Launching a son in this manner and equipping him for service was an anxious task for a father, while day after day the trial was deferred, the examinations being secretly carried on before the Council till, as Cavendish explained, what was important should be disclosed.

Of course this implied what should be fatal to Queen Mary. The priest Ballard was racked, but he was a man of great determination, and nothing was elicited from him. The other prisoners, and Nau and Curll, were questioned again and again under threats and promises before the Council, and the letters that had been copied on their transit through the beer barrels were read and made the subject of cross-examination-still all in private, for, as Cavendish said, "perilous stuff to the Queen's Majesty might come out."

He allowed, however, day after day, that though there was quite enough to be fatal to Ballard, Babington, Savage, and Barnwell, whatever else was wanting was not forthcoming. At last, however, Cavendish returned full of a certain exultation: "We have it," he said,-"a most undoubted treasonable letter, which will catch her between the shoulders and the head."

He spoke to Lord Talbot and Richard, who were standing together in a window, and who knew only too well who was referred to, and what the expression signified. On a further query from his step-brother, Cavendish explained that it was a long letter, dated July 16, arranging in detail the plan for "the Lady's" own rescue from Chartley at the moment of the landing of the Spaniards, and likewise showing her privy to the design of the six gentlemen against the life of the Queen, and desiring to know their names. Nau had, he said, verified the cipher as one used in the correspondence, and Babington, when it was shown to him, had declared that it had been given to him in the street by a stranger serving-man in a blue coat, and that it had removed all doubt from his mind, as it was an answer to a letter of his, a copy of which had been produced, but not the letter itself.

"Which we have not found," said Cavendish.

"Not for all that search of yours at Chartley?" said Richard. "Methought it was thorough enough!"

"The Lady must have been marvellously prudent as to the keeping of letters," said Will, "or else she must have received some warning; for there is absolutely naught to be found in her repositories that will serve our purpose."

"Our purpose!" repeated Richard, as he recollected many little kindnesses that William Cavendish when a boy had received from the prisoner at Sheffield.

"Yea, Master Richard," he returned, unabashed. "It is absolutely needful that we should openly prove this woman to be what we know her to be in secret. Her Majesty's life will never be safe for a moment while she lives; and what would become of us all did she overlive the Queen!"

"Well, Will, for all your mighty word we, you are but the pen in Mr. Secretary's hand, so there is no need to argue the matter with you," said Richard.

The speech considerably nettled Master William, especially as it made Lord Talbot laugh.

"Father!" said Diccon afterwards, "Humfrey tried to warn Mr. Babington that we had seen this Langston, who hath as many metamorphoses as there be in Ovidius Naso, coming privily forth from Sir Francis Walsingham's closet, but he would not listen, and declared that Langston was holding Mr. Secretary in play."

"Deceiving and being deceived," sighed his father. "That is ever the way, my son! Remember that if thou playest false, other men will play falser with thee and bring thee to thy ruin. I would not leave thee here save that the gentlemen pensioners are a more honest and manly sort of folk than yonder gentlemen with their state craft, wherein they throw over all truth and honour as well as mercy."

This conversation took place as the father and son were making their way to a house in Westminster, where Antony Babington's wife was with her mother, Lady Ratcliffe. It had been a match made by Lady Shrewsbury, and it was part of Richard's commission to see and confer with the family. It was not a satisfactory interview. The wife was a dull childish little thing, not yet sixteen; and though she cried, she had plainly never lived in any real sympathy or companionship with her husband, who had left her with her parents, while leading the life of mingled amus.e.m.e.nt and intrigue which had brought him to his present state; and the mother, a hard-featured woman, evidently thought herself cheated and ill used. She railed at Babington and at my Lady Countess by turns; at the one for his ruinous courses and neglect of her daughter, at the other for having cozened her into giving her poor child to a treacherous Papist, who would be attainted in blood, and thus bring her poor daughter and grandchild to poverty. The old lady really seemed to have lost all pity for her son-in-law in indignation on her daughter's account, and to care infinitely less for the saving of his life than for the saving of his estate. Nor did the young wife herself appear to possess much real affection for poor Antony, of whom she had seen very little. There must have been great faults on his side; yet certainly Richard felt that there was some excuse for him in the mother-in-law, and that if the unfortunate young man could have married Cicely his lot might have been different. Yet the good Captain felt all the more that if Cis had been his own he still would never have given her to Babington.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

WESTMINSTER HALL.

