THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
The spacious park of Sheffield, in which Mary's prison was situated,
beautiful as was the natural scenery of river, mountain and cultivated
slope, that extended far beyond it, could offer no antidote to the
"_dura catena, et misera paena_," in which she languished. Her mind had
already been stored with pictures of the choicest rural scenery in
France, and of the rugged grandeur of Aberdeen and Perthshire; and the
variegated charms on which she could now gaze from her prison window
only served to produce that sad pleasure which we feel in renewing
memories of joys that have forever departed. Well, has Mr. Samuel
Roberts (in his feeling lines in reference to her stay at Sheffield
Lodge) presumed that she gazed upon the "lovely scene" "through
tears":--
Alone, here oft may Scotia's beauteous queen,
Through tears have gazed upon the lovely scene,
Victim of villainy, of woman's hate,
Of fiery zeal, of wiles and storms of state;
Torn from her throne, her country and her child,
And cast an exiled monarch in this wild,
She here was taught, what youthful beauty ne'er
While seated on a throne, had deigned to hear,
To say submissive, at the closing scene,
"'Tis well that I have thus afflicted been;"
Then calmly on the block, in faith, resign
Three heart-corrupting crowns, for one divine.
Reader,--the ways of God are not like thine.
In August, 1584, Shrewsbury was released of his charge. He had served
long and faithfully in a capacity that was repulsive to his instincts;
and after fifteen full years of close acquaintance with the captive
Queen, he was able to assure Elizabeth "that if the Queen of Scotland
promise anything she will not break her word."
With the withdrawal of Shrewsbury, a new and more ominous period opened
in the life of the Scottish Queen. She was removed from Sheffield to
Wingfield; and again from Wingfield to Tutbury. Here, in April, 1585,
she was committed to the charge of that "narrow, boorish and bitter
secretary," Sir Amias Paulet, who seems to have been selected mainly
with a view of driving her to desperation and of rendering the last days
of her life as bitter and insufferable as possible. Shrewsbury had, it
is true, executed the commands of his mistress; but he had done so
without making it clear that he found pleasure in being the instrument
of tyranny. In the meantime his upright, gentlemanly character
modified, as far as was consistent with his duty and safety, the rigour
which it was his office to enforce. Paulet, on the contrary, carried
into effect the will of Elizabeth to the letter, and in addition
satiated his own fierce and fanatical hatred of his helpless prisoner.
What wonder if Mary should become desperate and resolve to embark on
whatever expedition, daring and reckless though it might be, that gave
even a probable hope of securing her liberty? Seventeen years of
waiting and negotiating for a peaceable settlement of her case, had
resulted in failure; nay, had left her in greater distress than ever.
Whatever quota of humanity had tempered the severity of her treatment,
was now replaced by the studied rudeness of her keeper; her son had just
disassociated completely his political interests from hers; and the
movements and tactics of her enemies awakened and intensified her old
fear that she should soon be visited with a secret and unnatural death.
The defection of James deeply wounded the mother's heart. "This was the
most unkindest cut of all." That the one for whom she had so long
defended the independence of Scotland against the English claim of
suzerainty; that the one from whom she had hopefully waited through
years of patient suffering to receive even one word that would assure
her that she had a son growing up to love and assist her; that the one
whom she remembered only as an innocent and playful infant, from whom
she had been, torn away by heartless traitors,--that he should abandon
her when fresh miseries were gathering thick and fast around her, was
more than she could calmly suffer, and for a short time her wounded love
and feelings of indignation were revealed in sad and bitter complaint.
"Was it for this," she wrote to the French Ambassador, "that I have
endured so much, in order to preserve for him the inheritance to which I
have a just right? I am far from envying his authority in Scotland. I
desire no power, nor wish to set my foot in that kingdom, if it were not
for the pleasure of once embracing a son, whom I have hitherto loved
with too tender affection. Whatever he either enjoys or expects, he
derived it from me. From him I never received assistance, supply or
benefit of any kind. Let not my allies treat him any longer as a king;
he holds that dignity by my consent; and if a speedy repentance does not
appease my just resentment, I will load him with a parent's curse, and
surrender my crown, with all its pretensions, to one who will receive
them with gratitude, and defend them with vigour."
The English Parliament had recently framed a statute, out of special
consideration for the Queen of Scots, by which it was enacted that, not
only the person _by_ whom, but also the person _for_ whom, a rebellion
should be excited against the majesty of Elizabeth, might be visited
with several penalties, and "pursued to death," and it only remained to
induce Mary to avail herself of the benefits of that benign
legislation.[#] The event long hoped for by her enemies ere long came
to pass. The net of Secretary Walsingham's cunning intrigue gradually
involved the unsuspecting victim in its deadly meshes. In April, 1586,
a young English Catholic gentleman, named Babington, whom a spirit of
chivalry had deeply interested in the Scottish Queen's behalf, and who
was stung to desperation by the injustices which he and his
co-religionists were obliged to suffer because they would not forswear
the faith of their English forefathers, was drawn into a plot, devised
by Morgan and Paget in France, for the overthrow of Elizabeth and the
liberation of Mary. This plot is known in English history as the
Babington plot, though it might, with far more truth, be called the
Walsingham plot. Walsingham was aware of its existence for some months
before the services of Babington were solicited. His agents, especially
Pooley and Gilbert Gifford, combined the offices of staunch conspirators
and spies at the same time, and kept their master fully informed of what
was being done. The assassination of Elizabeth formed no part of the
original design. It was only at a consultation, held at Paris, in
April, in which Gifford took an active part, that this daring project
was agreed upon, and that it was resolved to seek the aid of the
unfortunate young Babington. In the meantime, Walsingham, anxious that
Mary might be entangled as completely as possible in his net, and
tempted to ratify the compromising scheme that he himself, through his
worthy agent, had helped to concoct, arranged that she should be given
favourable opportunities for communication with her outside friends; but
he equally provided that the medium of communication should be persons
in his own service. Thus, the letters she sent out, as well as those
she received, all passed through the office of the Secretary of State,
were deciphered there by another noted instrument of the Secretary's,
named Philipps, and forwarded to their destination with whatever
addition or interpolation seemed best calculated to provoke a reply
directly implicating the unsuspecting captive.
