"Madam, he spoke no such word to me."

"'Twas the infection, child—only the infection."

"Madam, I pray you—"

"Whist, child. Thou wilt be a perilous bride for any commoner, and let that thought, if no other, keep thee from lowering thine eyes to such as he. Were I and thy brother taken out of the way, none would stand between thee and both thrones! What would English or Scots say to find thee a household Joan, wedded to one of Drake's rude pirate fellows? I tell thee it would be the worse for him. They have made it treason to wed royal blood without Elizabeth's consent. No, no, for his sake, as well as thine own, thou must promise me never thus to debase thy royal lineage."

"Mother; neither he nor I have thought or spoken of such a matter since we knew how it was with me.

"And you give me your word?"

"Yea, madam," said Cicely, who had really never entertained the idea of marrying Humfrey, implicit as was her trust in him as a brother and protector.

"That is well. And so soon as I am restored to my poor servants, if I ever am, I will take measures for sending the French remnant to their own land; nor shall my Courcelles quit thee till she hath seen thee safe in the keeping of Madame de Lorraine or of Queen Louise, who is herself a kinswoman of ours, and, they say, is piety and gentleness itself."

"As you will, madam," said Cicely, her heart sinking at the thought of the strange new world before her, but perceiving that she must not be the means of bringing Humfrey into trouble and danger.

Perhaps she felt this the more from seeing how acutely her mother suffered at times from sorrow for those involved in her disaster. She gave Babington and his companions, as well as Nau and Curll, up for lost, as the natural consequence of having befriended her; and she blamed herself remorsefully, after the long experience of the fatal consequences of meddling in her affairs, for having entered into correspondence with the bright enthusiastic boy whom she remembered, and having lured him without doubt to his death.

"Alack! alack!" she said, "and yet such is liberty, that I should forget all I have gone through, and do the like again, if the door seemed opened to me. At least there is this comfort, cruel child, thy little heart was not set on him, gracious and handsome though he were—and thy mother's most devoted knight! Ah! poor youth, it wrings my soul to think of him. But at least he is a Catholic, his soul will be safe, and I will have hundreds of masses sung for him. Oh that I knew how it goes with them! This torture of silent suspense is the most cruel of all."

Mary paced the room with impatient misery, and in such a round the weary hours dragged by, only mitigated by one welcome thunderstorm, for seventeen days, whose summer length made them seem the more endless. Cicely, who had never before in her life been shut up in the house so many hours, was pale, listless, and even fretful towards the Queen, who bore with her petulance so tenderly as more than once to make her weep bitterly for very shame. After one of these fits of tears, Mary pleaded earnestly with Sir Walter Ashton for permission for the maiden to take a turn in the garden every day, but though the good gentleman's complexion bore testimony that he lived in the fresh air, he did not believe in its efficacy; he said he had no orders, and could do nothing without warrant. But that evening at supper, the serving-maid brought up a large brew of herbs, dark and nauseous, which Dame Ashton had sent as good for the young lady's megrim.

"Will you taste it, sir?" asked the Queen of Sir Walter, with a revival of her lively humour.

"The foul fiend have me if a drop comes within my lips," muttered the knight. "I am not bound to taste for a tirewoman!" he added, leaving it in doubt whether his objection arose from distaste to his lady's messes, or from pride; and he presently said, perhaps half-ashamed of himself, and willing to cast the blame on the other side,

"It was kindly meant of my good dame, and if you choose to flout at, rather than benefit by it, that is no affair of mine."

He left the potion, and Cicely disposed of it by small instalments at the windows; and a laugh over the evident horror it excited in the master, did the captives at least as much good as the camomile, centaury, wormwood, and other ingredients of the bowl.

Happily it was only two days later that Sir Walter announced that his custody of the Queen was over, and Sir Amias Paulett was come for her. There was little preparation to make, for the two ladies had worn their riding-dresses all the time; but on reaching the great door, where Sir Amias, attended by Humfrey, was awaiting them, they were astonished to see a whole troop on horseback, all armed with head-pieces, swords and pistols, to the number of a hundred and forty.

"Wherefore is this little army raised?" she asked.

"It is by order of the Queen," replied Ashton, with his accustomed surly manner, "and need enough in the time of such treasons!"

The Queen turned to him with tears on her cheeks. "Good gentlemen," she said, "I am not witting of anything against the Queen. Am I to be taken to the Tower?"

"No, madam, back to Chartley," replied Sir Amias.

"I knew they would never let me see my cousin," sighed the Queen. "Sir," as Paulett placed her on her horse, "of your pity tell me whether I shall find all my poor servants there."

"Yea, madam, save Mr. Nau and Mr. Curll, who are answering for themselves and for you. Moreover, Curll's wife was delivered two days since."

This intelligence filled Mary with more anxiety than she chose to manifest to her unsympathising surroundings; Cis meanwhile had been assisted to mount by Humfrey, who told her that Mrs. Curll was thought to be doing well, but that there were fears for the babe. It was impossible to exchange many words, for they were immediately behind the Queen and her two warders, and Humfrey could only tell her that his father had been at Chartley, and had gone on to London; but there was inexpressible relief in hearing the sound of his voice, and knowing she had some one to think for her and protect her. The promise she had made to the Queen only seemed to make him more entirely her brother by putting that other love out of the question.

There was a sad sight at the gate,—a whole multitude of wretched-looking beggars, and poor of all ages and degrees of misery, who all held out their hands and raised one cry of "Alms, alms, gracious Lady, alms, for the love of heaven!"

Mary looked round on them with tearful eyes, and exclaimed, "Alack, good folk, I have nothing to give you! I am as much a beggar as yourselves!"

The escort dispersed them roughly, Paulett assuring her that they were nothing but "a sort of idle folk," who were only encouraged in laziness by her bounty, which was very possibly true of a certain proportion of them, but it had been a sore grief to her that since Cuthbert Langston's last approach in disguise she had been prevented from giving alms.

In due time Chartley was reached, and the first thing the Queen did on dismounting was to hurry to visit poor Barbara Curll, who had—on her increasing illness—been removed to one of the guest-chambers, where the Queen now found her, still in much distress about her husband, who was in close imprisonment in Walsingham's house, and had not been allowed to send her any kind of message; and in still more immediate anxiety about her new-born infant, who did not look at all as if its little life would last many hours.

She lifted up her languid eyelids, and scarcely smiled when the Queen declared, "See, Barbara, I am come back again to you, to nurse you and my god-daughter into health to receive your husband again. Nay, have no fears for him. They cannot hurt him. He has done nothing, and is a Scottish subject beside. My son shall write to claim him," she declared with such an assumed air of confidence that a shade of hope crossed the pale face, and the fear for her child became the more pressing of the two griefs.

"We will christen her at once," said Mary, turning to the nearest attendant. "Bear a request from me to Sir Amias that his chaplain may come at once and baptize my god-child."

Sir Amias was waiting in the gallery in very ill-humour at the Queen's delay, which kept his supper waiting. Moreover, his party had a strong dislike to private baptism, holding that the important point was the public covenant made by responsible persons, and the notion of the sponsorship of a Roman Catholic likewise shocked him. So he made ungracious answer that he would have no baptism save in church before the congregation, with true Protestant gossips.

"So saith he?" exclaimed Mary, when the reply was reported to her. "Nay, my poor little one, thou shalt not be shut out of the Kingdom of Heaven for his churlishness." And taking the infant on her knee, she dipped her hand in the bowl of water that had been prepared for the chaplain, and baptized it by her own name of Mary.

The existing Prayer-book had been made expressly to forbid lay baptism and baptism by women, at the special desire of the reformers, and Sir Amias was proportionately horrified, and told her it was an offence for the Archbishop's court.

"Very like," said Mary. "Your Protestant courts love to slay both body and soul. Will it please you to open my own chambers to me, sir?"

Sir Amias handed the key to one of her servants but she motioned him aside.

"Those who put me forth must admit me," she said.

The door was opened by one of the gentlemen of the household, and they entered. Every repository had been ransacked, every cabinet stood open and empty, every drawer had been pulled out. Wearing apparel and the like remained, but even this showed signs of having been tossed over and roughly rearranged by masculine fingers.

Mary stood in the midst of the room, which had a strange air of desolation, an angry light in her eyes, and her hands clasped tightly one into the other. Paulett attempted some expression of regret for the disarray, pleading his orders.

"It needs not excuse, sir," said Mary, "I understand to whom I owe this insult. There are two things that your Queen can never take from me—royal blood and the Catholic faith. One day some of you will be sorry for what you have now put upon me! I would be alone, sir," and she proudly motioned him to the door, with a haughty gesture, showing her still fully Queen in her own apartments. Paulett obeyed, and when he was gone, the Queen seemed to abandon the command over herself she had preserved all this time. She threw herself into Jean Kennedy's arms, and wept freely and piteously, while the good lady, rejoicing at heart to have recovered "her bairn," fondled and soothed her with soft Scottish epithets, as though the worn woman had been a child again. "Yea, nurse, mine own nurse, I am come back to thee; for a little while—only a little while, nurse, for they will have my blood, and oh! I would it were ended, for I am aweary of it all."

Jean and Elizabeth Curll tried to cheer and console her, alarmed at this unwonted depression, but she only said, "Get me to bed, nurse, I am sair forfaughten."

