Robert was beginning to hate the Netherlands; he was longing for nothing so much as to return home. He wished he had never thought of leaving England and had not been tempted lightly to take that which had been offered.
His melancholy turned to bitter grief when, after the battle of Zutphen, in which he himself fought valiantly, the dead were brought in and he found among them the body of his nephew.
He listened to the accounts of how nobly Philip Sidney had died. This gallant young man had given part of his armor to another man, although he knew himself to be in need of it. When Philip had been fainting from wounds a cup of water had been put to his lips by one of his men; but Philip, seeing a soldier close by groaning in agony, had sent his man over to the sufferer that the water might be given to one who was in greater need of it than he himself. Robert was proud of his nephew, but he felt that he would have given everything that was left to him if he might have brought him back to life.
So Robert lived through his gloomiest hour. He felt in that moment that death would have been preferable to the plight in which he found himself.
When Robert was suffering in the Netherlands, news of the Babington Conspiracy swept through England. Babington, a young man fascinated by the charm of the Queen of Scots when he had been a page in her household, had been persuaded by a group of men to communicate with the Queen with a view to effecting the assassination of Elizabeth and the setting of Mary upon the throne.
Mary had lost none of her impetuosity during the years and, to her, plotting was an exciting pastime.
The conspirators had forgotten what elaborate spy-systems had been set in motion by the alert Walsingham.
Walsingham understood what was happening in the early stages of the plot, for a priest, Gilbert Gifford, having been sent to England secretly to work against Protestantism with the help of the great Catholic families, was captured. Walsingham promised to spare his life if he would become his spy.
This the priest agreed to do and, when Mary was removed from Tutbury to Chartley, Gifford arranged with the brewer who supplied the Chartley beer to convey letters to and from Mary. These were wrapped in waterproof cases and put through the bunghole of the kegs—letters going to Mary in full kegs, hers coming out in empty ones. Gifford took these letters and, before passing them on to those for whom they were intended, handed them to Walsingham, who, putting them into the hands of an expert decoder, learned their contents and was able to follow every twist and turn of the plot.
It was arranged that six men should assassinate Elizabeth. One of the six was to be Babington. If the deed were successfully carried out, these men believed that it would be a simple matter to set Mary on the throne.
Walsingham, as one of the leaders of the Protestant Party, had always deplored the fact that Mary had been allowed to live; and as soon as Mary’s letter to the conspirators—in which she gave her full support to the assassination of Elizabeth—was in his hands, he lost no time in arresting the men and laying the whole plot before the Queen and her Council.
All England rejoiced as soon as the news was made known. Bonfires were lighted; in the country there was dancing on the village greens; in the towns there was singing in the streets. The beloved Queen had narrowly escaped, and at last the Jezebel of Scotland was shown to her most merciful Majesty for what she was. There were services in the churches and on street corners.
Elizabeth noted these expressions of love and loyalty with deep gratification; but she knew that the people were demanding the death of Mary.
Seven of the conspirators whose names had appeared in the letters were placed on hurdles and dragged through the City from Tower Hill to St. Giles’ Fields. Anthony Babington was one of the seven. After these seven had been hanged, they were cut down alive and disemboweled while still living. Such cruelties had been frequently witnessed during the reign of the great Henry; they were rarer in these days.
The agonized screams of tortured men were heard beyond St. Giles’ Fields, and many thought, as they listened, of the wicked woman whom they held responsible for the terrible suffering of these men whose crime was that they had attempted to serve her.
The next day seven more men were condemned to die in the same terrible manner; but Elizabeth, who knew the mood of the people, and who knew too that they expected clemency from her, commanded that the men should not be cut down until they were dead. The mutilations of their bodies should be performed after death.
There remained Mary; and Elizabeth knew that she must die, Queen though she was.
She was taken from Chartley to Fotheringay and there tried before the commissioners of peers, privy councillors and judges; and in spite of her protestations of innocence, her repeated cries that Walsingham had forged the letters which he had laid before the Queen and her ministers, she was found guilty of plotting against Elizabeth and condemned to die.
Elizabeth was even now reluctant to sign the death warrant. That Queens were above the judgment of ordinary men was a maxim she wished to preserve; but great pressure was brought upon her. The situation vis-à-vis Spain was recalled to her mind, and eventually she was prevailed upon to sign the warrant. But she did not dispatch it; and as Walsingham was at that time indisposed, the responsibility for sending the warrant to Fotheringay fell upon a secretary, William Davison.
One February morning, Mary, dressed in black velvet, her crucifix in her hand, went to the hall of the castle of Fotheringay where the block and the executioner were awaiting her. Calmly she bade farewell to her servants.
“Weep not,” she told them, “for thou hast cause rather to joy than to mourn, for now thou shalt see Mary Stuart’s troubles receive their long-expected end.”
The whole Catholic world was talking of the wicked Walsingham’s forgeries, of the evil act of the Jezebel of England whose hands were red with the blood of her enemies.
Walsingham and Burghley would snap their fingers at their enemies. Not so the Queen. The threat of war was moving nearer; in the Spanish harbors work was going on apace in the building of that Armada which was to conquer the world; and its first victim was to be Elizabeth’s England.
The Queen sought to placate her enemies. Her great desire was to hold off the evil day. Time was her ally—now as ever.
She chose William Davison as her scapegoat. She declared she had never meant the warrant to be sent to Fotheringay. She mourned her sister of Scotland. She had never wished for Mary’s death.
She had Davison sent to the Tower. He was to pay a fine which would impoverish him. But she told him before he went that she would continue to pay his salary while he was a prisoner and, as he fell on his knees before her, she let one of her long slender hands pat his shoulder.
The Queen’s reassuring touch told Davison that he was merely the scapegoat she was offering to Spain; and she herself hated Spain as fiercely as any in her realm.
As it turned out, Davison continued to receive his salary, for the Queen kept her word; and when he was shortly afterward released, she did not forget to reward him.
So Mary Stuart died; but the Spanish menace grew and Elizabeth knew that the whole of England was threatened.
When Robert returned from the Netherlands he was greeted rapturously by the Queen. It was a year since she had seen him, and she felt a great and tender pity touch her as she looked into his face.
How he had suffered! His dignity was lost, and the great position for which he had longed was taken from him. She had heard that he was ill in the Netherlands and needed his English doctors. She had at once had them sent to him, for when she heard of his illness all her rancor had disappeared. Lettice was blatantly unfaithful with that young and handsome Christopher Blount. So how could Elizabeth scold him at such a time? How could she do anything but take him under her wing? He had lost dear Philip Sidney, that handsome and most clever young man. Life had suddenly turned cruel to Robert; and seeing this, the Queen knew the height, depth and breadth of her love which had flickered and flamed for nearly forty years and which, she knew, nothing could ever entirely extinguish.