Mary stood staring at the disorder in dismay while Paulet watched her, a smile of satisfaction on his lips.
“At least,” said Mary, “there are two things of which I cannot be robbed—my English blood and my Catholic Faith, in which, by the grace of God I intend to die.”
ALEYN CAME INTO THE ROOM and sat down beside his charge.
“I have news for you,” he said. “Your young lady is a prisoner in the Tower.”
Jacques lifted his eyes, weary with sleeplessness, to his jailor’s face. “This is true?”
“True it is. They’ve taken her from the Queen’s side and put her there. They’ve ransacked the Queen’s rooms and have found enough to send her to the block.”
“It cannot be so. She has never done anything to deserve such a fate.”
“There’s some that thinks different.”
“What are they doing to Bessie in the Tower?”
“You’ve no need to concern yourself for her safety. If she’s sensible and you’re sensible . . . why, I shouldn’t wonder if there wouldn’t be a nice little wedding, and all merry ever after.”
“What do you know of these matters? Tell me truly.”
“That the Queen of Scots is in mortal danger.”
“She has committed no crime by trying to escape.”
“You, who wrote all those letters for her, know there was more in it than that.”
“I know that she is innocent of any crime.”
“Conspiring against the life of our gracious Sovereign Elizabeth! Is that no crime then? You should have a care. Such talk smacks of treason.”
“She did not conspire against Elizabeth’s life.”
“If you were to tell all you know . . . you would be let out of here . . . your Bessie would be let out of the Tower. There would be no obstacles to your wedding, and who knows . . . I reckon you’d find yourself with a pleasant place at Court, for my master rewards those who please him and he is a man of great influence.”
Jacques’ tongue wetted his dry lips. What was being offered him? Freedom and Bessie. All that he wanted in life. For what? For betrayal of the Queen.
He was torn in two. He yearned for Bessie . . . for peace . . . to forget this danger. Perhaps to return to France . . . .
Aleyn was looking at him slyly.
A pleasant enough fellow, he was thinking. The sort that didn’t betray easily. But look what was offered him. How would he be able to refuse . . . in time?
“Give him time,” Walsingham had said. “Then when we have his evidence against her, that will be all we need to achieve our purpose.”
BABINGTON KNEW that the end was near.
Everything had turned out so differently from his dreams. The conspiracy was discovered; his guilt—and that of his fellow conspirators—was proved without doubt. They had been tried and found guilty of treason. He had no illusions about the fate which was being prepared for him; he and every man in England knew of the barbaric death which was accorded traitors.
He and Ballard had been tried before a special commission with five others: John Savage, Chidiock Tichbourne, Robert Barnwell, Thomas Salisbury and Henry Donn. It had been useless to attempt to deny their guilt.
Brought face-to-face with Ballard he had blamed him for all that had taken place. How brave and restrained the priest had been on that occasion! He had faced the court and declared: “The fault was mine, for I persuaded Anthony Babington to become a member of this conspiracy. Shed my blood if you will, but spare him.”
This was noble, but had little effect on the court. All were condemned to the terrible traitors’ death.
And now the hour was at hand.
The prisoners were taken out of their cells and drawn on hurdles from Tower Hill through the city to St. Giles’s Fields where a scaffold had been erected.
The crowds were waiting to see these men die perhaps the most horrible death which man could devise.
Ballard, brave to the end, was the first to die.
So those who were condemned to die under similar diabolical circumstances watched their fellow conspirator hanged, cut down before he was dead and disemboweled while still alive by the executioner’s knife.
It was the turn of Babington. Determined not to falter he faced the crowd and told them that he had not joined the conspiracy for private gain but because he believed he was engaged in a deed both lawful and meritorious.
The hands of the executioner were upon him.
He was still alive when they cut the rope about his neck. He saw the executioner’s knife poised above his suffering body; he felt the sharp steel pierce his flesh.
Gone were all the dreams of Earthly greatness.
“Parce mihi, Domine Jesu,” he murmured.
And thus he died.
IN THE STREETS the people were talking of that scene of revolting cruelty. John Savage had broken the rope on which he was hanged; and the terrible mutilation had been endured while he still lived.
When news of the execution was brought to Elizabeth, she asked for a truthful answer as to how the spectators had acted; and when she heard that they had witnessed the scene in silence, she gave orders that it was not to be repeated on the next day when other conspirators were to be executed.
Those who had taken part in the Babington plot and were due for execution on the next day were more fortunate than those who had suffered before them. The Queen ordered that they were to be hanged by the neck until they died.
ELIZABETH was pensive.
The time had come, Burleigh assured her, to take action against the Queen of Scots. Walsingham was in complete agreement with him.
In her hand the Queen held a letter from Leicester, who was in Holland. He was shocked beyond expression, he wrote, that the wicked woman of Scotland had schemed against the life of his beloved Queen. The easiest method of preventing such an occurrence being repeated was to administer a dose of poison. This, urged Leicester, was legal in the circumstances and would relieve his dear mistress of the anxiety he knew she would feel if obliged to sign the death warrant of one who was a Queen even as she was herself.
No, Robert, thought Elizabeth. I will not be accused by my Catholic subjects of her murder.
But what to do?
“Bring her to the Tower,” suggested Walsingham.
But the Queen shook her head. She did not forget that there was a strong Catholic party in London. It had shocked Elizabeth deeply, to learn that there were among her subjects those who could conspire against her. The number involved in the Babington plot was startling; and they were but a minority of the Catholics who were prepared to work against her.
“I shall not have her brought to London,” she said. “She shall go to Fotheringay Castle and there be tried. If she should be found guilty, there shall she meet her fate.”
XVIII
Fotheringay
FOTHERINGAY!
Mary was filled with foreboding as she came to her new prison. She had been separated from many of her friends before she left Chartley, and among these was Barbara Curle who wept bitterly at the parting; but Elizabeth Curle, whom Mary dearly loved, was allowed to accompany the Queen to Fotheringay, as was Jane Kennedy. Andrew Melville, her Master of the Household, was also with her.
The castle was a grim fortress standing on the north bank of the River Nen in Northamptonshire. Mary did not think of escape as she had on entering other prisons, for a sense of inevitable doom had possession of her and she believed that she would never leave this place alive.
When her party had crossed the drawbridge they entered a court which led to a large hall. Mary stood for a few moments looking at this hall before Paulet said harshly that she was to be conducted to her apartments.