She was altogether broken down by the long suspense, the hardships and the imprisonment she had undergone, and she kept her bed for several days, hardly speaking, but apparently reposing in the relief afforded by the recovered care and companionship of her much-loved attendants.

There she was when Paulett came to demand the keys of the caskets where her treasure was kept. Melville had refused to yield them, and all the Queen said was, "Robbery is to be added to the rest," a sentence which greatly stung the knight, but he actually seized all the coin that he found, including what belonged to Nau and Curll, and, only retaining enough for present expenses, sent the rest off to London.



CHAPTER XXXI.

EVIDENCE.

In the meantime the two Richard Talbots, father and son, had safely arrived in London, and had been made welcome at the house of their noble kinsman.

Nau and Curll, they heard, were in Walsingham's house, subjected to close examination; Babington and all his comrades were in the Tower. The Council was continually sitting to deliberate over the fate of the latter unhappy men, of whose guilt there was no doubt; and neither Lord Talbot nor Will Cavendish thought there was any possibility of Master Richard gaining permission to plead how the unfortunate Babington had been worked on and deceived. After the sentence should be pronounced, Cavendish thought that the request of the Earl of Shrewsbury might prevail to obtain permission for an interview between the prisoner and one commissioned by his former guardian. Will was daily attending Sir Francis Walsingham as his clerk, and was not by any means unwilling to relate anything he had been able to learn.

Queen Elizabeth was, it seemed, greatly agitated and distressed. The shock to her nerves on the day when she had so bravely overawed Barnwell with the power of her eye had been such as not to be easily surmounted. She was restless and full of anxiety, continually starting at every sound, and beginning letters to the Queen of Scots which were never finished. She had more than once inquired after the brave sailor youths who had come so opportunely to her rescue; and Lord Talbot thought it would be well to present Diccon and his father to her, and accordingly took them with him to Greenwich Palace, where they had the benefit of looking on as loyal subjects, while her Majesty, in royal fashion, dined in public, to the sound of drums, trumpets, fifes, and stringed instruments. But though dressed with her usual elaborate care, she looked older, paler, thinner, and more haggard than when Diccon had seen her three weeks previously, and neither her eye nor mouth had the same steadiness. She did not eat with relish, but almost as if she were forcing herself, lest any lack of appetite might be observed and commented upon, and her looks continually wandered as though in search of some lurking enemy; for in truth no woman, nor man either, could easily forget the suggestion which had recently been brought to her knowledge, that an assassin might "lurk in her gallery and stab her with his dagger, or if she should walk in her garden, he might shoot her with his dagg, or if she should walk abroad to take the air, he might assault her with his arming sword and make sure work." Even though the enemies were safe in prison, she knew not but that dagger, dagg, or arming sword might still be ready for her, and she believed that any fatal charge openly made against Mary at the trial might drive her friends to desperation and lead to the use of dagg or dagger. She was more unhinged than ever before, and commanded herself with difficulty when going through all the scenes of her public life as usual.

The Talbots soon felt her keen eye on them, and a look of recognition passed over her face as she saw Diccon. As soon as the meal was over, and the table of trestles removed, she sent a page to command Lord Talbot to present them to her.

"So, sir," she said, as Richard the elder knelt before her, "you are the father of two brave sons, whom you have bred up to do good service; but I only see one of them here. Where is the elder?"

"So please your Majesty, Sir Amias Paulett desired to retain him at Chartley to assist in guarding the Queen of Scots."

"It is well. Paulett knows a trusty lad when he sees him. And so do I. I would have the youths both for my gentlemen pensioners—the elder when he can be spared from his charge, this stripling at once."

"We are much beholden to your Majesty," said Richard, bending his head the lower as he knelt on one knee; for such an appointment gave both training and recommendation to young country gentlemen, and was much sought after.

"Methinks," said Elizabeth, who had the royal faculty of remembering faces, "you have yourself so served us, Mr. Talbot?"

"I was for three years in the band of your Majesty's sister, Queen Mary," said Richard, "but I quitted it on her death to serve at sea, and I have since been in charge at Sheffield, under my Lord of Shrewsbury."

"We have heard that he hath found you a faithful servant," said the Queen, "yea, so well affected as even to have refused your daughter in marriage to this same Babington. Is this true?"

"It is, so please your Majesty."

"And it was because you already perceived his villainy?"

"There were many causes, Madam," said Richard, catching at the chance of saying a word for the unhappy lad, "but it was not so much villainy that I perceived in him as a nature that might be easily practised upon by worse men than himself."

"Not so much a villain ready made as the stuff villains are made of," said the Queen, satisfied with her own repartee.

"So please your Majesty, the metal that in good hands becomes a brave sword, in evil ones becomes a treacherous dagger."

"Well said, Master Captain, and therefore, we must destroy alike the dagger and the hands that perverted it."

"Yet," ventured Richard, "the dagger attempered by your Majesty's clemency might yet do noble service."

Elizabeth, however, broke out fiercely with one of her wonted oaths.

"How now? Thou wouldst not plead for the rascal! I would have you to know that to crave pardon for such a fellow is well-nigh treason in itself. You have license to leave us, sir."

"I should scarce have brought you, Richard," said Lord Talbot, as soon as they had left the presence chamber, "had I known you would venture on such folly. Know you not how incensed she is? Naught but your proved loyalty and my father's could have borne you off this time, and it would be small marvel to me if the lad's appointment were forgotten."

"I could not choose but run the risk," said Richard. "What else came I to London for?"

"Well," said his cousin, "you are a brave man, Richard Talbot. I know those who had rather scale a Spanish fortress than face Queen Elizabeth in her wrath. Her tongue is sharper than even my stepdame's, though it doth not run on so long."

Lord Talbot was not quite easy when that evening a gentleman, clad in rich scarlet and gold, and armed to the teeth, presented himself at Shrewsbury House and inquired for Mr. Talbot of Bridgefield. However, it proved to be the officer of the troop of gentlemen pensioners come to enroll Diccon, tell him the requirements, and arrange when he should join in a capacity something like that of an esquire to one of the seniors of the troop. Humfrey was likewise inquired for, but it was thought better on all accounts that he should continue in his present situation, since it was especially needful to have trustworthy persons at Chartley in the existing crisis. Master Richard was well satisfied to find that his son's immediate superior would be a gentleman of a good Yorkshire family, whose father was known to him, and who promised to have a care of Master Richard the younger, and preserve him, as far as possible, from the perils of dicing, drinking, and running into bad company.

Launching a son in this manner and equipping him for service was an anxious task for a father, while day after day the trial was deferred, the examinations being secretly carried on before the Council till, as Cavendish explained, what was important should be disclosed.

Of course this implied what should be fatal to Queen Mary. The priest Ballard was racked, but he was a man of great determination, and nothing was elicited from him. The other prisoners, and Nau and Curll, were questioned again and again under threats and promises before the Council, and the letters that had been copied on their transit through the beer barrels were read and made the subject of cross-examination—still all in private, for, as Cavendish said, "perilous stuff to the Queen's Majesty might come out."

He allowed, however, day after day, that though there was quite enough to be fatal to Ballard, Babington, Savage, and Barnwell, whatever else was wanting was not forthcoming. At last, however, Cavendish returned full of a certain exultation: "We have it," he said,—"a most undoubted treasonable letter, which will catch her between the shoulders and the head."

He spoke to Lord Talbot and Richard, who were standing together in a window, and who knew only too well who was referred to, and what the expression signified. On a further query from his step-brother, Cavendish explained that it was a long letter, dated July 16, arranging in detail the plan for "the Lady's" own rescue from Chartley at the moment of the landing of the Spaniards, and likewise showing her privy to the design of the six gentlemen against the life of the Queen, and desiring to know their names. Nau had, he said, verified the cipher as one used in the correspondence, and Babington, when it was shown to him, had declared that it had been given to him in the street by a stranger serving-man in a blue coat, and that it had removed all doubt from his mind, as it was an answer to a letter of his, a copy of which had been produced, but not the letter itself.

"Which we have not found," said Cavendish.

"Not for all that search of yours at Chartley?" said Richard. "Methought it was thorough enough!"

"The Lady must have been marvellously prudent as to the keeping of letters," said Will, "or else she must have received some warning; for there is absolutely naught to be found in her repositories that will serve our purpose."

"Our purpose!" repeated Richard, as he recollected many little kindnesses that William Cavendish when a boy had received from the prisoner at Sheffield.

"Yea, Master Richard," he returned, unabashed. "It is absolutely needful that we should openly prove this woman to be what we know her to be in secret. Her Majesty's life will never be safe for a moment while she lives; and what would become of us all did she overlive the Queen!"

"Well, Will, for all your mighty word we, you are but the pen in Mr. Secretary's hand, so there is no need to argue the matter with you," said Richard.

The speech considerably nettled Master William, especially as it made Lord Talbot laugh.

"Father!" said Diccon afterwards, "Humfrey tried to warn Mr. Babington that we had seen this Langston, who hath as many metamorphoses as there be in Ovidius Naso, coming privily forth from Sir Francis Walsingham's closet, but he would not listen, and declared that Langston was holding Mr. Secretary in play."