Beneath the n.o.ble roof of Westminster Hall, with the morning sun streaming in high aloft, at seven in the morning of the 14th of September, the Court met for the trial of Antony Babington and his confederates. The Talbot name and recommendation obtained ready admission, and Lord Talbot, Richard, and his son formed one small party together with William Cavendish, who had his tablets, on which to take notes for the use of his superior, Walsingham, who was, however, one of the Commissioners.

There they sat, those supreme judges, the three Chief-Justices in their scarlet robes of office forming the centre of the group, which also numbered Lords Cobham and Buckhurst, Sir Francis Knollys, Sir Christopher Hatton, and most of the chief law officers of the Crown.

"Is Mr. Secretary Walsingham one of the judges here?" asked Diccon. "Methought he had been in the place of the accuser."

"Peace, boy, and listen," said his father; "these things pa.s.s my comprehension."

Nevertheless Richard had determined that if the course of the trial should offer the least opportunity, he would come forward and plead his former knowledge of young Babington as a rash and weak-headed youth, easily played upon by designing persons, but likely to take to heart such a lesson as this, and become a true and loyal subject. If he could obtain any sort of mitigation for the poor youth, it would be worth the risk.

The seven conspirators were brought in, and Richard could hardly keep a rush of tears from his eyes at the sight of those fine, high-spirited young men, especially Antony Babington, the playfellow of his own children.

Antony was carefully dressed in his favourite colour, dark green, his hair and beard trimmed, and his demeanour calm and resigned. The fire was gone from his blue eye, and his bright complexion had faded, but there was an air of dignity about him such as he had never worn before. His eyes, as he took his place, wandered round the vast a.s.sembly, and rested at length on Mr. Talbot, as though deriving encouragement and support from the look that met his. Next to him was another young man with the same look of birth and breeding, namely Chidiock Tichborne; but John Savage, an older man, had the reckless bearing of the brutalised soldiery of the Netherlandish wars. Robert Barnwell, with his red, s.h.a.ggy brows and Irish physiognomy, was at once recognised by Diccon. Donne and Salisbury followed; and the seventh conspirator, John Ballard, was carried in a chair. Even Diccon's quick eye could hardly have detected the ruffling, swaggering, richly-clad Captain Fortescue in this tonsured man in priestly garb, deadly pale, and unable to stand, from the effects of torture, yet with undaunted, penetrating eyes, all unsubdued.

After the proclamation, Oyez, Oyez, and the command to keep silence, Sandys, the Clerk of the Crown, began the proceedings. "John Ballard, Antony Babington, John Savage, Robert Barnwell, Chidiock Tichborne, Henry Donne, Thomas Salisbury, hold up your hands and answer." The indictment was then read at great length, charging them with conspiring to slay the Queen, to deliver Mary, Queen of Scots, from custody, to stir up rebellion, to bring the Spaniards to invade England, and to change the religion of the country. The question was first put to Ballard, Was he guilty of these treasons or not guilty?

Ballard's reply was, "That I procured the delivery of the Queen of Scots, I am guilty; and that I went about to alter the religion, I am guilty; but that I intended to slay her Majesty, I am not guilty."

"Not with his own hand," muttered Cavendish, "but for the rest-"

"Pity that what is so bravely spoken should be false," thought Richard, "yet it may be to leave the way open to defence."

Sandys, however, insisted that he must plead to the whole indictment, and Anderson, the Chief-Justice of Common Pleas, declared that he must deny the whole generally, or confess it generally; while Hatton put in, "Ballard, under thine own hand are all things confessed, therefore now it is much vanity to stand vaingloriously in denying it."

"Then, sir, I confess I am guilty," he said, with great calmness, though it was the resignation of all hope.

The same question was then put to Babington. He, with "a mild countenance, sober gesture," and all his natural grace, stood up and spoke, saying "that the time for concealment was past, and that he was ready to avow how from his earliest infancy he had believed England to have fallen from the true religion, and had trusted to see it restored thereto. Moreover, he had ever a deep love and compa.s.sion for the Queen of Scots. Some," he said, "who are yet at large, and who are yet as deep in the matter as I-"

"Gifford, Morgan, and another," whispered Cavendish significantly.

"Have they escaped?" asked Diccon.

"So 'tis said."

"The decoy ducks," thought Richard.

