Unknown to History: A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland by Yonge (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📖

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.

"And you put up with his explanation?" said Melville.

"Truly I longed to demand of what practices Mr. Secretary in his office,—not as a private person—would be ashamed; but it seemed to me that they might call it womanish spite, and to that the Queen of Scots will never descend!"

"Pity but that we had Babington's letter! Then might we put him to confusion by proving the additions," said Melville.

"It is not possible, my good friend. The letter is at the bottom of the Castle well; is it not, mignonne? Mourn for it not, Andrew. It would have been of little avail, and it carried with it stuff that Mr. Secretary would give almost his precious place to possess, and that might be fatal to more of us. I hoped that there might have been safety for poor Babington in the destruction of that packet, never guessing at the villainy of yon Burton brewer, nor of those who set him on. Come, it serves not to fret ourselves any more. I must answer as occasion serves me; speaking not so much to Elizabeth's Commission, who have foredoomed me, as to all Christendom, and to the Scots and English of all ages, who will be my judges."

Her judges? Ay! but how? With the same enthusiastic pity and indignation, mixed with the same misgiving as her own daughter felt. Not wholly innocent, not wholly guilty, yet far less guilty than those who had laid their own crimes on her in Scotland, or who plotted to involve her in meshes partly woven by herself in England. The evil done to her was frightful, but it would have been powerless had she been wholly blameless. Alas! is it not so with all of us?

The second day's trial came on. Mary Seaton was so overpowered with the strain she had gone through that the Queen would not take her into the hall, but let Cicely sit at her feet instead. On this day none of the Crown lawyers took part in the proceedings; for, as Cavendish whispered to Humfrey, there had been high words between them and my Lord Treasurer and Mr. Secretary; and they had declared themselves incapable of conducting a prosecution so inconsistent with the forms of law to which they were accustomed. The pedantic fellows wanted more direct evidence, he said, and Humfrey honoured them.

Lord Burghley then conducted the proceedings, and they had thus a more personal character. The Queen, however, acted on Melville's advice, and no longer denied all knowledge of the conspiracy, but insisted that she was ignorant of the proposed murder of Elizabeth, and argued most pertinently that a copy of a deciphered cipher, without the original, was no proof at all, desiring further that Nau and Curll should be examined in her presence. She reminded the Commissioners how their Queen herself had been called in question for Wyatt's rebellion, in spite of her innocence. "Heaven is my witness," she added, "that much as I desire the safety and glory of the Catholic religion, I would not purchase it at the price of blood. I would rather play Esther than Judith."

Her defence was completed by her taking off the ring which Elizabeth had sent to her at Lochleven. "This," she said, holding it up, "your Queen sent to me in token of amity and protection. You best know how that pledge has been redeemed." Therewith she claimed another day's hearing, with an advocate granted to her, or else that, being a Princess, she might be believed on the word of a Princess.

This completed her defence, except so far that when Burghley responded in a speech of great length, she interrupted, and battled point by point, always keeping in view the strong point of the insufficient evidence and her own deprivation of the chances of confuting what was adduced against her.

It was late in the afternoon when he concluded. There was a pause, as though for a verdict by the Commissioners. Instead of this, Mary rose and repeated her appeal to be tried before the Parliament of England at Westminster. No reply was made, and the Court broke up.

CHAPTER XXXVI. A VENTURE.

"Mother, dear mother, do but listen to me."

"I must listen, child, when thou callest me so from your heart; but it is of no use, my poor little one. They have referred the matter to the Star Chamber, that they may settle it there with closed doors and no forms of law. Thou couldst do nothing! And could I trust thee to go wandering to London, like a maiden in a ballad, all alone?"

"Nay, madam, I should not go alone. My father, I mean Mr. Talbot, would take me."

"Come, bairnie, that is presuming overmuch on the good man's kindness."

"I do not speak without warrant, madam. I told him what I longed to do, and he said it might be my duty, and if it were so, he would not gainsay me; but that he could not let me go alone, and would go with me. And he can get access for me to the Queen. He has seen her himself, and so has Humfrey; and Diccon is a gentleman pensioner."

"There have been ventures enough for me already," said Mary. "I will bring no more faithful heads into peril."

"Then will you not consent, mother? He will quit the castle to-morrow, and I am to see him in the morning and give him an answer. If you would let me go, he would crave license to take me home, saying that I look paler than my wont."

"And so thou dost, child. If I could be sure of ever seeing thee again, I should have proposed thy going home to good Mistress Susan's tendance for a little space. But it is not to be thought of. I could not risk thee, or any honest loving heart, on so desperate a stake as mine! I love thee, mine ain, true, leal lassie, all the more, and I honour him; but it may not be! Ask me no more."

Mary was here interrupted by a request from Sir Christopher Hatton for one of the many harassing interviews that beset her during the days following the trial, when judgment was withheld, according to the express command of the vacillating Elizabeth, and the case remitted to the Star Chamber. Lord Burghley considered this hesitation to be the effect of judicial blindness—so