"Deceiving and being deceived," sighed his father. "That is ever the way, my son! Remember that if thou playest false, other men will play falser with thee and bring thee to thy ruin. I would not leave thee here save that the gentlemen pensioners are a more honest and manly sort of folk than yonder gentlemen with their state craft, wherein they throw over all truth and honour as well as mercy."

This conversation took place as the father and son were making their way to a house in Westminster, where Antony Babington's wife was with her mother, Lady Ratcliffe. It had been a match made by Lady Shrewsbury, and it was part of Richard's commission to see and confer with the family. It was not a satisfactory interview. The wife was a dull childish little thing, not yet sixteen; and though she cried, she had plainly never lived in any real sympathy or companionship with her husband, who had left her with her parents, while leading the life of mingled amusement and intrigue which had brought him to his present state; and the mother, a hard-featured woman, evidently thought herself cheated and ill used. She railed at Babington and at my Lady Countess by turns; at the one for his ruinous courses and neglect of her daughter, at the other for having cozened her into giving her poor child to a treacherous Papist, who would be attainted in blood, and thus bring her poor daughter and grandchild to poverty. The old lady really seemed to have lost all pity for her son-in-law in indignation on her daughter's account, and to care infinitely less for the saving of his life than for the saving of his estate. Nor did the young wife herself appear to possess much real affection for poor Antony, of whom she had seen very little. There must have been great faults on his side; yet certainly Richard felt that there was some excuse for him in the mother-in-law, and that if the unfortunate young man could have married Cicely his lot might have been different. Yet the good Captain felt all the more that if Cis had been his own he still would never have given her to Babington.



CHAPTER XXXII.

WESTMINSTER HALL.

Beneath the noble roof of Westminster Hall, with the morning sun streaming in high aloft, at seven in the morning of the 14th of September, the Court met for the trial of Antony Babington and his confederates. The Talbot name and recommendation obtained ready admission, and Lord Talbot, Richard, and his son formed one small party together with William Cavendish, who had his tablets, on which to take notes for the use of his superior, Walsingham, who was, however, one of the Commissioners.

There they sat, those supreme judges, the three Chief-Justices in their scarlet robes of office forming the centre of the group, which also numbered Lords Cobham and Buckhurst, Sir Francis Knollys, Sir Christopher Hatton, and most of the chief law officers of the Crown.

"Is Mr. Secretary Walsingham one of the judges here?" asked Diccon. "Methought he had been in the place of the accuser."

"Peace, boy, and listen," said his father; "these things pass my comprehension."

Nevertheless Richard had determined that if the course of the trial should offer the least opportunity, he would come forward and plead his former knowledge of young Babington as a rash and weak-headed youth, easily played upon by designing persons, but likely to take to heart such a lesson as this, and become a true and loyal subject. If he could obtain any sort of mitigation for the poor youth, it would be worth the risk.

The seven conspirators were brought in, and Richard could hardly keep a rush of tears from his eyes at the sight of those fine, high-spirited young men, especially Antony Babington, the playfellow of his own children.

Antony was carefully dressed in his favourite colour, dark green, his hair and beard trimmed, and his demeanour calm and resigned. The fire was gone from his blue eye, and his bright complexion had faded, but there was an air of dignity about him such as he had never worn before. His eyes, as he took his place, wandered round the vast assembly, and rested at length on Mr. Talbot, as though deriving encouragement and support from the look that met his. Next to him was another young man with the same look of birth and breeding, namely Chidiock Tichborne; but John Savage, an older man, had the reckless bearing of the brutalised soldiery of the Netherlandish wars. Robert Barnwell, with his red, shaggy brows and Irish physiognomy, was at once recognised by Diccon. Donne and Salisbury followed; and the seventh conspirator, John Ballard, was carried in a chair. Even Diccon's quick eye could hardly have detected the ruffling, swaggering, richly-clad Captain Fortescue in this tonsured man in priestly garb, deadly pale, and unable to stand, from the effects of torture, yet with undaunted, penetrating eyes, all unsubdued.

After the proclamation, Oyez, Oyez, and the command to keep silence, Sandys, the Clerk of the Crown, began the proceedings. "John Ballard, Antony Babington, John Savage, Robert Barnwell, Chidiock Tichborne, Henry Donne, Thomas Salisbury, hold up your hands and answer." The indictment was then read at great length, charging them with conspiring to slay the Queen, to deliver Mary, Queen of Scots, from custody, to stir up rebellion, to bring the Spaniards to invade England, and to change the religion of the country. The question was first put to Ballard, Was he guilty of these treasons or not guilty?

Ballard's reply was, "That I procured the delivery of the Queen of Scots, I am guilty; and that I went about to alter the religion, I am guilty; but that I intended to slay her Majesty, I am not guilty."

"Not with his own hand," muttered Cavendish, "but for the rest—"

"Pity that what is so bravely spoken should be false," thought Richard, "yet it may be to leave the way open to defence."

Sandys, however, insisted that he must plead to the whole indictment, and Anderson, the Chief-Justice of Common Pleas, declared that he must deny the whole generally, or confess it generally; while Hatton put in, "Ballard, under thine own hand are all things confessed, therefore now it is much vanity to stand vaingloriously in denying it."

"Then, sir, I confess I am guilty," he said, with great calmness, though it was the resignation of all hope.

The same question was then put to Babington. He, with "a mild countenance, sober gesture," and all his natural grace, stood up and spoke, saying "that the time for concealment was past, and that he was ready to avow how from his earliest infancy he had believed England to have fallen from the true religion, and had trusted to see it restored thereto. Moreover, he had ever a deep love and compassion for the Queen of Scots. Some," he said, "who are yet at large, and who are yet as deep in the matter as I—"

"Gifford, Morgan, and another," whispered Cavendish significantly.

"Have they escaped?" asked Diccon.

"So 'tis said."

"The decoy ducks," thought Richard.

Babington was explaining that these men had proposed to him a great enterprise for the rescue and restoration of the Queen of Scots, and the re-establishment of the Catholic religion in England by the sword of the Prince of Parma. A body of gentlemen were to attack Chartley, free Mary, and proclaim her Queen, and at the same time Queen Elizabeth was to be put to death by some speedy and skilful method.

"My Lords," he said, "I swear that all that was in me cried out against the wickedness of thus privily slaying her Majesty."

Some muttered, "The villain! he lies," but the kindly Richard sighed inaudibly, "True, poor lad! Thou must have given thy conscience over to strange keepers to be thus led astray."

And Babington went on to say that they had brought this gentleman, Father Ballard, who had wrought with him to prove that his scruples were weak, carnal, and ungodly, and that it would be a meritorious deed in the sight of Heaven thus to remove the heretic usurper.

Here the judges sternly bade him not to blaspheme, and he replied, with that "soberness and good grace" which seems to have struck all the beholders, that he craved patience and pardon, meaning only to explain how he had been led to the madness which he now repented, understanding himself to have been in grievous error, though not for the sake of any temporal reward; but being blinded to the guilt, and assured that the deed was both lawful and meritorious. He thus had been brought to destruction through the persuasions of this Ballard.

"A very fit author for so bad a fact," responded Hatton.

"Very true, sir," said Babington; "for from so bad a ground never proceed any better fruits. He it was who persuaded me to kill the Queen, and to commit the other treasons, whereof I confess myself guilty."

Savage pleaded guilty at once, with the reckless hardihood of a soldier accustomed to look on death as the fortune of war.

Barnwell denied any intention of killing the Queen (much to Diccon's surprise), but pleaded guilty to the rest. Donne said that on being told of the plot he had prayed that whatever was most to the honour and glory of Heaven might be done, and being pushed hard by Hatton, turned this into a confession of being guilty. Salisbury declared that he had always protested against killing the Queen, and that he would not have done so for a kingdom, but of the rest he was guilty. Tichborne showed that but for an accidental lameness he would have been at his home in Hampshire, but he could not deny his knowledge of the treason.

All having pleaded guilty, no trial was permitted, such as would have brought out the different degrees of guilt, which varied in all the seven.

A long speech was, however, made by the counsel for the Crown, detailing the plot as it had been arranged for the public knowledge, and reading aloud a letter from Babington to Queen Mary, describing his plans both for her rescue and the assassination, saying, "he had appointed six noble gentlemen for the despatch of the wicked competitor."

Richard caught a look of astonishment on the unhappy young man's face, but it passed into hopeless despondency, and the speech went on to describe the picture of the conspirators and its strange motto, concluding with an accusation that they meant to sack London, burn the ships, and "cloy the ordnance."

A shudder of horror went through the assembly, and perhaps few except Richard Talbot felt that the examination of the prisoners ought to have been public. The form, however, was gone through of asking whether they had cause to render wherefore they should not be condemned to die.

The first to speak was Ballard. His eyes glanced round with an indomitable expression of scorn and indignation, which, as Diccon whispered, he could have felt to his very backbone. It was like that of a trapped and maimed lion, as the man sat in his chair with crushed and racked limbs, but with a spirit untamed in its defiance.

