196 PROCEEDINGS ON THE TRIAL. 66 [1590. person he had done nothing unbeseeming an honest man, nor as he bore the place of a public person had he done anything unworthy his place. Burleigh took part in the charges against the undaunted queen; who thus fought a battle single-handed against the most adroit statesmen of that age. It was not a trial, but a most unequal debate; and it is painful to see how Burleigh, in many points so worthy of respect, could describe the keen encounter between himself and an inexperienced woman. This queen of the castle was content to appear before us again in public, to be heard, but, in truth, not to be heard for her defence, for she could say nothing but negatively, that the points of the letters that concerned the practice against the queen-majesty's person were never by her written, nor of her knowledge. The rest, for invasion, for escaping by force, she said, she would neither deny nor affirm. But her intention was, by long artificial speeches, to move pity, to lay all blame upon the queen's majesty, or rather upon the Council, that all the troubles past did ensue, avowing her reasonable offers and our refusals; and in this her speeches I did so encounter her with reasons out of my knowledge and experience, as she had not that advantage she looked for; as I am assured the auditory did find her case not pitiable, her allegations untrue; by which means great debate fell yesternight very long, and this day renewed with great stomaching." This letter of Burleigh refers to the proceedings of the second day. Mary then acknowledged that notes had been written to Babington by her secretaries; but said that they wholly referred to plans for her escape. She did not deny that she sought this deliverance, even through an invasion of the realm. Letters were produced, of which the genuineness is now scarcely disputed, in which she minutely expounded plans for the king of Spain "to set on the queen of England;" which invasion she would aid by inducing the Catholic lords of Scotland to join the enterprise; and, seizing the young king James, deliver him into the hands of the king of Spain, or of the pope, to make him to be instructed and reduced to the Catholic religion. Another letter was read, in which Mary expressed her intention of bequeathing to the Spanish king her right of succession to the English throne. The plots for invasion and the overthrow of Elizabeth's government were almost necessarily connected with the assassination of the queen. Whether Mary was cognisant of one part of these plots, and wholly ignorant of the other, may be reasonably questioned. At the close of the proceedings at Fotheringay, on the second day, the court was adjourned to the 25th, at Westminster. Naou and Curle, Mary's two secretaries, were then examined, in the absence of their mistress. Camden says that they voluntarily confirmed all and every the letters and copies of letters, before produced, to be most true. But this historian adds, "I have seen Naou's apology to king James, written in the year 1605, wherein, laboriously protesting, he excuseth himself, that he was neither author, nor persuader, nor the first revealer of the plot that was undertaken, nor failed of his duty through negligence or want of foresight; yea, that this day [the 25th of October] he stoutly impugned the chief points of accusation against his *Letter to Davison, October 15, Ellis, First Series, vol. iii. p. 12. "These, if they were genuine, and of that there can be little doubt, showed that she had not only approved of the invasion devised at Paris, but had offered to aid its execution."-Lingard. 1586.] JUDGMENT AGAINST MARY. 197 lady and mistress; which, notwithstanding, appeareth not by records." The commission unanimously delivered as their sentence "that the Babington conspiracy was with the privity of Mary, pretending title to the crown of England; and that she hath compassed and imagined within this realm, divers matters tending to the hurt, death, and destruction of our sovereign lady the queen." The commissioners added that this sentence did not derogate from James, king of Scots, in title or honour, but that he was in the same place, degree, and right, as if the sentence had never been pronounced. Between the trial of Mary and the execution of the sentence there was an interval of four months. They were four months of intense anxiety, not only to the unhappy queen of Scots, but to Elizabeth, to her ministers, to the parliament, to the people. There are many doubtful points in the recorded transactions of this period, and historians have too often cut the knot instead of attempting to unloose it. Starting upon the hypothesis that, if Mary were not wholly innocent, the judgment against her was illegal, she is usually represented as the victim of remorseless statesmen, of a fanatical parliament, of a ferocious people, and of a cruel and dissembling rival queen. In the natural sympathy of mankind for a woman who had so long been acquainted with misery, the fact seems to have been overlooked that she was thrust from her legitimate throne by her own subjects, under charges of the most atrocious nature, and with the conviction that she would never cease to plot with foreign powers for the overthrow of the reformed religion. It is equally clear that her detention in this country was upon the ground that she was a public enemy; that she had never given up her claim to the actual possession of the crown; that her efforts to induce the Catholic powers to support her claims were unceasing; and that for years she was the centre around which all the intrigues for destroying the heretical governments of England and Scotland revolved. During her life, however strictly Mary was watched, the government of the Protestant Elizabeth was in perpetual