is well. They have not touched either of the Secretaries to hurt them, and if aught have been avowed, it was by Monsieur Nau, and that on the mere threat. Do you see old Will yonder, Cicely, just within Mr. Secretary's call—with the poke of papers and the tablet?"

"Is that Will Cavendish? How precise and stiff he hath grown, and why doth he not look up and greet us? He knoweth us far better than doth Sir Ralf Sadler; doth he not know we are here?"

"Ay, Mistress Cicely," said Dr. Bourgoin from behind, "but the young gentleman has his fortune to make, and knows better than to look on the seamy side of Court favour."

"Ah! see those scarlet robes," here exclaimed Cis. "Are they the judges, Humfrey?"

"Ay, the two Chief-Justices and the Chief Baron of the Exchequer. There they sit in front of the Earls, and three more judges in front of the Barons."

"And there are more red robes at that little table in front, besides the black ones."

"Those are Doctors of Law, and those in black with coifs are the Attorney and Solicitor General. The rest are clerks and writers and the like."

"It is a mighty and fearful array," said Cicely with a long breath.

"A mighty comedy wherewith to mock at justice," said Jean.

"Prudence, madam, and caution," suggested Dr. Bourgoin. "And hush!"

A crier here shouted aloud, "Oyez, oyez, oyez! Mary, Queen of Scotland and Dowager of France, come into the Court!"

Then from a door in the centre, leaning on Sir Andrew Melville's arm, came forward the Queen, in a black velvet dress, her long transparent veil hanging over it from her cap, and followed by the two Maries, one carrying a crimson velvet folding-chair, and the other a footstool. She turned at first towards the throne, but she was motioned aside, and made to perceive that her place was not there. She drew her slender figure up with offended dignity. "I am a queen," she said; "I married a king of France, and my seat ought to be there."

However, with this protest she passed on to her appointed place, looking sadly round at the assembled judges and lawyers.

"Alas!" she said, "so many counsellors, and not one for me."

Were there any Englishmen there besides Richard Talbot and his son who felt the pathos of this appeal? One defenceless woman against an array of the legal force of the whole kingdom. It may be feared that the feelings of most were as if they had at last secured some wild, noxious, and incomprehensible animal in their net, on whose struggles they looked with the unpitying eye of the hunter.

The Lord Chancellor began by declaring that the Queen of England convened the Court as a duty in one who might not bear the sword in vain, to examine into the practices against her own life, giving the Queen of Scots the opportunity of clearing herself.

At the desire of Burghley, the commission was read by the Clerk of the Court, and Mary then made her public protest against its legality, or power over her.

It was a wonderful thing, as those spectators in the gallery felt, to see how brave and how acute was the defence of that solitary lady, seated there with all those learned men against her; her papers gone, nothing left to her but her brain and her tongue. No loss of dignity nor of gentleness was shown in her replies; they were always simple and direct. The difficulty for her was all the greater that she had not been allowed to know the form of the accusation, before it was hurled against her in full force by Mr. Serjeant Gawdy, who detailed the whole of the conspiracy of Ballard and Babington in all its branches, and declared her to have known and approved of it, and to have suggested the manner of executing it.

Breathlessly did Cicely listen as the Queen rose up. Humfrey watched her almost more closely than the royal prisoner. When there was a denial of all knowledge or intercourse with Ballard or Babington, Jean Kennedy's hard-lined face never faltered; but Cicely's brows came together in concern at the mention of the last name, and did not clear as the Queen explained that though many Catholics might indeed write to her with offers of service, she could have no knowledge of anything they might attempt. To confute this, extracts from their confessions were read, and likewise that letter of Babington's which he had written to her detailing his plans, and that lengthy answer, brought by the blue-coated serving-man, in which the mode of carrying her off from Chartley was suggested, and which had the postscript desiring to know the names of the six who were to remove the usurping competitor.

The Queen denied this letter flatly, declaring that it might have been written with her alphabet of ciphers, but was certainly none of hers. "There may have been designs against the Queen and for procuring my liberty," she said, "but I, shut up in close prison, was not aware of them, and how can I be made to answer for them? Only lately did I receive a letter asking my pardon if schemes were made on my behalf without my privity, nor can anything be easier than to counterfeit a cipher, as was lately proved by a young man in France. Verily, I greatly fear that if these same letters were traced to their deviser, it would prove to be the one who is sitting here. Think you," she added, turning to Walsingham, "think you, Mr. Secretary, that I am ignorant of your devices used so craftily against me? Your spies surrounded me on every side, but you know not, perhaps, that some of your spies have been false and brought intelligence to me. And if such have been his dealings, my Lords," she said, appealing to the judges and peers, "how can I be assured that he hath not counterfeited my ciphers to bring me to my death? Hath he not already practised against my life and that of my son?"

Walsingham rose in his place, and lifting up his hands and eyes declared, "I call God to record that as a private person I have done nothing unbeseeming an honest man, nor as a public person have I done anything to dishonour my place."