"Cause, my Lords?" he replied. "The cause I have to render will not avail here, but it may avail before another Judgment-seat, where the question will be, who used the weapons of treason, not merely against whom they were employed. Inquiry hath not been made here who suborned the priest, Dr. Gifford, to fetch me over from Paris, that we might together overcome the scruples of these young men, and lead them forward in a scheme for the promotion of the true religion and the right and lawful succession. No question hath here been put in open court, who framed the conspiracy, nor for what purpose. No, my Lords; it would baffle the end you would bring about, yea, and blot the reputation of some who stand in high places, if it came to light that the plot was devised, not by the Catholics who were to be the instruments thereof, nor by the Lady in whose favour all was to be done,—not by these, the mere victims, but by him who by a triumph of policy thus sent forth his tempters to enclose them all within his net—above all the persecuted Lady whom all true Catholics own as the only lawful sovereign within these realms. Such schemes, when they succeed, are termed policy. My Lords, I confess that by the justice of England we have been guilty of treason against Queen Elizabeth; but by the eternal law of the justice of God, we have suffered treachery far exceeding that for which we are about to die."

"I marvel that they let the fellow speak so far," was Cavendish's comment.

"Nay, but is it so?" asked Diccon with startled eyes.

"Hush! you have yet to learn statecraft," returned his friend.

His father's monitory hand only just saved the boy from bursting out with something that would have rather astonished Westminster Hall, and caused him to be taken out by the ushers. It is not wonderful that no report of the priest's speech has been preserved.

The name of Antony Babington was then called. Probably he had been too much absorbed in the misery of his position to pay attention to the preceding speech, for his reply was quite independent of it. He prayed the Lords to believe, and to represent to her Majesty, that he had received with horror the suggestion of compassing her death, and had only been brought to believe it a terrible necessity by the persuasions of this Ballard.

On this Hatton broke forth in indignant compassion,—"O Ballard! Ballard! what hast thou done? A sort of brave youth, otherwise endowed with good gifts, by thy inducement hast thou brought to their utter destruction and confusion!"

This apparently gave some hope to Babington, for he answered—"Yes, I protest that, before I met this Ballard, I never meant nor intended for to kill the Queen; but by his persuasions I was induced to believe that she being excommunicate it was lawful to murder her."

For the first time Ballard betrayed any pain. "Yes, Mr. Babington," he said, "lay all the blame upon me; but I wish the shedding of my blood might be the saving of your life. Howbeit, say what you will, I will say no more."

"He is the bravest of them all!" was Diccon's comment.

"Wot you that he was once our spy?" returned Cavendish with a sneer; while Sir Christopher, with the satisfaction of a little nature in uttering reproaches, returned—"Nay, Ballard, you must say more and shall say more, for you must not commit treasons and then huddle them up. Is this your Religio Catholica? Nay, rather it is Diabolica."

Ballard scorned to answer this, and the Clerk passed on to Savage, who retained his soldierly fatalism, and only shook his head. Barnwell again denied any purpose of injuring the Queen, and when Hatton spoke of his appearance in Richmond Park, he said all had been for conscience sake. So said Henry Donne, but with far more piety and dignity, adding, "fiat voluntas Dei;" and Thomas Salisbury was the only one who made any entreaty for pardon.

Speeches followed from the Attorney-General, and from Sir Christopher Hatton, and then the Lord Chief Justice Anderson pronounced the terrible sentence.

Richard Talbot sat with his head bowed between his hands. His son had begun listening with wide-stretched eyes and mouth, as boyhood hearkens to the dreadful, and with the hardness of an unmerciful time, too apt to confound pity with weakness; but when his eye fell on the man he had followed about as an elder playmate, and realised all it conveyed, his cheek blanched, his jaw fell, and he hardly knew how his father got him out of the court.

There was clearly no hope. The form of the trial was such as to leave no chance of escape from the utmost penalty. No witnesses had been examined, no degrees of guilt acknowledged, no palliations admitted. Perhaps men who would have brought the Spanish havoc on their native country, and have murdered their sovereign, were beyond the pale of compassion. All London clearly thought so; and yet, as Richard Talbot dwelt on their tones and looks, and remembered how they had been deluded and tempted, and made to believe their deed meritorious, he could not but feel exceeding pity for the four younger men. Ballard, Savage, and Barnwell might be justly doomed; even Babington had, by his own admission, entertained a fearfully evil design; but the other three had evidently dipped far less deeply into the plot, and Tichborne had only concealed it out of friendship. Yet the ruthless judgment condemned all alike! And why? To justify a yet more cruel blow! No wonder honest Richard Talbot felt sick at heart.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

IN THE TOWER.

"Here is a letter from Mr. Secretary to the Lieutenant of the Tower, Master Richard, bidding him admit you to speech of Babington," said Will Cavendish. "He was loath to give it, and nothing but my Lord Shrewsbury's interest would have done it, on my oath that you are a prudent and discreet man, who hath been conversant in these matters for many years."

"Yea, and that long before you were, Master Will," said Richard, always a little entertained by the young gentleman's airs of patronage. "However, I am beholden to you."

"That you may be, for you are the only person who hath obtained admission to the prisoners."

"Not even their wives?"

"Mrs. Tichborne is in the country—so best for her—and Mrs. Babington hath never demanded it. I trow there is not love enough between them to make them seek such a meeting. It was one of my mother's matches. Mistress Cicely would have cleaved to him more closely, though I am glad you saw through the fellow too well to give her to him. She would be a landless widow, whereas this Ratcliffe wife has a fair portion for her child."

"Then Dethick will be forfeited?"

"Ay. They say the Queen hath promised it to Raleigh."

"And there is no hope of mercy?"

"Not a tittle for any man of them! Nay, so far from it, her Majesty asked if there were no worse nor more extraordinary mode of death for them."

"I should not have thought it of her."

"Her Majesty hath been affrighted, Master Richard, sorely affrighted, though she put so bold a face upon it, and there is nothing a woman, who prides herself on her courage, can so little pardon."

So Richard, sad at heart, took boat and ascended the Thames for his melancholy visit. The gateway was guarded by a stalwart yeoman, halbert in hand, who detained him while the officer of the guard was called. On showing the letter from Sir Francis Walsingham, Mr. Talbot was conducted by this personage across the first paved court to the lodgings of the Lieutenant under so close a guard that he felt as if he were about to be incarcerated himself, and was there kept waiting in a sort of guard-room while the letter was delivered.

Presently the Lieutenant, Sir Owen Hopton, a well-bred courteous knight, appeared and saluted him with apologies for his detention and all these precautions, saying that the orders were to keep a close guard and to hinder all communication from without, so that nothing short of this letter would have obtained entrance for the bearer, whom he further required to set down his name and designation in full. Then, after asking how long the visitor wished to remain with the prisoners—for Tichborne and Babington were quartered together—he called a warder and committed Mr. Talbot to his guidance, to remain for two hours locked up in the cell.

"Sir," added Sir Owen, "it is superfluous to tell you that on coming out, you must either give me your word of honour that you convey nothing from the prisoners, or else submit to be searched."

Richard smiled, and observed that men were wont to trust his word of honour, to which the knight heartily replied that he was sure of it, and he then followed the warder up stone stairs and along vaulted passages, where the clang of their footsteps made his heart sink. The prisoners were in the White Tower, the central body of the grim building, and the warder, after unlocking the door, announced, with no unnecessary rudeness, but rather as if he were glad of any comfort to his charges, "Here, sirs, is a gentleman to visit you."

They had both risen at the sound of the key turning in the lock, and Antony Babington's face lighted up as he exclaimed, "Mr. Talbot! I knew you would come if it were possible."

"I come by my Lord's desire," replied Richard, the close wringing of his hand expressing feeling to which he durst not give way in words.

He took in at the moment that the room, though stern and strong, was not squalid. It was lighted fully by a window, iron-barred, but not small, and according to custom, the prisoners had been permitted to furnish, at their own expense, sufficient garniture for comfort, and as both were wealthy men, they were fairly provided, and they were not fettered. Both looked paler than when Richard had seen them in Westminster Hall two days previously. Antony was as usual neatly arrayed, with well-trimmed hair and beard, but Tichborne's hung neglected, and there was a hollow, haggard look about his eyes, as if of dismay at his approaching fate. Neither was, however, forgetful of courtesy, and as Babington presented Mr. Talbot to his friend, the greeting and welcome would have befitted the halls of Dethick or Tichborne.

"Sirs," said the young man, with a sad smile irradiating for a moment the restless despair of his countenance, "it is not by choice that I am an intruder on your privacy; I will abstract myself so far as is possible."

"I have no secrets from my Chidiock," cried Babington.

"But Mr. Talbot may," replied his friend, "therefore I will only first inquire whether he can tell us aught of the royal lady for whose sake we suffer. They have asked us many questions, but answered none."

Richard was able to reply that after the seclusion at Tixall she had been brought back to Chartley, and there was no difference in the manner of her custody, moreover, that she had recovered from her attack of illness, tidings he had just received in a letter from Humfrey. He did not feel it needful to inflict a pang on the men who were to die in two days' time by letting them know that she was to be immediately brought to trial on the evidence extracted from them. On hearing that her captivity was not straitened, both looked relieved, and Tichborne, thanking him, lay down on his own bed, turned his face to the wall, and drew the covering over his head.

"Ah!" sighed Babington, "is there no hope for him—he who has done naught but guard too faithfully my unhappy secret? Is he to die for his faith and honour?"

"Alas, Antony! I am forbidden to give thee hope for any. Of that we must not speak. The time is short enough for what needs to be spoken."

