XLII. prevail on informing her that her plea, either from her royal dig- CHAP. nity, or from her imprisonment, could not be admitted; and that they were empowered to proceed to her trial, 1586. even though she should refuse to answer before them. her to Burleigh the treasurer, and Bromley the chancellor, submit to employed much reasoning to make her submit; but the person whose arguments had the chief influence was Sir Christopher Hatton, vice-chamberlain. His speech was to this purpose: "You are accused, madam, said he, "but not condemned, of having conspired the destruction of our lady and queen anointed. You say you are a queen; but in such a crime as this, and such a situation as yours, the royal dignity itself, neither by the civil or canon law, nor by the law of nature or of nations, is exempt from judgment. If you be innocent, you wrong your reputation in avoiding a trial. We have been present at your protestations of innocence; but Queen Elizabeth thinks otherwise, and is heartily sorry for the appearances which lie against you. To examine, therefore, your cause, she has appointed commissioners; honourable persons, prudent and upright men, who are ready to hear you with equity, and even with favour, and will rejoice if you can clear yourself of the imputations which have been thrown upon you. Believe me, madam, the queen herself will rejoice, who affirmed to me, at my departure, that nothing which ever befel her had given her so much uneasiness, as that you should be suspected of a concurrence in these criminal enterprises. Laying aside, therefore, the fruitless claim of privilege from your royal dignity, which can now avail you nothing, trust to the better defence of your innocence, make it appear in open trial, and leave not upon your memory that stain of infamy which must attend your obstinate silence on this occasion'." By this artful speech Mary was persuaded to answer before the court; and thereby gave an appearance of legal procedure to the trial, and prevented those difficulties which the commissioners must have fallen into, had she persevered in maintaining so specious a plea as that of her sovereign and independent character. Her conduct, in this particular, must be regarded as the more i Camden, p. 523. XLII. 1586. CHAP imprudent, because formerly, when Elizabeth's commissioners pretended not to exercise any jurisdiction over her, and only entered into her cause by her own consent and approbation, she declined justifying herself, when her honour, which ought to have been dearer to her than life, seemed absolutely to require it. The trial. On her first appearance before the commissioners, Mary, either sensible of her imprudence, or still unwilling to degrade herself by submitting to a trial, renewed her protestation against the authority of her judges: the chancellor answered her by pleading the supreme authority of the English laws over every one who resided in England; and the commissioners accommodated matters by ordering both her protestation and his answer to be recorded. The lawyers of the crown then opened the charge against the Queen of Scots. They proved, by intercepted letters, that she had allowed Cardinal Allen and others to treat her as the Queen of England; and that she had kept a correspondence with Lord Paget and Charles Paget, in view of engaging the Spaniards to invade the kingdom. Mary seemed not anxious to clear herself from either of these imputations. She only said, that she could not hinder others from using what style they pleased in writing to her; and that she might lawfully try every expedient for the recovery of her liberty. An intercepted letter of hers to Mendoza was next produced, in which she promised to transfer to Philip her right to the kingdom of England, if her son should refuse to be converted to the catholic faith; an event, she there said, of which there was no expectation, while he remained in the hands of his Scottish subjects*. Even this part of the charge she took no pains to deny, or rather she seemed to acknowledge it. She said that she had no kingdoms to dispose of; yet it was lawful for her to give at her pleasure what was her own, and she was not accountable to any for her actions. She added, that she had formerly rejected that proposal from Spain; but now, since all her hopes in England were gone, she was fully determined not to refuse foreign assistance. There was also produced evidence to prove, that Allen and k State Trials, vol. i. p. 138. Parsons were at that very time negotiating by her orders, at Rome, the conditions of transferring her English crown to the King of Spain, and of disinheriting her heretical son'. It is remarkable, that Mary's prejudices against her son were at this time carried so far that she had even entered into a conspiracy against him, had appointed Lord Claud Hamilton Regent of Scotland, and had instigated her adherents to seize James's person, and deliver him into the hands of the pope or the King of Spain; whence he was never to be delivered, but on condition of his becoming catholic". The only part of the charge which Mary positively denied was her concurrence in the design of assassinating Elizabeth. This article, indeed, was the most heavy, and the only one that could fully justify the queen in proceeding to extremities against her. In order to prove the accusation, there were produced the following evidence: copies taken in secretary Walsingham's office of the intercepted letters between her and Babington; in which her approbation of the murder was clearly expressed; the evidence of her two secretaries, Nau and Curle, who had confessed, without being put to any torture, both that she received these letters