danger. It was no popular delusion which ascribed to the bigoted popes who held the queen of England accursed, the doctrine that "blessed shall he be that doth revolt From his allegiance to a heretic;" that the hand which took away Elizabeth's "hateful life" should be deemed "meritorious." When Mary was pronounced guilty of privity to the Babington conspiracy, the most extensive preparations for the overthrow of Elizabeth were rapidly maturing. Invasion from without, treason from within, were to work together to place upon the throne one who would call in foreign aid to destroy the religion which had been generally adopted by a whole generation of English, and which no differences of opinion were otherwise likely essentially to disturb. Assuming Mary to have been privy to the various plots that had ripened during the last two years of her detention, and one of the soberest of historians says, "in Murden's State Papers we have abundant evidence of Mary's acquaintance with the plots going forward in 1585 and 1586 against Elizabeth's government, if not with those for her assassination" -the question arises whether the deposed queen of Scots was * Hallam, Note to chap. iii. 198 CONFLICTING OPINIONS ON THIS JUDGMENT. [1586. amenable to any English tribunal? Camden says, that amongst contemporaries, "divers speeches were raised about the matter according to the divers dispositions of men." Some held that "she was a free and absolute princess, under the superior command of God alone,—that she could not commit treason because she was no subject." Others maintained that she was "only a titular queen, because she had resigned her kingdom, and when she first came into England had subjected herself under the protection of the queen of England." These abstract differences were no doubt settled, for the most part, by the doctrine, with which Camden concludes his statement of the opinions of those who defended the sentence against Mary,—“ that the safety of the people is the highest law." Whatever violent historical partisans may maintain, we concur in the opinion of Mr. Hallam, that those who held Mary to be only a titular queen were in the right. "Though we must admit that Mary's resignation of her crown was compulsory, and retracted on the first occasion; yet, after a twenty years' loss of possession, when not one of her former subjects avowed allegiance to her, when the king of Scotland had been so long acknowledged by England, and by all Europe, is it possible to consider her as more than a titular queen, divested of every substantial right to which a sovereign tribunal could have regard ?"* If we accept of the doctrine that "the safety of the people is the highest law," we must further agree that the sentence against Mary, "if not capable of complete vindication, has at least encountered a disproportioned censure." + But there must be censure, more or less. The contending feelings excited by the fate of Mary have been as correctly analysed by the great contemporary poet as by any historian. There can be no doubt that Spenser's "False Duessa "was the type of Mary, the "untitled queen." Following out the poet's brief enumeration of the crimes of Duessa, Authority opposed her; the Law of Nations rose against her; Religion imputed God's behest to condemn her; the People's cry and Commons' suit importuned for care of the Public Cause: Justice charged her with breach of law : "But then, for her, on the contrary part, And then came Danger, threatening hidden dread And high alliance unto foreign power; Then came Nobility of Birth, that bred Great ruth through her misfortune's tragic stour, And lastly Grief did plead, and many tears forth pour." + The Pity, the Regard of Womanhead, the ruth for fallen Nobility of Birth, the Grief that speaks in tears, will always prevail over political considerations when we peruse the sad story of Mary Stuart. But it is not to read the past aright if we wholly shut our eyes to Justice and the Public Cause. It would be worse than mere tenderness to impute to Elizabeth and her advisers, to the parliament and to the people, a blind hostility to a suffering and harmless captive. Mary was for years the terror of England. Her destruction was "the Great Cause" to which the highest and the humblest in the land looked as a relief. If her death were a crime it was a national crime. To regard it at the present day as an outrage upon Scotland, and to talk of it, as some do, "Constitutional History," chap. iii. +Ibid. Faery Queen," book v. canto ix. * + 1586.] PARLIAMENT-PROCLAMATION OF THE JUDGMENT. 199 in this spirit, appears to us one of those hallucinations of a distempered patriotism, with which men vainly endeavour to call up the shadows of longburied rivalries and forgotten discontents. The parliament was opened by Commission, an unusual course, on the 29th of October. The chief business was to bring before the houses the proceedings against the queen of Scots; and the principal discussions were upon what was commonly termed "the Great Cause." The members of the Council appear to have been firmly persuaded of the duty of urging Elizabeth to the most extreme course. Davison, one of her secretaries, writes to Leicester on the 4th of November, "Your lordship's presence here were more than needful for the great cause now in hand, which is feared will receive a colder proceeding than may stand with the surety of her majesty, and necessity of our shaken estates." * On the 10th of November, a committee of both houses declared the sentence against Mary to be just; and the houses agreed in a petition to Elizabeth, that proclamation of the judg ment might be made, and that further proceedings might be taken against the Scottish queen; "because, upon advised and great consultation, we › cannot find that there is any