"I knew that there was none for myself," said Antony, "but for those whom—" There was a gesture from Tichborne as if he could not bear this, and he went on, "Yea, there is a matter on which I must needs speak to you, sir. The young lady—where is she?"—he spoke earnestly, and lowering his voice as he bent his head.

"She is still at Chartley."

"That is well. But, sir, she must be guarded. I fear me there is one who is aware of her parentage."

"The Scottish archer?"

"No, the truth."

"You knew it?"

"Not when I made my suit to her, or I should never have dared to lift my eyes so far."

"I suppose your knowledge came from Langston," said Richard, more perturbed than amazed at the disclosure.

"Even so. Yet I am not certain whether he knows or only guesses; but at any rate be on your guard for her sake. He has proved himself so unspeakable a villain that none can guess what he will do next. He—he it is above all—yea, above even Gifford and Ballard, who has brought us to this pass."

He was becoming fiercely agitated, but putting a force upon himself said, "Have patience, good Mr. Talbot, of your kindness, and I will tell you all, that you may understand the coilings of the serpent who led me hither, and if possible save her from them."

Antony then explained that so soon as he had become his own master he had followed the inclinations which led him to the church of his mother and of Queen Mary, the two beings he had always regarded with the most fervent affection and love. His mother's kindred had brought him in contact with the Roman Catholic priests who circulated in England, at the utmost peril of their lives, to keep up the faith of the gentry, and in many cases to intrigue for Queen Mary. Among these plotters he fell in with Cuthbert Langston, a Jesuit of the third order, though not a priest, and one of the most active agents in corresponding with Queen Mary. His small stature, colourless complexion, and insignificant features, rendered him almost a blank block, capable of assuming any variety of disguise. He also knew several languages, could imitate different dialects, and counterfeit male and female voices so that very few could detect him. He had soon made himself known to Babington as the huckster Tibbott of days gone by, and had then disclosed to him that Cicely was certainly not the daughter of her supposed parents, telling of her rescue from the wreck, and hinting that her rank was exalted, and that he knew secrets respecting her which he was about to make known to the Queen of Scots. With this purpose among others, Langston had adopted the disguise of the woman selling spars with the password "Beads and Bracelets," and being well known as an agent of correspondence to the suite of the captive Queen, he had been able to direct Gorion's attention to the maiden, and to let him know that she was the same with the infant who had been put on board the Bride of Dunbar at Dunbar.

How much more did Langston guess? He had told Babington the story current among the outer circle of Mary's followers of the maiden being the daughter of the Scotch archer, and had taught him her true name, encouraging too, his aspirations towards her during the time of his courtship. Babington believed Langston to have been at that time still a sincere partizan of Queen Mary, but all along to have entertained a suspicion that there was a closer relationship between Bride Hepburn and the Queen than was avowed, though to Babington himself he had only given mysterious hints.

But towards the end of the captivity at Tutbury, he had made some further discovery, which confirmed his suspicions, and had led to another attempt to accost Cicely, and to make the Queen aware of his knowledge, perhaps in order to verify it, or it might be to gain power over her, a reward for the introduction, or to extort bribes to secrecy. For looking back, Antony could now perceive that by this time a certain greed of lucre had set in upon the man, who had obtained large sums of secret service money from himself; and avarice, together with the rebuff he had received from the Queen, had doubtless rendered him accessible to the temptations of the arch-plotters Gifford and Morgan. Richard could believe this, for the knowledge had been forced on him that there were an incredible number of intriguers at that time, spies and conspirators, often in the pay of both parties, impartially betraying the one to the other, and sometimes, through miscalculation, meeting the fate they richly deserved. Many a man who had begun enthusiastically to work in underground ways for what he thought the righteous cause, became so enamoured of the undermining process, and the gold there to be picked up, that from a wrong-headed partizan he became a traitor—often a double-faced one—and would work secretly in the interest of whichever cause would pay him best.

Poor Babington had been far too youthfully simple to guess what he now perceived, that he had been made the mere tool and instrument of these traitors. He had been instructed in Gifford's arrangement with the Burton brewer for conveying letters to Mary at Chartley, and had been made the means of informing her of it by means of his interview with Cicely, when he had brought the letter in the watch. The letter had been conveyed to him by Langston, the watch had been his own device. It was after this meeting, of which Richard now heard for the first time, that Langston had fully told his belief respecting the true birth of Bride Hepburn, and assured Babington that there was no hope of his wedding her, though the Queen might allow him to delude himself with the idea of her favour in order to bind him to her service.

It was then that Babington consented to Lady Shrewsbury's new match with the well-endowed Eleanor Ratcliffe. If he could not have Cicely, he cared not whom he had. He had been leading a wild and extravagant life about town, when (as poor Tichborne afterwards said on the scaffold) the flourishing estate of Babington and Tichborne was the talk of Fleet Street and the Strand, and he had also many calls for secret service money, so that all his thought was to have more to spend in the service of Queen Mary and her daughter.

"Oh, sir! I have been as one distraught all this past year," he said. "How often since I have been shut up here, and I have seen how I have been duped and gulled, have your words come back to me, that to enter on crooked ways was the way to destruction for myself and others, and that I might only be serving worse men than myself! And yet they were priests who misled me!"

"Even in your own religion there are many priests who would withhold you from such crimes," said Richard.

"There are! I know it! I have spoken with them. They say no priest can put aside the eternal laws of God's justice. So these others, Chidiock here, Donne and Salisbury, always cried out against the slaying of the Queen, though—wretch that I was—and gulled by Ballard and Savage, I deemed the exploit so noble and praiseworthy that I even joined Tichborne with me in that accursed portraiture! Yea, you may well deem me mad, but it was Gifford who encouraged me in having it made, no doubt to assure our ruin. Oh, Mr. Talbot! was ever man so cruelly deceived as me?"

"It is only too true, Antony. My heart is full of rage and indignation when I think thereof. And yet, my poor lad, what concerns thee most is to lay aside all such thoughts as may not tend to repentance before God."

"I know it, I know it, sir. All the more that we shall die without the last sacraments. Commend us to the prayers of our Queen, sir, and of her. But to proceed with what imports you to know for her sake, while I have space to speak."

He proceeded to tell how, between dissipation and intrigue, he had lived in a perpetual state of excitement, going backwards and forwards between London and Lichfield to attend to the correspondence with Queen Mary and the Spanish ambassador in France, and to arrange the details of the plot; always being worked up to the highest pitch by Gifford and Ballard, while Langston continued to be the great assistant in all the correspondence. All the time Sir Francis Walsingham, who was really aware of all, if not the prime mover in the intrigue, appeared perfectly unsuspicious; often received Babington at his house, and discussed a plan of sending him on a commission to France, while in point of fact every letter that travelled in the Burton barrels was deciphered by Phillipps, and laid before the Secretary before being read by the proper owners. In none of these, however, as Babington could assure Mr. Talbot, had Cicely been mentioned,—the only danger to her was through Langston.

Things had come to a climax in July, when Babington had been urged to obtain from Mary such definite approbation of his plans as might satisfy his confederates, and had in consequence written the letter and obtained the answer, copies of which had been read to him at his private examination, and which certainly contained fatal matter to both him and the Queen.

They had no doubt been called forth with that intent, and a doubt had begun to arise in the victim's mind whether the last reply had been really the Queen's own. It had been delivered to him in the street, not by the usual channel, but by a blue-coated serving-man. Two or three days later Humfrey had told him of Langston's interview with Walsingham, which he had at the time laughed to scorn, thinking himself able to penetrate any disguise of that Proteus, and likewise believing that he was blinding Walsingham.

He first took alarm a few days after Humfrey's departure, and wrote to Queen Mary to warn her, convinced that the traitor must be Langston. Ballard became himself suspected, and after lurking about in various disguises was arrested in Babington's own lodgings. To disarm suspicion, Antony went to Walsingham to talk about the French Mission, and tried to resume his usual habits, but in a tavern, he became aware that Langston, under some fresh shape, was watching him, and hastily throwing down the reckoning, he fled without his cloak or sword to Gage's house at Westminster, where he took horse, hid himself in St. John's Wood, and finally was taken, half starved, in an outhouse at Harrow, belonging to a farmer, whose mercy involved him in the like doom.

This was the substance of the story told by the unfortunate young man to Richard Talbot, whom he owned as the best and wisest friend he had ever had—going back to the warnings twice given, that no cause is served by departing from the right; no kingdom safely won by worshipping the devil: "And sure I did worship him when I let myself be led by Gifford," he said.

His chief anxiety was not for his wife and her child, who he said would be well taken care of by the Ratcliffe family, and who, alas! had never won his heart. In fact he was relieved that he was not permitted to see the young thing, even had she wished it; it could do no good to either of them, though he had written a letter, which she was to deliver, for the Queen, commending her to her Majesty's mercy.

His love had been for Cicely, and even that had never been, as Richard saw, such purifying, restraining, self-sacrificing affection as was Humfrey's. It was half romance, half a sort of offshoot from his one great and absorbing passion of devotion to the Queen of Scots, which was still as strong as ever. He entrusted Richard with his humblest commendations to her, and strove to rest in the belief that as many a conspirator before—such as Norfolk, Throckmorton, Parry—had perished on her behalf while she remained untouched, that so it might again be, since surely, if she were to be tried, he would have been kept alive as a witness. The peculiar custom of the time in State prosecutions of hanging the witnesses before the trial had not occurred to him.