from Babington, and that they had written the answers by her order; the confession of Babington, that he had written the letters and received the answers"; and the confession of Ballard and Savage, that Babington had showed them these letters of Mary, written in the cipher which had been settled between them. It is evident that this complication of evidence, though every circumstance corroborates the general conclusion, resolves itself finally into the testimony of the two secretaries, who alone were certainly acquainted with their mistress's concurrence in Babington's conspiracy, but who knew themselves exposed to all the rigours of imprisonment, torture, and death, if they refused to give any evidence which might be required of them. In the case of an ordinary criminal, this proof, with all its disadvantages, would be esteemed legal, and even satisfac 1 See note [E], at the end of the volume. m See note [F], at the end of the volume. n State Trials, vol. i. p. 113. CHAP. XLII. 1586. XLII. 1586. CHAP. tory, if not opposed by some other circumstances which shake the credit of the witnesses; but on the present trial, where the absolute power of the prosecutor concurred with such important interests, and such a violent inclination to have the princess condemned, the testimony of two witnesses, even though men of character, ought to be supported by strong probabilities, in order to remove all suspicion of tyranny and injustice. The proof against Mary, it must be confessed, is not destitute of this advantage; and it is difficult, if not impossible, to account for Babington's receiving an answer written in her name, and in the cipher concerted between them, without allowing that the matter had been communicated to that princess. Such is the light in which this matter appears, even after time has discovered every thing which could guide our judgment with regard to it: no wonder, therefore, that the Queen of Scots, unassisted by counsel, and confounded by so extraordinary a trial, found herself incapable of making a satisfactory defence before the commissioners. Her reply consisted chiefly in her own denial: whatever force may be in that denial was much weakened by her positively affirming, that she never had had any correspondence of any kind with Babington; a fact, however, of which there remains not the least question. She asserted, that as Nau and Curle had taken an oath of secrecy and fidelity to her, their evidence against her ought not to be credited. She confessed, however, that Nau had been in the service of her uncle, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and had been recommended to her by the King of France as a man in whom she might safely confide. She also acknowledged Curle to be a very honest man, but simple, and easily imposed on by Nau. If these two men had received any letters, or had written any answers without her knowledge, the imputation, she said, could never lie on her. And she was the more inclined, she added, to entertain this suspicion against them, because Nau had, in other instances, been guilty of a like temerity, and had ventured to transact business in her name without communicating the matter to her. • See note [G], at the end of the volume. P See note [H], at the end of the volume. The sole circumstance of her defence, which to us may appear to have some force, was her requiring that Nau and Curle should be confronted with her, and her affirming, that they never would to her face persist in their evidence. But that demand, however equitable, was not then supported by law in trials of high-treason, and was often refused even in other trials where the crown was prosecutor. The clause contained in an act of the 13th of the queen was a novelty; that the species of treason there enumerated must be proved by two witnesses, confronted with the criminal. But Mary was not tried upon that act; and the ministers and crown lawyers of this reign were always sure to refuse every indulgence beyond what the strict letter of the law, and the settled practice of the courts of justice, required of them not to mention, that these secretaries were not probably at Fotheringay castle during the time of the trial, and could not, upon Mary's demand, be produced before the commissioners. There passed two incidents in this trial which may be worth observing. A letter between Mary and Babington was read, in which mention was made of the Earl of Arundel and his brothers: on hearing their names, she broke into a sigh: "Alas!" said she, "what has the noble house of the Howards suffered for my sake!" She affirmed, with regard to the same letter, that it was easy to forge the handwriting and cipher of another: she was afraid that this was too familiar a practice with Walsingham, who, she also heard, had frequently practised both against her life and her son's. Walsingham, who was one of the commissioners, rose up. He protested, that in his private capacity he had never acted any thing against the Queen of Scots :i n his public capacity, he owned, that his concern for his sovereign's safety had made him very diligent in searching out, by every expedient, all designs against her sacred person or her authority. For attaining that end, he would not only make use of the assistance of Ballard or any other con q Queen Elizabeth was willing to have allowed Curle and Nau to be produced in the trial, and writes to that purpose to Burleigh and Walsingham, in her letter of the 7th of October, in Forbes's MS. collections. She only says, that she thinks it needless, though she was willing to agree to it. The not confronting of the witnesses was not the result of design, but the practice of the age. CHAP. XLII. 1586. |