possible means to provide for your majesty's Isafety, but by the just and speedy execution of the said queen." The answer of Elizabeth is generally considered hypocritical: "If my life alone depended hereupon, and not the safety and welfare of all my people, I would, I protest unfeignedly, willingly and readily pardon her. Nay, if England might by my death obtain a more flourishing condition and a better prince, I would most gladly lay down my life. For, for your sakes it is, and for my people's, that I desire to live." This is egotism; but egotism which has not only the "princely dignity," but the "motherly tenderness," with which Elizabeth always spoke of her people. On this occasion, she requested time to consider. The houses again resolved that safety can in any wise be had as long as the queen of Scots doth live. Again Elizabeth hesitated: "If I should say unto you," she replied, "that I mean not to grant your petition, by my faith I should say unto you more than perhaps I mean. And if I should say unto you I mean to grant your petition, I should then tell you more than is fit for you to know. And thus I must deliver you an answer answerless." But the government acceded to one part of the petition of parliament to the queen. At the beginning of December the judgment of the Commissioners against Mary was solemnly proclaimed in London and other places. Our historians record the joy of the citizens of the capital; the ringing of bells and the bonfires. They pass over the statutory effect of this proclamation: "After such sentence or judgment given, and declaration thereof made and published, by her majesty's proclamation, under the great seal of England, all persons against whom such sentence or judgment shall be so given and published, shall be excluded and disabled for ever to have or claim, or to pretend to have or claim, the crown of this realm." The dread of the great body of Protestants had been that, in the event of Elizabeth's death, a Romanist successor would come, in the person of Mary, the next heir. The proclamation under the statute put an end to that chance; and hence the joy. For two months +27 Eliz. "Leycester Correspondence," p. 453. "Parliamentary History." no 200 CONDUCT OF ELIZABETH-DAVISON. [1587. a more fatal termination of the "great cause "had been suspended. When Elizabeth was threatened by the French ambassador, she wrote a letter of defiance to his master, Henry III. When James sent commissioners to England upon a mission of intercession, she delayed and protested her desire to save Mary, although in a letter to James she called her "the serpent that poisons me." As these efforts became more strenuous Elizabeth became more determined; and wrote to James, "though like a most natural good son you charged them [the ambassadors] to seek all means they could devise with wit or judgment to save her life, yet I cannot, nor do not, allege any fault to you of their persuasions; for I take it that you will remember that advice or desires ought ever agree with the surety of the party sent to and honor of the sender." ""* Camden has described the state of Elizabeth's mind at this period. "She gave herself over to solitariness, sat many times melancholy and mute; and often sighing muttered to herself, aut fer, aut feri,—that is, either bear strokes or strike; and, out of I know not what emblem, ne feriare, feri, that is, strike, lest thou be stricken." At last the struggle, or the simulated struggle, seemed over. On the 1st of February, the queen sent for Davison, one of the secretaries, at ten in the morning. After various talk, she asked if he had brought the warrant for the execution of the Scottish queen. He had been desired by the lord admiral Howard to bring it, and he delivered it to Elizabeth. That warrant had been in his hands five or six weeks; but now, as he was told, the queen had resolved to sign it, in consequence of rumours of invasions and rebellions spread abroad. The queen signed the warrant, and ordered Davison to carry it to the great seal, and then dispatch it with all expedition. She told him to show the warrant to Mr. secretary Walsingham, who was sick; saying, merrily, that she thought the sight thereof would kill him outright. This might be cruel indifference, or forced levity to hide a conflict within. He showed the warrant to Burleigh and Leicester, and then went to the chancellor, and afterwards to Walsingham. The next morning the queen sent him a message, that if he had not been already to the chancellor he should forbear till he knew her further pleasure. He went therefore to the queen, and told her that the warrant was sealed; and she said, "what needeth that haste ?" She objected that this course threw the whole burthen upon herself. Davison, fearing to take the responsibility of dispatching the warrant, went to Burleigh, who assembled a Council, and gave his advice that they should join in sending the warrant to the commissioners " without troubling her majesty any further in that behalf, she having done all that in law or reason could be required of her." Burleigh undertook to prepare letters to accompany the warrant; and the next day, the 3rd, the warrant and despatches were delivered by Burleigh to Mr. Beale, who was thought the fittest messenger. Two or three days after, the queen spoke to Davison about another course "that had been propounded to her underhand by one of great place," against which Davison gave reasons," wherewith she seemed to rest satisfied without any show of following the new course, or altering her former resolution in any point." At this interview Elizabeth complained that the warrant was not already executed. Such is the straightforward account contained in a Manuscript which is amongst the papers in "Letters of Elizabeth and James VI.," p. 441. |