But how would it be with Cicely? "Is what this fellow guessed the very truth?" he asked.

Richard made a sign of affirmation, saying, "Is it only a guess on his part?"

Babington believed the man stopped short of absolute certainty, though he had declared himself to have reason to believe that a child must have been born to the captive queen at Lochleven; and if so, where else could she be? Was he waiting for clear proof to make the secret known to the Council? Did he intend to make profit of it and obtain in the poor girl a subject for further intrigue? Was he withheld by consideration for Richard Talbot, for whom Babington declared that if such a villain could be believed in any respect, he had much family regard and deep gratitude, since Richard had stood his friend when all his family had cast him off in much resentment at his change of purpose and opinion.

At any rate he had in his power Cicely's welfare and liberty, if not the lives of her adopted parents, since in the present juncture of affairs, and of universal suspicion, the concealment of the existence of one who stood so near the throne might easily be represented as high treason. Where was he?

No one knew. For appearance sake, Gifford had fled beyond seas, happily only to fall into a prison of the Duke of Guise: and they must hope that Langston might have followed the same course. Meantime, Richard could but go on as before, Cicely being now in her own mother's hands. The avowal of her identity must remain for the present as might be determined by her who had the right to decide.

"I would I could feel hope for any I leave behind me," said poor Antony. "I trow you will not bear the maiden my message, for you will deem it a sin that I have loved her, and only her, to the last, though I have been false to that love as to all else beside. Tell Humfrey how I long that I had been like him, though he too must love on without hope."

He sent warm greetings to good Mistress Susan Talbot and craved her prayers. He had one other care, namely to commend to Mr. Talbot an old body servant, Harry Gillingham by name, who had attended on him in his boyhood at Sheffield, and had been with him all his life, being admitted even now, under supervision from the warders, to wait on him when dressing and at his meals. The poor man was broken-hearted, and so near desperation that his master wished much to get him out of London before the execution. So, as Mr. Talbot meant to sail for Hull by the next day's tide in the Mastiff, he promised to take the poor fellow with him back to Bridgefield.

All this had taken much time. Antony did not seem disposed to go farther into his own feelings in the brief space that remained, but he took up a paper from the table, and indicating Tichborne, who still affected sleep, he asked whether it was fit that a man, who could write thus, should die for a plot against which he had always protested. Richard read these touching lines:—

My prime of youth is but a frost of care, My feast of joy is but a dish of pain, My crop of corn is but a field of tares, And all my goods is but vain hope of gain. The day is fled, and yet I saw no sun; And now I live, and now my life is done.

My spring is past, and yet it hath not sprung; The fruit is dead, and yet the leaves are green; My youth is past, and yet I am but young; I saw the world, and yet I was not seen. My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun; And now I live, and now my life is done.

I sought for death, and found it in the wombe; I lookt for life, and yet it was a shade; I trode the ground, and knew it was my tombe, And now I dye, and now I am but made. The glass is full, and yet my glass is run; And now I live, and now my life is done.

Little used to poetry, these lines made the good man's eyes fill with tears as he looked at the two goodly young men about to be cut off so early—one indeed guilty, but the victim of an iniquitous act of deliberate treachery.

He asked if Mr. Tichborne wished to entrust to him aught that could be done by word of mouth, and a few commissions were given to him. Then Antony bethought him of thanks to Lord and Lady Shrewsbury for all they had done for him, and above all for sending Mr. Talbot; and a message to ask pardon for having so belied the loyal education they had given him. The divided religion of the country had been his bane: his mother's charge secretly to follow her faith had been the beginning, and then had followed the charms of stratagem on behalf of Queen Mary.

Perhaps, after all, his death, as a repentant man still single minded, saved him from lapsing into the double vileness of the veteran intriguers whose prey he had been.

"I commend me to the Mercy Master Who sees my heart," he said.

Herewith the warder returned, and at his request summoned Gillingham, a sturdy grizzled fellow, looking grim with grief. Babington told him of the arrangement made, and that he was to leave London early in the morning with Mr. Talbot, but the man immediately dropped on his knees and swore a solemn oath that nothing should induce him to leave the place while his master breathed.

"Thou foolish knave," said Antony, "thou canst do me no good, and wilt but make thyself a more piteous wretch than thou art already. Why, 'tis for love of thee that I would have thee spared the sight."

"Am I a babe to be spared?" growled the man. And all that he could be induced to promise was that he would repair to Bridgefield as soon as all was over—"Unless," said he, "I meet one of those accursed rogues, and then a halter would be sweet, if I had first had my will of them."

"Hush, Harry, or Master Warder will be locking thee up next," said Antony.

And then came the farewell. It was at last a long, speechless, sorrowful embrace; and then Antony, slipping from it to his knees, said—"Bless me! Oh bless me: thou who hast been mine only true friend. Bless me as a father!"

"May God in Heaven bless thee!" said Richard, solemnly laying his hand on his head. "May He, Who knoweth how thou hast been led astray, pardon thee! May He, Who hath felt the agonies and shame of the Cross, redeem thee, and suffer thee not for any pains of death to fall from Him!"

He was glad to hear afterwards, when broken-hearted Gillingham joined him, that the last words heard from Antony Babington's lips were—"Parce mihi, Domine JESU!"



CHAPTER XXXIV.

FOTHERINGHAY.

"Is this my last journey?" said Queen Mary, with a strange, sad smile, as she took her seat in the heavy lumbering coach which had been appointed for her conveyance from Chartley, her rheumatism having set in too severely to permit her to ride.

"Say not so; your Grace has weathered many a storm before," said Marie de Courcelles. "This one will also pass over."

"Ah, my good Marie, never before have I felt this foreboding and sinking of the heart. I have always hoped before, but I have exhausted the casket of Pandora. Even hope is flown!"

Jean Kennedy tried to say something of "Darkest before dawn."

"The dawn, it may be, of the eternal day," said the Queen. "Nay, my friends, the most welcome tidings that could greet me would be that my weary bondage was over for ever, and that I should wreck no more gallant hearts. What, mignonne, art thou weeping? There will be freedom again for thee when that day comes."

"O madam, I want not freedom at such a price!" And yet Cicely had never recovered her looks since those seventeen days at Tickhill. She still looked white and thin, and her dark eyebrows lay in a heavy line, seldom lifted by the merry looks and smiles that used to flash over her face. Life had begun to press its weight upon her, and day after day, as Humfrey watched her across the chapel, and exchanged a word or two with her while crossing the yard, had he grieved at her altered mien; and vexed himself with wondering whether she had after all loved Babington, and were mourning for him.

Truly, even without the passion of love, there had been much to shock and appal a young heart in the fate of the playfellow of her childhood, the suitor of her youth. It was the first death among those she had known intimately, and even her small knowledge of the cause made her feel miserable and almost guilty, for had not poor Antony plotted for her mother, and had not she been held out to him as a delusive inducement? Moreover, she felt the burden of a deep, pitying love and admiration not wholly joined with perfect trust and reliance. She had been from the first startled by untruths and concealments. There was mystery all round her, and the future was dark. There were terrible forebodings for her mother; and if she looked beyond for herself, only uncertainty and fear of being commanded to follow Marie de Courcelles to a foreign court, perhaps to a convent; while she yearned with an almost sick longing for home and kind Mrs. Talbot's motherly tenderness and trustworthiness, and the very renunciation of Humfrey that she had spoken so easily, had made her aware of his full worth, and wakened in her a longing for the right to rest on his stout arm and faithful heart. To look across at him and know him near often seemed her best support, and was she to be cut off from him for ever? The devotions of the Queen, though she had been deprived of her almoner had been much increased of late as one preparing for death; and with them were associated all her household of the Roman Catholic faith, leaving out Cicely and the two Mrs. Curlls. The long oft-repeated Latin orisons, such as the penitential Psalms, would certainly have been wearisome to the girl, but it gave her a pang to be pointedly excluded as one who had no part nor lot with her mother. Perhaps this was done by calculation, in order to incline her to embrace her mother's faith; and the time was not spent very pleasantly, as she had nothing but needlework to occupy her, and no society save that of the sisters Curll. Barbara's spirits were greatly depressed by the loss of her infant and anxiety for her husband. His evidence might be life or death to the Queen, and his betrayal of her confidence, or his being tortured for his fidelity, were terrible alternatives for his wife's imagination. It was hard to say whether she were more sorry or glad when, on leaving Chartley, she was forbidden to continue her attendance on the Queen, and set free to follow him to London. The poor lady knew nothing, and dreaded everything. She could not help discussing her anxieties when alone with Cicely, thus rendering perceptible more and more of the ramifications of plot and intrigue—past and present—at which she herself only guessed a part. Assuredly the finding herself a princess, and sharing the captivity of a queen, had not proved so like a chapter of the Morte d'Arthur as it had seemed to Cicely at Buxton.

It was as unlike as was riding a white palfrey through a forest, guided by knights in armour, to the being packed with all the ladies into a heavy jolting conveyance, guarded before and behind by armed servants and yeomen, among whom Humfrey's form could only now and then be detected.

The Queen had chosen her seat where she could best look out from the scant amount of window. She gazed at the harvest-fields full of sheaves, the orchards laden with ruddy apples, the trees assuming their autumn tints, with lingering eyes, as of one who foreboded that these sights of earth were passing from her.

