"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 pa.s.sed on to her appointed place, looking sadly round at the a.s.sembled 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 compet.i.tor.

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 a.s.sured 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.suring 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 n.o.bles, 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 compet.i.tor. 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 x.x.xVI.

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."