Elizabeth's Spymaster (24 page)

Mary, after breaking her pious fast by drinking a small cup of wine ‘as she felt weak and ill’, made a stately entrance to the courtroom, dressed in a gown and mantle of black velvet with a long white gauze veil over her widow’s cambric cap, her train carried by one of her maids of honour, Renée Beauregard.

Her carefully stage-managed procession, escorted by soldiers armed with halberds, had a distinctly medical flavour. Because of her rheumatism, she walked with great difficulty, supported on either side by her steward Andrew Melville and her physician Dominique Bourgoing. Her surgeon, Jacques Gervais, followed on behind with her apothecary Pierre Gorion and three gentlewomen, Gillis Mowbray, Jane Kennedy and Alice Curie. But if Mary believed all this would engender any shred of sympathy amongst her judges, she was sadly mistaken.

As she entered, the commissioners politely removed their hats, their action acknowledged by a regal gesture of her hand. Mary paused as she saw the throne beneath the canopied cloth of estate and, nodding towards it, said: ‘I am a queen by right of birth and my place should be there, under the dais.’ After a brief, poignant pause, she recovered her composure and took her seat, positioned to the right of the throne. As she sat, she turned to Melville, standing next to her, and commented: ‘Alas, here are many counsellors, but not one for me.’
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Some of her judges’ faces were unfamiliar and she asked Paulet, standing behind, about the identities of the commissioners around her.

Sir Thomas Bromley, Lord Chancellor, rose and faced her as the muttering and whispers died away in the courtroom. He opened the trial:

The most high and mighty Queen Elizabeth, being not without great grief of mind, advertised that you have conspired the destruction of her and of England and the subversion of religion [and] has, out of her office and duty lest she might seem to have neglected God, herself and her people, and out of no malice at all, appointed these commissioners to hear the matters which shall be objected unto you and how you can clear yourself of them and make known your innocence …
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Madam, you have heard why we have come here; will you please listen to the reading of our commission and I promise you that you shall say all that you wish.
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But Mary, rising painfully to her feet, repeated her protest that she was an independent sovereign and princess, and expressed her fervent desire to show ‘by my replies to all the world, that I am not guilty of this crime against the person of the queen [with] which it seems I am charged’. Her objection was duly recorded by the clerks, scribbling with their pens at their table, and the royal commission in Latin, appointing her judges, was read out.

Gawdy, the serjeant at law, resplendent in his blue robes, a red hood on one shoulder and wearing a round cap upon his head, opened the case for the crown against Mary. He laid out the details of the Babington plot, including the correspondence between Babington and Mary, and claimed that she knew of the conspiracy to kill Elizabeth and had ‘approved it, assented unto it, promised her assistance and showed the ways and means’ to achieve its successful conclusion. The Scottish queen interrupted him with a fierce, defiant rebuttal:

I knew not Babington. I never received any letters from him, nor wrote any to him. I never plotted the destruction of the queen. If you want to prove it, then produce my letters signed with my own hand.

There was a moment’s silence. Gawdy, smilingly triumphant, quickly responded: ‘But we
have
evidence of letters between you and Babington.’ Mary, still feeling sure of her ground, answered:

If so, why do you not produce them? I have the right to demand to see the originals and the copies side by side. It is quite possible that my ciphers have been tampered with by my enemies. I cannot reply to this accusation without full knowledge. Till then, I must content myself with affirming solemnly that I am not guilty of the crimes imputed to me.

I do not deny that I have earnestly wished for liberty and done my utmost to procure it for myself.

In this I acted from a very natural wish – but I take God to witness that I never either conspired against the life of your queen nor approved a plot of that design against her …

Then, damningly, she began to lie and to embroider the fabric of her protest:

I declare formally that I never wrote the letters that are produced against me. Can I be responsible for the criminal projects of a few desperate men, which they planned without my knowledge or participation?
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Suddenly, with a timely sixth sense, she must have begun to experience a sudden, terrible foreboding of Walsingham’s ambush that was closing, relentlessly, around her. Another lawyer stood up and read two letters, one from Mary to Babington and another from him to her. One of Walsingham’s men carefully translated the passages in French for all to hear and understand. The Scottish queen tried to bluster herself out of harm’s way:

It may be that Babington wrote them – but let it be proved that I received them. If Babington or any others affirm it, I say they lie openly. Other men’s crimes are not to be cast upon me.

A packet of letters, which had been kept from me almost a whole year came to my hands about that time, but by whom it was sent I know not.
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Mary continued: ‘If Babington really confessed such things, why was he put to death without being confronted with me? It is because such a meeting would have brought to light the truth, that he was executed so hastily.’

In the teeth of such evidence, the Scottish queen decided to play her powerful sympathy card – seeking pity from those in the court, she was sure, who could not publicly own up to their private thoughts. She pointed to the injustice of her long imprisonment:

I have, as you see, lost my health and the use of my limbs. I cannot walk without assistance, nor use my arms and I spend most of my time confined to bed by sickness.

Not only this, but through my trials, I have lost the small intellectual gifts bestowed on me by God, such as my memory, which would have aided me to recall those things which I have seen and read and which might be useful to me in the cruel position [in which] I find myself. Also the knowledge of matters of business which I formerly had acquired for the discharge of those duties in the state to which God called me, and of which I have been so treacherously despoiled.