Two nights were spent on the road, one at Leicester; and on the fourth day, the captain in charge of the castle for the governor Sir William Fitzwilliam, who had come to escort and receive her, came to the carriage window and bade her look up. "This is Periho Lane," he said, "whence your Grace may have the first sight of the poor house which is to have the honour of receiving you."

"Perio! I perish," repeated Mary; "an ominous road."

The place showed itself to be of immense strength. The hollow sound caused by rolling over a drawbridge was twice heard, and the carriage crossed two courts before stopping at the foot of a broad flight of stone steps, where stood Sir William Fitzwilliam and Sir Amias Paulett ready to hand out the Queen.

A few stone steps were mounted, then an enormous hall had to be traversed. The little procession had formed in pairs, and Humfrey was able to give his hand to Cicely and walk with her along the vast space, on which many windows emblazoned with coats of arms shed their light—the western ones full of the bright September sunshine. One of these, emblazoned with the royal shield in crimson mantlings, cast a blood-red stain on the white stone pavement. Mary, who was walking first, holding by the arm of Sir Andrew Melville, paused, shuddered, pointed, and said, "See, Andrew, there will my blood be shed."

"Madam, madam! speak not thus. By the help of the saints you will yet win through your troubles."

"Ay, Andrew, but only by one fate;" and she looked upwards.

Her faithful followers could not but notice that there was no eager assurance that no ill was intended her, such as they had often heard from Shrewsbury and Sadler.

Cicely looked at Humfrey with widely-opened eyes, and the half-breathed question, "What does it mean?"

He shook his head gravely and said, "I cannot tell," but he could not keep his manner from betraying that he expected the worst.

Meanwhile Mary was conducted on to her apartments, up a stair as usual, and forming another side of the inner court at right angles to the Hall. There was no reason to complain of these, Mary's furniture having as usual been sent forward with her inferior servants, and arranged by them. She was weary, and sat down at once on her chair, and as soon as Paulett had gone through his usual formalities with even more than his wonted stiffness, and had left her, she said, "I see what we are come here for. It is that yonder hall may be the place of my death."

Cheering assurances and deprecations of evil augury were poured on her, but she put them aside, saying, "Nay, my friends, trow you not that I rejoice in the close of my weary captivity?"

She resumed her usual habits very calmly, as far as her increased rheumatism would permit, and showed anxiety that a large piece of embroidery should be completed, and thus about a fortnight passed. Then came the first token of the future. Sir Amias Paulett, Sir Walter Mildmay, and a notary, sought her presence and presented her with a letter from Queen Elizabeth, informing her that there were heavy accusations against her, and that as she was residing under the protection of the laws of England, she must be tried by those laws, and must make answer to the commissioners appointed for the purpose. Mary put on all her queenly dignity, and declared that she would never condescend to answer as a subject of the Queen of England, but would only consent to refer their differences to a tribunal of foreign princes. As to her being under the protection of English law, she had come to England of her own free will, and had been kept there a prisoner ever since, so that she did not consider herself protected by the law of England.

Meanwhile fresh noblemen commissioned to sit on the trial arrived day by day. There was trampling of horses and jingling of equipments, and the captive suite daily heard reports of fresh arrivals, and saw glimpses of new colours and badges flitting across the court, while conferences were held with Mary in the hope of inducing her to submit to the English jurisdiction. She was sorely perplexed, seeing as she did that to persist in her absolute refusal to be bound by English law would be prejudicial to her claim to the English crown, and being also assured by Burghley that if she refused to plead the trial would still take place, and she would be sentenced in her absence. Her spirit rose at this threat, and she answered disdainfully, but it worked with her none the less when the treasurer had left her.

"Oh," she cried that night, "would but Elizabeth be content to let me resign my rights to my son, making them secure to him, and then let me retire to some convent in Lorraine, or in Germany, or wherever she would, so would I never trouble her more!"

"Will you not write this to her?" asked Cicely.

"What would be the use of it, child? They would tamper with the letter, pledging me to what I never would undertake. I know how they can cut and garble, add and take away! Never have they let me see or speak to her as woman to woman. All I have said or done has been coloured."

"Mother, I would that I could go to her; Humfrey has seen and spoken to her, why should not I?"

"Thou, poor silly maid! They would drive Cis Talbot away with scorn, and as to Bride Hepburn, why, she would but run into all her mother's dangers."

"It might be done, and if so I will do it," said Cicely, clasping her hands together.

"No, child, say no more. My worn-out old life is not worth the risk of thy young freedom. But I love thee for it, mine ain bairnie, mon enfant a moi. If thy brother had thy spirit, child—"

"I hate the thought of him! Call him not my brother!" cried Cicely hotly. "If he were worth one brass farthing he would have unfurled the Scottish lion long ago, and ridden across the Border to deliver his mother."

"And how many do you think would have followed that same lion?" said Mary, sadly.

"Then he should have come alone with his good horse and his good sword!"

"To lose both crowns, if not life! No, no, lassie; he is a pawky chiel, as they say in the north, and cares not to risk aught for the mother he hath never seen, and of whom he hath been taught to believe strange tales."

The more the Queen said in excuse for the indifference of her son, the stronger was the purpose that grew up in the heart of the daughter, while fresh commissioners arrived every day, and further conversations were held with the Queen. Lord Shrewsbury was known to be summoned, and Cicely spent half her time in watching for some well-known face, in the hope that he might bring her good foster-father in his train. More than once she declared that she saw a cap or sleeve with the well-beloved silver dog, when it turned out to be a wyvern or the royal lion himself. Queen Mary even laughed at her for thinking her mastiff had gone on his hind legs when she once even imagined him in the Warwick Bear and ragged staff.

At last, however, all unexpectedly, while the Queen was in conference with Hatton, there came a message by the steward of the household, that Master Richard Talbot had arrived, and that permission had been granted by Sir Amias for him to speak with Mistress Cicely. She sprang up joyously, but Mrs. Kennedy demurred.

"Set him up!" quoth she. "My certie, things are come to a pretty pass that any one's permission save her Majesty's should be speired for one of her women, and I wonder that you, my mistress, should be the last to think of her honour!"

"O Mrs. Kennedy, dear Mrs. Jean," entreated Cicely, "hinder me not. If I wait till I can ask her, I may lose my sole hope of speaking with him. I know she would not be displeased, and it imports, indeed it imports."

"Come, Mrs. Kennett," said the steward, who by no means shared his master's sourness, "if it were a young gallant that craved to see thy fair mistress, I could see why you should doubt, but being her father and brother, there can surely be no objection."

"The young lady knows what I mean," said the old gentlewoman with great dignity, "but if she will answer it to the Queen—"

"I will, I will," cried Cicely, whose colour had risen with eagerness, and she was immediately marshalled by the steward beyond the door that closed in the royal captive's suite of apartments to a gallery. At the door of communication three yeomen were always placed under an officer. Humfrey was one of those who took turns to command this guard, but he was not now on duty. He was, however, standing beside his father awaiting Cicely's coming.

Eagerly she moved up to Master Richard, bent her knee for his blessing, and raised her face for his paternal kiss with the same fond gladness as if she had been his daughter in truth. He took one hand, and Humfrey the other, and they followed the steward, who had promised to procure them a private interview, so difficult a matter, in the fulness of the castle, that he had no place to offer them save the deep embrasure of a great oriel window at the end of the gallery. They would be seen there, but there was no fear of their being heard without their own consent, and till the chapel bell rang for evening prayers and sermon there would be no interruption. And as Cicely found herself seated between Master Richard and the window, with Humfrey opposite, she was sensible of a repose and bien etre she had not felt since she quitted Bridgefield. She had already heard on the way that all was well there, and that my Lord was not come, though named in the commission as being Earl Marshal of England, sending his kinsman of Bridgefield in his stead with letters of excuse.

"In sooth he cannot bear to come and sit in judgment on one he hath known so long and closely," said Richard; "but he hath bidden me to come hither and remain so as to bring him a full report of all."

"How doth my Lady Countess take that?" asked Humfrey.

"I question whether the Countess would let him go if he wished it. She is altogether changed in mind, and come round to her first love for this Lady, declaring that it is all her Lord's fault that the custody was taken from them, and that she could and would have hindered all this."

"That may be so," said Humfrey. "If all be true that is whispered, there have been dealings which would not have been possible at Sheffield."

"So it may be. In any wise my Lady is bitterly grieved, and they send for thy mother every second day to pacify her."

"Dear mother!" murmured Cis; "when shall I see her again?"

"I would that she had thee for a little space, my wench," said Richard; "thou hast lost thy round ruddy cheeks. Hast been sick?"

"Nay, sir, save as we all are—sick at heart! But all seems well now you are here. Tell me of little Ned. Is he as good scholar as ever?"

"Verily he is. We intend by God's blessing to bring him up for the ministry. I hope in another year to take him to Cambridge. Thy mother is knitting his hosen of gray and black already."

Other questions and answers followed about Bridgefield tidings, which still evidently touched Cicely as closely as if she had been a born Talbot. There was a kind of rest in dwelling on these before coming to the sadder, more pressing concern of her other life. It was not till the slow striking of the Castle clock warned them that they had less than an hour to spend together that they came to closer matters, and Richard transferred to Cicely those last sad messages to her Queen, which he had undertaken for Babington and Tichborne.