[#] In justice it must be stated, that it was not under this statute,
but under a later one requiring the complicity of the party in whose
interest the treasonable measures should be taken, that the Queen of
Scots was subsequently condemned.
Elizabeth and her Minister knew that the plot had now reached a point
beyond which it would be perilous to allow it to proceed. Early in
August, Babington and his associates were arrested, and on the 16th of
the same month Mary, who was then at Chartley, in Staffordshire, was
removed without forewarning, her two Secretaries, Curle and Nau being
separated from her, and all her papers seized; a few weeks later (25th
September) she was lodged in the ominous castle of Fotheringay, in
Northamptonshire.
"The name of Fotheringay had been connected through a long course of
years with many sorrows and much crime, and during the last three years
the castle had been used as a state prison. Catherine of Arragon, more
fortunate than her great-niece, had flatly refused to be imprisoned
within its walls, declaring that 'to Fotheringay she would not go,
unless bound with cart rope and dragged thither.' Tradition, often
kinder than history, asserts that James VI., after his accession to the
English throne, destroyed the castle; and though it is no longer
possible to credit him with this act of filial love or remorse, time has
obliterated almost every trace of the once grim fortress. A green
mound, an isolated mass of masonry, and a few thistles, are all that now
remain to mark the scene of Mary's last sufferings. Very different was
the aspect of Fotheringay at the time of which we write. Then,
protected by its double moat, it frowned on the surrounding country in
almost impregnable strength. The front of the castle and the great
gateway faced the north, while to the southwest rose the keep. A large
courtyard occupied the interior of the building, in which were situated
the chief apartments, including the chapel and the great hall destined
to be the scene of the queen's death."[#]
[#] Hon. Mrs. Maxwell Scott in "_The Tragedy of Fotheringay_."
A moment had now arrived in which the helpless Queen, broken down by
nineteen years of close confinement and consequent ill-health, had heed
to summon up all her native courage. Her papers and most of her private
correspondence had been carried off to London; her Secretaries, who had
been privy to all her plots and plans, had been separated from her, and
with the terrors of the rack before their minds would be forced not only
to divulge what they knew, but still worse to subscribe, perhaps, to
what they did not believe; and she, without counsel or comfort, was left
in the hands of her enemies. The manoeuvrings of her enemies at this
time show that they expected that, finding herself alone and in the
extremity of danger, she would cast herself at the feet of Elizabeth,
confess that she was guilty, and sue for pardon. But they had yet to
learn the calm dignity, the unflinching courage and the Christian
hopefulness with which Mary Stewart could place her neck upon the block.
A commission of the nobles was appointed to try her at Fotheringay, on
the charge of plotting against the life of Elizabeth. Mary protested
against the manner in which she was to be tried as belittling an
independent sovereign, who was subject neither to the laws nor to the
Queen of England. But at length, through fear that her refusal to
appear before the commissioners would be interpreted as a sign of guilt,
and through dread of being dispatched secretly by poison--in which case
her enemies could assert what they wished about the way she died--she
consented to appear, and for two days sat before the commissioners
listening to and answering accusations.
The proceedings in which she was constrained to take part cannot
properly be called a trial. She was deprived, as far as possible, of
every means of defence; she had no secretary, her correspondence was
withheld from her, she was refused counsel. "Alas," she said to her
faithful servant Melville, as she took her seat the first day before the
Commissioners, "Alas, here are many counsellors, but not one for me."
Nevertheless she spoke with so much courage and energy, and showed so
little regard for the wrath of her enemies, or even for death itself, so
long as her honour was vindicated, that she surprised and partly
confounded the hard-hearted zealots who were hounding her to death.
On the 14th of October, the trial was opened in a large room in
Fotheringay Castle. Seated on benches placed in the middle of the room
and along both walls were all the Peers of England who could
conveniently be brought together, as well as the various officers of the
court. Once upon a time, in the brave days of knight-errantry, no
injured lady need have feared to present herself and plead her cause
before the assembled chivalry of "Merry England," but 'old times were
changed, old manners gone.' At 9 o'clock in the forenoon, the Queen
entered, supported by Melville and Bourgoin her physician. She had been
personally acquainted with but very few of those who sat there to pass
judgment upon her. Many of them had been known to her by name, a few
had been attached to her cause, and she looked about in the hope of
meeting an eye that would reveal the presence of a friend. But she was
disappointed. No one in that hostile assembly, however he might feel in
his heart, would venture now to betray any sign of sympathy. Three
faces must have impressed her more than all the rest as suggesting, in
three different periods, the history of her troubled career. There she
saw Sir Ralph Sadler, the English Ambassador who, forty-four years
before, had stood over her cradle in the nursery at Linlithgow and
pronounced her a "right fair and goodly child;" there she saw Sir
William Cecil (now Lord Burleigh), who had been her ablest and most
industrious enemy through all the years of her short reign, and who had
contributed more perhaps that any other individual to produce the
Scottish anarchy in which she had lost her crown; and there she met, for
the first time, the gaze of the crafty and vigilant Sir Francis
Walsingham, whose mephistophelian devices had led her to the precipice
over which she now hung, without an arm to save her.