The Captive Queen of Scots - Plaidy Jean. Страница 116

“You have continually asserted your pretensions to the throne of England,” Burleigh accused her.

“I have never given up asserting my rights,” answered Mary cryptically, and Burleigh was somewhat nonplussed because there were many who doubted the legitimacy of Elizabeth, and it was impossible to know whether some of them were present.

She attacked Walsingham, calling him an enemy who had deliberately set out to entrap her. “I never thought to harm the Queen of England,” she cried. “I would a hundred times rather have lost my life than see so many Catholics suffer for my sake.”

“No true subject of the Queen was ever put to death on account of religion,” Walsingham retorted, “though some have died for treason and because they maintained the Bull of Excommunication against our Queen and accepted the authority of the Pope against her.”

“I have heard the contrary to be so,” Mary replied.

Walsingham was uneasy. “My soul is free from malice,” he told the court. “God as my witness I, as a private person, have done nothing unworthy of an honest man. I bear no ill will to any. I have attempted no one’s death, but I am a faithful servant to my mistress, and I confess to being ever vigilant in all that concerns the safety of my Queen and Country. Therefore I am watchful of all conspirators.”

“Why do you not bring my secretaries, Nau and Curle, to give evidence in my presence?” demanded Mary. “If you believed that they would continue to condemn me you would not hesitate to have them brought face-to-face with me.”

“This is unnecessary,” Burleigh told the court, and Walsingham nodded. They had had enough trouble with those loyal young men.

So the trial continued throughout that day and the next; and when the hour came for judgment, Burleigh told the court that it was the wish of their Sovereign Lady Elizabeth that no sentence should be given until she herself had considered the evidence.

The trial was over.

Mary was helped from the hall by the faithful Melville, and Elizabeth’s men set out for London.

ELIZABETH WAS UNEASY. All the evidence was laid before her, and still she hesitated.

She must be absolutely blameless. Passing along the river from Greenwich to Hampton Court she looked at her city and wondered how many Catholics were lurking in those narrow streets, how many would have lifted their voices against her if they dared.

Ever since Mary had, when Dauphine of France, allowed herself to be given the title Queen of England, she had been a menace to disturb the peace of Elizabeth. She must die. But only when she was proved, without any doubt whatsoever, to have deserved death.

Elizabeth listened to Burleigh, Walsingham and Leicester. They were all urging her to agree to the execution; but her feminine perception made her hesitate again and again. As shrewd men they knew what was good for her and the country; but as a woman she was greatly concerned with the gossip which was whispered on street corners, and she knew that in street-corner whispers revolution often set its seeds.

IN THE STAR CHAMBER at Westminster the Commissioners opened the case against Mary.

To this were brought Jacques Nau and Gilbert Curle.

Jacques had solved the problem which had tormented him for many days and nights. He had been tempted and had turned away from temptation. Not for freedom, not for Bessie and their life together would he bear false witness. In his deposition, they had twisted his words; they had questioned him until he was exhausted; and afterward he had been fearful of what he might have said against the Queen. But to remedy that he had written to Elizabeth, though he fully believed that the letter would have no effect on her or her ministers.

He had heard of the terrible deaths of Babington, Ballard and those others who had died with them. Sometimes he awoke sweating in the night dreaming that the executioner’s knife was poised above his quivering body. Torture and degrading death on one side . . . Bessie and all that he longed for on the other. Yet what joy could there be for him if he must always live with the knowledge that to gain it he had helped to send his mistress to her death?

He was standing before the Commissioners, and Walsingham was questioning him.

He would not say what they wished him to. Letters from Babington there had been, but the principal accusation against Mary—that she had conspired to assassinate Elizabeth—was false.

He threw back his head and cried: “You, my lords, will have to answer to Almighty God if you should, on false charges, condemn a sovereign Queen.”

The fury in the faces of the Commissioners did not dismay him.

“I ask,” he continued, “that my protestation be made public.”

Curle was smiling at him, for they stood together in this; and it occurred to them both that the evidence they had to give was the most important in the trial.

The Commissioners were not deterred. Such words should not be heard outside the doors of the Star Chamber.

They had come here to pronounce Mary Queen of Scots, guilty and deserving of death.

This they were determined to do.

WALSINGHAM AND BURLEIGH presented themselves to their royal mistress.

“And the verdict?” she asked.

“Guilty, Your Majesty. We cannot find that there is any possible means to provide for Your Majesty’s safety but by the just and speedy execution of the Queen of Scots, the neglecting whereof may procure the heavy displeasure and punishment of Almighty God.”

“I am unwilling,” answered the Queen, “to procure the displeasure and punishment of God, yet in my heart I remember this is a Queen and my cousin. Tell me, were all in agreement as to this verdict?”

Walsingham and Burleigh exchanged glances. “There was one, Your Majesty, who declared himself unsure that the Queen of Scots had compassed, practiced or imagined the death of Your Majesty.”

“And his name?”

“Lord Zouche.”

“One in the Star Chamber,” mused the Queen. “How many in the country?”

“Your Majesty,” said Burleigh, “this is no time for weakness. While the Queen of Scots lives you are in danger. The time is ripe.”

Elizabeth nodded.

“Then go to Fotheringay and warn her of the verdict which my Star Chamber and Houses of Parliament have pronounced against her.”

Jubilantly her ministers left her.

HOW DREARY WAS THE WINTER at Fotheringay, how irksome in London.

The two Queens were constantly in each other’s thoughts. Will she relent? wondered Mary. How can I accomplish her death without seeming to have done so? Elizabeth asked herself.

Her ministers were anxiously awaiting her decision.

Young James had written to her, imploring clemency for his mother. How that would have comforted Mary if she had known!

But she shall not know! thought Elizabeth angrily. Let her wait in her prison, apprehensive and fearful—for she has cast a shadow over my life since the day I took the crown.

Walsingham was fretful in his impatience. Mary was proved guilty. Why did Elizabeth hesitate?

He called on her Secretary, William Davison, and told him of his impatience. They must devise some means of bringing Elizabeth to the point of signing the death warrant.

Davison shook his head. “She grows angry when the matter is brought to her notice. Yet she is as impatient as you or I for the deed to be done.”

“We must find some means of ending Mary’s life. Let the warrant be made out . . . and slipped among some unimportant documents for the Queen’s signature.”

The two men were looking at each other speculatively. It might work. Elizabeth wanted very much to sign that death warrant, but she wanted it to appear that she had not done so. If she could sign it, pretending not to realize what it was, and the sentence could be carried out—as she would like it to be known, without her being able to prevent it—she would be happy.