Elizabeth's Spymaster (23 page)

The scene was now set for one of the most poignant and tragic dramas in British history.

Most of the commissioners gathered at Fotheringay on Tuesday 11 October; Walsingham, although keen to seal the Scottish queen’s fate, was seemingly not amongst them.
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Early the following morning, Burghley – who had just arrived – sent Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Walter Mildmay, escorted by Paulet, together with Elizabeth’s public notary Edward Barker
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and another man called Stallenge, the Usher of Parliament, to Mary’s privy chamber to deliver a letter from Elizabeth. It informed the Scottish queen, as she fully expected, that she now faced trial for treason – and for her life.

Whereas we are given to understand that you to our great and inestimable grief… pretend with great protestation not to be in any sort privy or assenting to any attempt either against our state or person, for as much as we find by most clear and evident proof that the contrary will be verified and maintained against you.

We have found it therefore expedient to send unto you diverse of our chief and most ancient noblemen of this our realm together with certain of our Privy Council, [and] also some of our principal judges to charge you … with the privety [secret] assent to that most horrible and unnatural attempt.

To the end you may have no just cause (lying as you do within our protection and thereby subject to the laws of our realm and to such a trial as by us shall be thought most agreeable to our laws) to take exception to the manner of our proceeding, we have made choice of the chief honourable personages to be used in this service, having for that purpose authorised them by our Commission under our Great Seal to proceed therein.

Therefore [we] do both advise and require you to give credit and make answer to that which the said honourable personages so authorised by us, shall from time to time during their abode there, object or deliver unto you in our name, as if it were to our self.

Given at our Castle of Windsor

October 1586
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Mary read it quietly and with little expression on her face as they stood anxiously waiting for her response. Eventually, she told them:

It grieves me that the queen, my royal sister, is misinformed of me … It seems strange to me that the queen should command me as a subject to appear personally in judgment.

I am an absolute queen and will do nothing which may prejudice either my own royal majesty or other princes of my place and rank …

My mind is not yet dejected; neither will I sink under my calamity …

The laws and statutes of England are to me most unknown. I am destitute of counsellors and [of] who shall be my peers I am utterly ignorant.

My papers and notes are taken from me and no man dares step forward to be my advocate.

I am clear [innocent] from all crime against the queen. I have excited no man against her … Yet can I not deny but I have commended myself and my cause to foreign princes.
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It was a brave, confident speech, delivered with royal dignity and composure and displaying all the signs of careful preparation and thought.

It would have come as no surprise to Burghley, waiting uneasily elsewhere in the castle, that her regal status was to be her prime weapon for attacking the legality of her trial. There must have been nervous discussions amongst Burghley and his advisers overnight as they considered their tactics to persuade the Scottish queen to attend the proceedings. It was vital to have the prisoner present at the bar to complete the picture of due legal process and to create a public impression of a fair trial.

The next day, Thursday, Burghley led a delegation of commissioners in another attempt to convince her to appear before the special court. She remained obdurate in her opposition.

I am a queen, not a subject.

If I appeared, I should betray the dignity and majesty of kings and it would be tantamount to a confession that I am bound to submit to the laws of England, even in matters touching religion.

I am willing to answer all questions, provided I am interrogated before a free Parliament and not before these commissioners who doubtless have been carefully chosen and who have probably already condemned me unheard.
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The Lord Treasurer angrily interrupted her telling words. He built a picture of Elizabeth’s kindnesses to her – hardly an eloquent argument to one kept confined as a prisoner for so long – and then flatly stated that legally the commissioners could and would try her in her absence.
‘Will you therefore answer us nor not?’ he demanded. Mary repeated: ‘I am a queen,’ but Burghley snapped back: The queen, my mistress, knows no other queen in her realm but herself.’ He told Mary that Elizabeth had

punished those who contested your pretensions to the English crown. In her goodness, she saved you from being judged guilty of high treason at the time of your projected marriage with the duke of Norfolk and she has protected you from the fury of your own subjects.
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Mary merely smiled sadly, and the meeting, which had lasted two hours, broke up in mutual anger and frustration.

The government’s game plan was to firmly deny Mary her royal status. They had no choice. If they had allowed Mary’s claims of being a queen, the indictment would have failed, as it was universally acknowledged that a queen was not required to take cognisance of any plots against a neighbouring sovereign.
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That afternoon, Burghley returned to Mary’s privy chamber with another committee of commissioners. She referred to one passage in the third paragraph of Elizabeth’s letter to her and demanded to know the meaning of the word ‘protection’. She told them: ‘I came into England to seek assistance and I was immediately imprisoned. Is that protection?’ Burghley neatly side-stepped the question. He had read the letter but declared that neither he nor his colleagues were so presumptuous as to dare to interpret the meaning of their royal mistress’s words. Mary responded with cold, penetrating logic:

You are too much in the confidence of your mistress not to be aware of her wishes and intentions.

If you are armed with such authority by your commission as you describe, you surely have the power to interpret a letter from the queen.
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This letter, she added adroitly, ‘was written by Walsingham. He confessed to me that he was my enemy and I well know what he has done against me and my son.’ Her sharp rejoinder wrong-footed the commissioners.
It sent them into a huddle, to discuss whether the spy master really was in London when the letter was written. But why debate the matter? Such talk was completely irrelevant. They held the power to legally try her. Further discussion was therefore nugatory. But still they whispered amongst themselves.