Babington was explaining that these men had proposed to him a great enterprise for the rescue and restoration of the Queen of Scots, and the re-establishment of the Catholic religion in England by the sword of the Prince of Parma. A body of gentlemen were to attack Chartley, free Mary, and proclaim her Queen, and at the same time Queen Elizabeth was to be put to death by some speedy and skilful method.

"My Lords," he said, "I swear that all that was in me cried out against the wickedness of thus privily slaying her Majesty."

Some muttered, "The villain! he lies," but the kindly Richard sighed inaudibly, "True, poor lad! Thou must have given thy conscience over to strange keepers to be thus led astray."

And Babington went on to say that they had brought this gentleman, Father Ballard, who had wrought with him to prove that his scruples were weak, carnal, and unG.o.dly, and that it would be a meritorious deed in the sight of Heaven thus to remove the heretic usurper.

Here the judges sternly bade him not to blaspheme, and he replied, with that "soberness and good grace" which seems to have struck all the beholders, that he craved patience and pardon, meaning only to explain how he had been led to the madness which he now repented, understanding himself to have been in grievous error, though not for the sake of any temporal reward; but being blinded to the guilt, and a.s.sured that the deed was both lawful and meritorious. He thus had been brought to destruction through the persuasions of this Ballard.

"A very fit author for so bad a fact," responded Hatton.

"Very true, sir," said Babington; "for from so bad a ground never proceed any better fruits. He it was who persuaded me to kill the Queen, and to commit the other treasons, whereof I confess myself guilty."

Savage pleaded guilty at once, with the reckless hardihood of a soldier accustomed to look on death as the fortune of war.

Barnwell denied any intention of killing the Queen (much to Diccon's surprise), but pleaded guilty to the rest. Donne said that on being told of the plot he had prayed that whatever was most to the honour and glory of Heaven might be done, and being pushed hard by Hatton, turned this into a confession of being guilty. Salisbury declared that he had always protested against killing the Queen, and that he would not have done so for a kingdom, but of the rest he was guilty. Tichborne showed that but for an accidental lameness he would have been at his home in Hampshire, but he could not deny his knowledge of the treason.

All having pleaded guilty, no trial was permitted, such as would have brought out the different degrees of guilt, which varied in all the seven.

A long speech was, however, made by the counsel for the Crown, detailing the plot as it had been arranged for the public knowledge, and reading aloud a letter from Babington to Queen Mary, describing his plans both for her rescue and the a.s.sa.s.sination, saying, "he had appointed six n.o.ble gentlemen for the despatch of the wicked compet.i.tor."

Richard caught a look of astonishment on the unhappy young man's face, but it pa.s.sed into hopeless despondency, and the speech went on to describe the picture of the conspirators and its strange motto, concluding with an accusation that they meant to sack London, burn the ships, and "cloy the ordnance."

A shudder of horror went through the a.s.sembly, and perhaps few except Richard Talbot felt that the examination of the prisoners ought to have been public. The form, however, was gone through of asking whether they had cause to render wherefore they should not be condemned to die.

The first to speak was Ballard. His eyes glanced round with an indomitable expression of scorn and indignation, which, as Diccon whispered, he could have felt to his very backbone. It was like that of a trapped and maimed lion, as the man sat in his chair with crushed and racked limbs, but with a spirit untamed in its defiance.

"Cause, my Lords?" he replied. "The cause I have to render will not avail here, but it may avail before another Judgment-seat, where the question will be, who used the weapons of treason, not merely against whom they were employed. Inquiry hath not been made here who suborned the priest, Dr. Gifford, to fetch me over from Paris, that we might together overcome the scruples of these young men, and lead them forward in a scheme for the promotion of the true religion and the right and lawful succession. No question hath here been put in open court, who framed the conspiracy, nor for what purpose. No, my Lords; it would baffle the end you would bring about, yea, and blot the reputation of some who stand in high places, if it came to light that the plot was devised, not by the Catholics who were to be the instruments thereof, nor by the Lady in whose favour all was to be done,-not by these, the mere victims, but by him who by a triumph of policy thus sent forth his tempters to enclose them all within his net-above all the persecuted Lady whom all true Catholics own as the only lawful sovereign within these realms. Such schemes, when they succeed, are termed policy. My Lords, I confess that by the justice of England we have been guilty of treason against Queen Elizabeth; but by the eternal law of the justice of G.o.d, we have suffered treachery far exceeding that for which we are about to die."