Not content with this, my enemies now endeavour to complete my ruin, using against me means which are unheard of towards persons of my rank and unknown in this kingdom before the reign of the present queen and even now not approved by rightful judges …
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Mary maintained that she did not fear

the menaces of men. I will never deny Jesus Christ, knowing well that those who deny him in this world, He will deny before His Father. I demand another hearing, and that I be allowed an advocate to plead my cause, or that I be believed on the word of a queen. I came to England relying upon the friendship and promises of your Queen. Look here my lords, [drawing a ring from her finger] see this pledge of love and protection which I received from your mistress – regard it well.

But all her powerful pleas for sympathy, all the theatre of her emotional eloquence, were swept away by Walsingham’s carefully constructed web of evidence, like a child’s collapsing tower of playing cards. Her fatal letter, written to Babington on 17 July 1586, was read out – including its final condemning plea: ‘Fail not to burn this privately and quickly.’

The Scottish queen burst into tears of frustration and despair. But her defiance was undimmed. Wiping her eyes, she pointed at Walsingham, seated down the room from her, beyond the end of the lawyers’ table:

It is easy to imitate ciphers and handwriting, as has been lately done in France by a young man who boasts that he is my son’s brother.

I fear that all of this is the work of Monsieur de Walsingham for my destruction. [He] I am certain, has tried to deprive me of my life and my son of his.

Her eyes flashing, still gesturing down the room at Elizabeth’s spy master, she issued a challenge: ‘But Mr Walsingham, I think you are an honest man and I pray you say in the words of an honest man whether you have done so or not.’
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She then turned her attention to some of the allegations made against her:

As to Ballard, I have heard him spoken of

Information has reached me from France that he was a very firm Catholic and that he wished to serve me but I was also told that he had great intelligence with Monsieur de Walsingham and that I must be on my guard …

I protest that I never even thought of the ruin of the Queen of England and that I would a hundred times rather have lost my life than see so many Catholics suffer for my sake and be condemned to a cruel death through hatred to my person.
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Lord Treasurer Burghley was sitting on the settle directly in front of Mary. He jumped to his feet and stated firmly: ‘No faithful subject has ever been put to death on account of religion. Some have been for treason, because they maintained the Bull and the authority of the Pope against that of our Queen.’ Mary retorted: ‘Yet I have heard just the contrary and read
so in printed books.’ Burghley replied: ‘The authors of such books also declare that the Queen has forfeited the royal prerogative.’

At the other end of the room, Walsingham stood up and interrupted these exchanges. Bowing his head respectfully in the direction of the royal prisoner, he was uncharacteristically anxious to answer her accusations against him.

I protest that my soul is free from all malice. God is my witness that, as a private person, I have done nothing unworthy of an honest man and as Secretary of State, nothing unbefitting my duty.

He paused as if to lend emphasis to his words, and then addressed Mary directly. The two adversaries at last each confronted their own personal deadly enemy:

You have been told that I wish you ill; that I have often said things to your disadvantage; that I have confessed myself to be your enemy – no, even that I planned that the death of yourself and your son should happen on the same day.

But I assure you that I bear no ill-will to no one.

I have attempted no one’s death.

I protest that I am a man of conscience and a faithful servant to my mistress.

I confess that I am ever vigilant regarding all concerning the safety of my queen and country; I have closely watched all conspiracies against either.

As for Ballard, if he had offered me his assistance I could not have refused it, and should probably ha[ve] rewarded him. If I had any secret dealings with him, why did he not declare them in order to save his life?
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She had clearly twanged a raw nerve in Walsingham’s psyche, forcing him to speak of his private thoughts and motives. This was an astonishingly frank explanation of his personal and professional creed from Elizabeth’s spy master, although in parts – notably the references to the Scottish queen – suitably weasel-worded for a man of the shadowy world
of espionage finding himself in the unaccustomed glare of a state trial.

Mary was impressed by his denials. Perhaps chastened by his eloquence and apparent sincerity and exhausted by the strain of the trial, she begged Walsingham not to be angered by her words; she had merely repeated freely what she had heard reported. The Secretary now should give no more credit to those who slandered her than she did to those who accused him. ‘Spies,’ she said, ‘are men of doubtful credit, who dissemble one thing and speak another.’ She burst into tears once more and added: ‘I would never make shipwreck of my soul by conspiring the destruction of my dearest sister.’

Gawdy quickly interjected that this statement would be disproved by testimony that afternoon. So, at one o’clock, after the heady drama of the morning, the proceedings broke up for the midday meal. Mary told her followers that the trial reminded her of the Passion of Jesus Christ and that she was being treated just as Christ had been by the Jews when He was in the hands of Pontius Pilate. She was seemingly already willingly taking on the mantle of a holy martyr.

After the break for refreshments, the prosecution moved on to the confessions of Claude Nau, her secretary, and Gilbert Curie, her cipher clerk, obtained by Walsingham after the arrest of the Babington conspirators. Their evidence must have come like a thunderbolt to Mary, rocking her supreme confidence, but she stoutly maintained a brave face. She stood up and faced her accusers, and said it might be that these two may have inserted into her letters such things as she had not dictated to them – indeed, letters might have come into their hands that she had never seen.

The majesty and safety of all princes falls to the ground if they depend upon the writings and testimonies of secretaries. I delivered nothing to them but what nature delivered to me, that I might at length recover my liberty.

I am not to be convicted but by my own word or writing.

If they have written anything which may be hurtful to the queen, my sister, they have written it altogether without my knowledge.

Let them bear the punishment of their inconsiderate boldness. I am sure, if they were here present, they would clear me of all blame in this cause. And I, if my notes were at hand, could answer particularly to these things.
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