"The Queen hath shed many tears for them," she said, "and hath writ to the French and Spanish ambassadors to have masses said for them. Poor Antony! Did he send no word to me, dear father?"

The man being dead, Mr. Talbot saw no objection to telling her how he had said he had never loved any other, though he had been false to that love.

"Ah, poor Antony!" said Cis, with her grave simplicity. "But it would not have been right for me to be a hindrance to the marriage of one who could never have me."

"While he loved you it would," said Humfrey hastily. "Yea," as she lifted up her eyes to him, "it would so, as my father will tell you, because he could not truly love that other woman."

Richard smiled sadly, and could not but assent to his son's honest truth and faith.

"Then," said Cis, with the same straightforwardness, sprung of their old fraternal intercourse, "you must quit all love for me save a brother's, Humfrey; for my Queen mother made me give her my word on my duty never to wed you."

"I know," returned Humfrey calmly. "I have known all that these two years; but what has that to do with my love?"

"Come, come, children," said Richard, hardening himself though his eyes were moist; "I did not come here to hear you two discourse like the folks in a pastoral! We may not waste time. Tell me, child, if thou be not forbidden, hath she any purpose for thee?"

"O sir, I fear that what she would most desire is to bestow me abroad with some of her kindred of Lorraine. But I mean to strive hard against it, and pray her earnestly. And, father, I have one great purpose. She saith that these cruel statesmen, who are all below in this castle, have hindered Queen Elizabeth from ever truly hearing and knowing all, and from speaking with her as woman to woman. Father, I will go to London, I will make my way to the Queen, and when she hears who I am—of her own blood and kindred—she must listen to me; and I will tell her what my mother Queen really is, and how cruelly she has been played upon, and entreat of her to see her face to face and talk with her, and judge whether she can have done all she is accused of."

"Thou art a brave maiden, Cis," exclaimed Humfrey with deep feeling.

"Will you take me, sir?" said Cicely, looking up to Master Richard.

"Child, I cannot say at once. It is a perilous purpose, and requires much to be thought over."

"But you will aid me?" she said earnestly.

"If it be thy duty, woe be to me if I gainsay thee," said Richard; "but there is no need to decide as yet. We must await the issue of this trial, if the trial ever take place."

"Will Cavendish saith," put in Humfrey, "that a trial there will be of some sort, whether the Lady consent to plead or not."

"Until that is ended we can do nothing," said his father. "Meantime, Cicely child, we shall be here at hand, and be sure that I will not be slack to aid thee in what may be thy duty as a daughter. So rest thee in that, my wench, and pray that we may be led to know the right."

And Richard spoke as a man of high moral courage in making this promise, well knowing that it might involve himself in great danger. The worst that could befall Cicely might be imprisonment, and a life of constraint, jealously watched; but his own long concealment of her birth might easily be construed into treason, and the horrible consequences of such an accusation were only too fresh in his memory. Yet, as he said afterwards to his son, "There was no forbidding the maiden to do her utmost for her own mother, neither was there any letting her run the risk alone."

To which Humfrey heartily responded.

"The Queen may forbid her, or the purpose may pass away," added Richard, "or it may be clearly useless and impossible to make the attempt; but I cannot as a Christian man strive to dissuade her from doing what she can. And as thou saidst, Humfrey, she is changed. She hath borne her modestly and discreetly, ay and truly, through all. The childishness is gone out of her, and I mark no lightness of purpose in her."

On that afternoon Queen Mary announced that she had yielded to Hatton's representations so far as to consent to appear before the Commissioners, provided her protest against the proceedings were put on record.

"Nay, blame me not, good Melville," she said. "I am wearied out with their arguments. What matters it how they do the deed on which they are bent? It was an ill thing when King Harry the Eighth brought in this fashion of forcing the law to give a colour to his will! In the good old times, the blow came without being first baited by one and another, and made a spectacle to all men, in the name of justice, forsooth!"

Mary Seaton faltered something of her Majesty's innocence shining out like the light of day.

"Flatter not thyself so far, ma mie," said Mary. "Were mine innocence clearer than the sun they would blacken it. All that can come of this same trial is that I may speak to posterity, if they stifle my voice here, and so be known to have died a martyr to my faith. Get we to our prayers, girls, rather than feed on vain hopes. De profundis clamavi."



CHAPTER XXXV.

BEFORE THE COMMISSIONERS.

Who would be permitted to witness the trial? As small matters at hand eclipse great matters farther off, this formed the immediate excitement in Queen Mary's little household, when it was disclosed that she was to appear only attended by Sir Andrew Melville and her two Maries before her judges.

The vast hall had space enough on the ground for numerous spectators, and a small gallery intended for musicians was granted, with some reluctance, to the ladies and gentlemen of the suite, who, as Sir Amias Paulett observed, could do no hurt, if secluded there. Thither then they proceeded, and to Cicely's no small delight, found Humfrey awaiting them there, partly as a guard, partly as a master of the ceremonies, ready to explain the arrangements, and tell the names of the personages who appeared in sight.

"There," said he, "close below us, where you cannot see it, is the chair with a cloth of state over it."

"For our Queen?" asked Jean Kennedy.

"No, madam. It is there to represent the Majesty of Queen Elizabeth. That other chair, half-way down the hall, with the canopy from the beam over it, is for the Queen of Scots."

Jean Kennedy sniffed the air a little at this, but her attention was directed to the gentlemen who began to fill the seats on either side. Some of them had before had interviews with Queen Mary, and thus were known by sight to her own attendants; some had been seen by Humfrey during his visit to London; and even now at a great distance, and a different table, he had been taking his meals with them at the present juncture.

The seats were long benches against the wall, for the Earls on one side, the Barons on the other. The Lord Chancellor Bromley, in his red and white gown, and Burghley, the Lord Treasurer, with long white beard and hard impenetrable face, sat with them.

"That a man should have such a beard, and yet dare to speak to the Queen as he did two days ago," whispered Cis.

"See," said Mrs. Kennedy, "who is that burly figure with the black eyes and grizzled beard?"

"That, madam," said Humfrey, "is the Earl of Warwick."

"The brother of the minion Leicester?" said Jean Kennedy. "He hath scant show of his comeliness."

"Nay; they say he is become the best favoured," said Humfrey; "my Lord of Leicester being grown heavy and red-faced. He is away in the Netherlands, or you might judge of him."

"And who," asked the lady, "may be yon, with the strangely-plumed hat and long, yellow hair, like a half-tamed Borderer?"

"He?" said Humfrey. "He is my Lord of Cumberland. I marvelled to see him back so soon. He is here, there, and everywhere; and when I was in London was commanding a fleet bearing victuals to relieve the Dutch in Helvoetsluys. Had I not other work in hand, I would gladly sail with him, though there be something fantastic in his humour. But here come the Knights of the Privy Council, who are to my mind more noteworthy than the Earls."

The seats of these knights were placed a little below and beyond those of the noblemen. The courteous Sir Ralf Sadler looked up and saluted the ladies in the gallery as he entered. "He was always kindly," said Jean Kennedy, as she returned the bow. "I am glad to see him here."

"But oh, Humfrey!" cried Cicely, "who is yonder, with the short cloak standing on end with pearls, and the quilted satin waistcoat, jewelled ears, and frizzed head? He looks fitter to lead off a dance than a trial."

"He is Sir Christopher Hatton, her Majesty's Vice-Chamberlain," replied Humfrey.

"Who, if rumour saith true, made his fortune by a galliard," said Dr. Bourgoin.

"Here is a contrast to him," said Jean Kennedy. "See that figure, as puritanical as Sir Amias himself, with the long face, scant beard, black skull-cap, and plain crimped ruff. His visage is pulled into so solemn a length that were we at home in Edinburgh, I should expect to see him ascend a pulpit, and deliver a screed to us all on the iniquities of dancing and playing on the lute!"

"That, madam," said Humfrey, "is Mr. Secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham."

Here Elizabeth Curll leant forward, looked, and shivered a little. "Ah, Master Humfrey, is it in that man's power that my poor brother lies?"

"'Tis true, madam," said Humfrey, "but indeed you need not fear. I heard from Will Cavendish last night that Mr. Curll is well. They have not touched either of the Secretaries to hurt them, and if aught have been avowed, it was by Monsieur Nau, and that on the mere threat. Do you see old Will yonder, Cicely, just within Mr. Secretary's call—with the poke of papers and the tablet?"

"Is that Will Cavendish? How precise and stiff he hath grown, and why doth he not look up and greet us? He knoweth us far better than doth Sir Ralf Sadler; doth he not know we are here?"

"Ay, Mistress Cicely," said Dr. Bourgoin from behind, "but the young gentleman has his fortune to make, and knows better than to look on the seamy side of Court favour."

"Ah! see those scarlet robes," here exclaimed Cis. "Are they the judges, Humfrey?"

"Ay, the two Chief-Justices and the Chief Baron of the Exchequer. There they sit in front of the Earls, and three more judges in front of the Barons."

"And there are more red robes at that little table in front, besides the black ones."

"Those are Doctors of Law, and those in black with coifs are the Attorney and Solicitor General. The rest are clerks and writers and the like."

"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 passed on to her appointed place, looking sadly round at the assembled 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 competitor.

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 assured 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 God 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?