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Walsingham was triumphant.
“There can be no way out for her this time,” I said, when her fellow conspirators were all sentenced to the traitor's death of hanging, drawing and quartering.
Crowds assembled in a field at the upper end of Holborn where the execution was to take place and first Ballard was subjected to the most horrible of deaths while Babington looked on. When Ballard had uttered his last cry of agony and his mutilated body was still, it was the turn of Babington.
He suffered horribly and when the news was brought to me I felt ill and I immediately said that the rest of the conspirators should not be cut until after death. They should merely suffer hanging.
I was glad I had done that. I did not want my people looking on such horror and remembering that the order of death came from me.
So Walsingham brought to an end the Babington Plot, which he had set in motion in a desperate attempt to bring Mary of Scotland to the scaffold.
Mary remained. She was as guilty as Babington himself. What should be done with her?
“She must never again be given the opportunity to threaten Your Majesty,” said Burghley.
“We might not be so fortunate next time,” pointed out Walsingham. “She could succeed. Your Majesty must see that the situation is too grave to be lightly set aside.”
I did see it. But I deplored what they were urging me to do.
Five days after Babington and Ballard died so cruelly in the Holborn field, Mary of Scotland was lodged at Fotheringhay.
I WISHED THAT I could have gone to Fotheringhay to be present at her trial. But I could not do that. As we had never met in all the years she had been in England, it was hardly the time for it now. I told both Walsingham and Burghley who were present that I wanted a detailed account of all that was said, and this was promised me.
The trial was held in the great chamber at Fotheringhay Castle. Walsingham had arranged that a throne should be set on a dais. This was for me, and although I should not be sitting in it, its presence meant that those who conducted the trial did so on authority from me.
A chair covered in red velvet had been put out for the prisoner but when she came in she went straight to the throne thinking it had been provided for her. When it was explained to her that the throne was for the Queen of England, she said: “I am the Queen by right of birth and so it should be my place.”
What a foolish woman she was! She would put her judges against her before the trial started.
“How did she look?” I asked Burghley.
He said: “She looked like a queen.”
“Beautiful?” I insisted.
“I suppose one would say that.”
Maddening man! How could she have looked beautiful?
She was forty-four and suffering acutely from rheumatism. She had spent—was it twenty years?—in cold damp castles.
“How was she dressed?” I demanded.
He could answer that. “In black velvet.”
“And on her head?”
“Oh…a white headdress… rather like a shell.”
I knew it. I had seen a drawing of it.
The charges against her were read out. She had been involved in a plot to assassinate the Queen of England and to destroy her realm, to take her crown and bring the Catholic Faith to these shores. What had she to say?
Mary had replied haughtily that she had come to England to ask my aid, and not as a prisoner. She was a queen and answered to none but God. “I will say,” she added, “that I am not guilty of that of which I am accused.”
The facts were then laid before her—the whole story of the pla
Burghley then reminded her that she was also guilty of carrying the arms of England on her shield and calling herself the Queen of England, to which she replied that she had had no choice in that, for her father-in-law Henri Deux of France had commanded it and she had no alternative but to obey him.
“But,” said Burghley, “you continued to state your claim to the throne after you left France.”
“I have no intention of denying my rights,” she retorted.
How tiresome she was! How reckless! But then she always had been. If she had been as wise after the murder of Darnley as I was after the death of Amy Robsart she might still be on the throne of Scotland and not fighting for her life in the hall of Fotheringhay Castle.
She was allowed to state her case and defend herself. From what I heard I think she was a very tired and disillusioned woman. I think she was not prepared to fight very hard for her life. She said sadly that she had been humiliated, treated as a prisoner ever since she arrived in England; and she longed to be free. She declared that she had had no part in the plot to murder me. It was true that she was a Catholic and her religion meant more to her than anything else on Earth. She may have written to foreign princes. She was a sick and weary woman. All she longed for was to be free and live in peace. She insisted that she had never desired my death.
The court broke up with Walsingham's declaration that he would bring the findings to me. She was guilty but it was for me to pass sentence.
This was what I dreaded. I wanted her dead but I did not want to have any part in her removal.
But the court at Fotheringhay had proved her guilty. The letters were as damning as they could be. She deserved to die, and yet…
When the court had adjourned at Fotheringhay it was a
They were all urging me. Walsingham was triumphant. We could remove one of the greatest menaces to our throne for it had been clearly proved that this woman had plotted against my life, which was treason. She had been in touch with foreign courts; she wanted to bring about the ruin of the Protestant Church and set up the Catholic in its place. What greater treason could there be! The execution should take place without delay. It was unwise to dally. It would be better for the Queen of Scots herself if we acted promptly for she must know she was guilty and what the inevitable consequences must be.
I knew they were right. I knew that for the sake of my safety and that of my country she must die—and yet, I should be the one, in the generations to come, who would be accused of killing her.
If only she would die! If only I did not have to put my name to that death warrant!
I hesitated but they would give me no peace. Even Robert wrote from the Netherlands. He was thinking of me all the time, he wrote. He knew what a quandary I found myself in. Did he not understand my i
“Your Majesty must sign it,” insisted Walsingham, Burghley, Bacon… all of them.
And still I hesitated.
My secretary William Davison came to me and told me that he was being entreated by Amyas Paulet to beg me to sign the death warrant without delay. It was difficult for him to carry on in such a state of tension. Every day they were expecting the order to arrive, each day the Queen of Scots prepared herself, and still the days passed and there was no decision.
“Davison,” I said, “I am loath to sign this warrant for reasons you know well. I should have thought there might be some means of saving me from this unpleasant duty.”
Davison looked taken aback. I felt impatient with him. He was not one of my favorite men. He lacked the grace of the charmers, and although he was able, he did not have the cold clear brain of the clever ones.