Somewhat ironically Mary admitted this disavowal, and after some unimportant discussion, the Court adjourned until the next day, it being already late, according to the early habits of the time.

Cicely had been entirely carried along by her mother's pleading. Tears had started as Queen Mary wept her indignant tears, and a glow had risen in her cheeks at the accusation of Walsingham. Ever and anon she looked to Humfrey's face for sympathy, but he sat gravely listening, his two hands clasped over the hilt of his sword, and his chin resting on them, as if to prevent a muscle of his face from moving. When they rose up to leave the galleries, and there was the power to say a word, she turned to him earnestly.

"A piteous sight," he said, "and a right gallant defence."

He did not mean it, but the words struck like lead on Cicely's heart, for they did not amount to an acquittal before the tribunal of his secret conviction, any more than did Walsingham's disavowal, for who could tell what Mr. Secretary's conscience did think unbecoming to his office?

Cicely found her mother on her couch giving a free course to her tears, in the reaction after the strain and effort of her defence. Melville and the Maries were assuring her that she had most bravely confuted her enemies, and that she had only to hold on with equal courage to the end. Mrs. Kennedy and Dr. Bourgoin came in to join in the same encouragements, and the commendation evidently soothed her. "However it may end," she said, "Mary of Scotland shall not go down to future ages as a craven spirit. But let us not discuss it further, my dear friends, my head aches, and I can bear no farther word at present."

Dr. Bourgoin made her take some food and then lie down to rest, while in an outer room a lute was played and a low soft song was sung. She had not slept all the previous night, but she fell asleep, holding the hand of Cicely, who was on a cushion by her side. The girl, having been likewise much disturbed, slept too, and only gradually awoke as her mother was sitting up on her couch discussing the next day's defence with Melville and Bourgoin.

"I fear me, madam, there is no holding to the profession of entire ignorance," said Melville.

"They have no letters from Babington to me to show," said the Queen. "I took care of that by the help of this good bairn. I can defy them to produce the originals out of all my ransacked cabinets."

"They have the copies both of them and of your Majesty's replies, and Nan and Curll to verify them."

"What are copies worth, or what are dead and tortured men's confessions worth?" said Mary.

"Were your Majesty a private person they would never be accepted as evidence," said Melville; "but—"

"But because I am a Queen and a Catholic there is no justice for me," said Mary. "Well, what is the defence you would have me confine myself to, my sole privy counsellors?"

Here Cis, to show she was awake, pressed her mother's hand and looked up in her face, but Mary, though returning the glance and the pressure, did not send her away, while Melville recommended strongly that the Queen should continue to insist on the imperfection of the evidence adduced against her, which he said might so touch some of the lawyers, or the nobles, that Burghley and Walsingham might be afraid to proceed. If this failed her, she must allow her knowledge of the plot for her own escape and the Spanish invasion, but strenuously deny the part which concerned Elizabeth's life.

"That it is which they above all desire to fix on me," said the Queen.

Cicely's brain was in confusion. Surely she had heard those letters read in the hall. Were they false or genuine? The Queen had utterly denied them there. Now she seemed to think the only point was to prove that these were not the originals. Dr. Bourgoin seemed to feel the same difficulty.

"Madame will pardon me," he said; "I have not been of her secret councils, but can she not, if rightly dealt with, prove those two letters that were read to have been forged by her enemies?"

"What I could do is this, my good Bourgoin," said Mary; "were I only confronted with Nau and Curll, I could prove that the letter I received from Babington bore nothing about the destroying the usurping competitor. The poor faithful lad was a fool, but not so great a fool as to tell me such things. And, on the other hand, hath either of you, my friends, ever seen in me such symptoms of midsummer madness as that I should be asking the names of the six who were to do the deed? What cared I for their names? I—who only wished to know as little of the matter as possible!"

"Can your Majesty prove that you knew nothing?" asked Melville.

Mary paused. "They cannot prove by fair means that I knew anything," said she, "for I did not. Of course I was aware that Elizabeth must be taken out of the way, or the heretics would be rallying round her; but there is no lack of folk who delight in work of that sort, and why should I meddle with the knowledge? With the Prince of Parma in London, she, if she hath the high courage she boasteth of, would soon cause the Spanish pikes to use small ceremony with her! Why should I concern myself about poor Antony and his five gentlemen? But it is the same as it was twenty years ago. What I know will have to be, and yet choose not to hear of, is made the head and front of mine offending, that the real actors may go free! And because I have writ naught that they can bring against me, they take my letters and add to and garble them, till none knows where to have them. Would that we were in France! There it was a good sword-cut or pistol-shot at once, and one took one's chance of a return, without all this hypocrisy of law and justice to weary one out and make men double traitors."

"Methought Walsingham winced when your Majesty went to the point with him," said Bourgoin.