By now, it was getting dark outside the walls of Fotheringay. Eventually, Elizabeth’s Vice-Chamberlain Sir Christopher Hatton tried a conciliatory approach. He told Mary:

You are accused (but not condemned) to have conspired [in the] destruction of our lady and queen anointed.

You say you are a queen, so be it.

But in such a crime, the royal dignity is not exempted from answering, neither by the civil nor canon law, nor by the law of nations, nor of nature. For if such offences might be committed without punishment, all justice would stagger, yes, fall to the ground.

If you be innocent, you wrong your reputation in avoiding a trial.

After these fine lawyer’s words, he slipped up in his anxiety to crush her arguments: ‘You protest yourself to be innocent, but Queen Elizabeth thinks otherwise and that neither without grief and sorrow for the same.’ These words gave the lie to the honesty and impartiality of the proceedings. It was an admission that she had been judged and convicted before the trial had even begun. The shadow of the executioner’s axe had fallen across the room.

Hatton hurried on hastily, realising his error. His royal mistress had appointed ‘most honourable, prudent and upright’ commissioners to hear Mary’s case, who would, he added disingenuously, ‘rejoice with all their hearts if you clear yourself of this crime’. ‘Believe me,’ Hatton went on, even ‘the queen herself will be much affected with joy. [She told] me at my [departing] from her, that never anything [made] her more grieved [than] that you were charged with such a crime’. Put aside any notion of the privileges of royalty, he urged Mary: ‘Appear in judgment and show your innocence, lest by avoiding trial, you draw upon yourself suspicion and lay upon your reputation an eternal blot.’

Mary was not swayed by his rhetoric, nor did she entertain any naive doubts regarding the certain outcome of the commissioners’ trial. Moreover, even at this dangerous hour, she clung tenaciously to her perceived right of succession to the English crown. She insisted on appearing before Parliament lawfully assembled, so I may be declared the next [in] the succession [to the English crown]’. Better still, she would agree to her case being heard directly by Elizabeth and her Privy Council so that her ‘protests may be admitted and [that] I may be acknowledged the next of kin to the queen’.

She looked directly into the grim faces of her judges and told them boldly: To the judgment of my adversaries, amongst whom I know all defence of my innocence will be barred, flatly I will not submit myself.’

Burghley, exasperated, stopped the discussions there with an imperious wave of his hand. Bluntly, he told Mary that the commissioners ‘will proceed tomorrow in the cause, though you be absent and continue in your contumacy [stubborn and wilful obstinacy]’. She snapped back: ‘Search your consciences! Look to your honour! May God reward you and yours for your judgement against me.’

With her words ringing around the presence chamber, the delegation retired, bowing and retreating backwards from the Scottish queen, displaying their respect and an incongruous attention to royal protocol in stark contrast to their constant attempts to demean her royal status.

Late that night, a courier arrived post-haste from London bearing another letter from Elizabeth to Mary that hinted of a possible reprieve. But the queen, clearly well briefed about the latest discussions at Fotheringay, began with a forthright accusation:

You have planned in diverse ways and manners to take my life and to ruin my kingdom by the shedding of blood.

I never proceeded so harshly against you; on the contrary, I have maintained you and preserved your life with the same care which I use for myself.

Your treacherous doings will be proved to you and made manifest in the very place where you are. And it is my pleasure that
you shall reply to my nobles and to the peers of my kingdom as you would to myself were I there present.

I have heard of your arrogance and therefore, I demand, charge and command you to reply to them.

But answer fully and you may receive greater favour from us.

ELIZABETH

By the same messenger came another letter, this time to Burghley, instructing him that the commissioners should not pronounce sentence until they returned to London and that a full report of the proceedings should be dispatched to Elizabeth without delay. She was already becoming infected by doubts over the Scottish queen’s fate.

Early on the morning of Friday 14 October, Mary asked to see a small group of the commissioners. Walsingham was now amongst them, presumably having arrived overnight at Fotheringay. It was the first time she had met her great adversary face to face. In the brief silence that followed the delegation’s arrival, each must have studied the other’s expression, trying to divine and comprehend their thoughts and intentions.

But compromise seemed to linger in the air: the Scottish queen had realised overnight that being tried
in absentia
would harm her cause, as her voice would effectively be silenced. Perhaps Elizabeth’s less than subtle hints of possible clemency weakened Mary’s earlier resolve to stand fast upon her royal rank and dignity. Now, Burghley asked her again if she would attend the imminent legal proceedings, if her protests of regal status were received in writing ‘without allowance [concurrence]’. After some debate, Mary reluctantly agreed, as she was anxious, above all, to purge herself of the allegations made against her.

In order to prove my goodwill towards [Elizabeth] and to show that I do not refuse to answer to the charges of which I am accused, I am prepared to answer to that accusation only, which touches on the life of Queen Elizabeth, of which I swear and protest that I am innocent.

I will say nothing upon any other matter whatsoever as to any friendship or treaty with any other foreign princes.
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Later that morning, shortly after nine o’clock, thirty-six commissioners
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assembled in the Great Chamber, taking their places on the low settles along each wall. In the well of the court sat the seven judges
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and the lawyers Valentine Dale
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and Ford, two doctors of the civil law; John Popham, the queen’s Attorney General;
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Thomas Egerton, her Solicitor-General;
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Edward Barker, Elizabeth’s notary or registrar; Thomas Gawdy, the serjeant at law; and finally two clerks to record what was said.
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