swear to having seen and recognised these documents. But, unfortunately for the case of Elizabeth and her ministers, they produced no original document or letter whatever, but only copies, the very non-production of the originals being plain proof that they durst not produce them, but were compelled to go upon copies, or pretended copies, which, if based on real documents, might be, and, from their non-production, undoubtedly were, garbled to suit their deadly purpose.
Mary, knowing nothing of the proofs to be brought forward, at first denied any correspondence with Babington; but she soon saw enough to convince her that they had their correspondence in their possession, and admitted having written the note of the 18th, but not any such answer to Babington on the 17th of July, as they asserted. She very properly asserted that if they meant only to ascertain truth and fact, they ought to have kept Babington to produce against her, and not have put him out of the way. She demanded the production of the original letters, and the production of Nau and Curle face to face with her, for that Nau was timid and simple, and Curie so accustomed to obey Nau that he would not do otherwise; but she was sure that in her presence they would not venture to speak falsely. But neither of these things, no doubt for the strongest of reasons, were consented to. As to her letters, she said, it was not the first time that they had been garbled and interpolated. It was easy for one man to imitate the writing and ciphers of another; and she greatly feared that Walsingham had done it in this instance, to practise against the lives of both herself and her son.
At this direct charge, Walsingham arose and called God to witness his innocence, protesting that he had done nothing unbecoming an honest man. But Walsingham was so hardened by long years of duplicity and the practice of the basest acts, that he could no longer judge of what was honest or dishonest. His moral sense must have been as dead as the pavement under his feet. Mary, however, desired him not to take offence at what she had said: it was only what she had been told, and she begged him to give no more credit to those who slandered her than she did to those who slandered him.
As her reasonable requests of the production of the original documents and of Nau and Curle were not granted, though Elizabeth was said to offer no objection to the appearance of the secretaries, Mary once more appealed to be heard in full Parliament, or before the queen in council, and then rose, and, after a few words apart with Burleigh, Warwick, Hatton, and Walsingham, she withdrew.
On this the commissioners adjourned their sitting from the present time to the 15th of October, and from Fotheringay to the Star Chamber at Westminster—ominous place, notorious for the perpetration of constant acts of arbitrary injustice. It appears by a letter of Burleigh's that great debate arose on the question after the retirement of Mary, which could only be ended by the adjournment. He says that as the commissioners could not give judgment till the record was drawn up, which would take five or six days, they could not remain there without a dearth of provisions, for they had two thousand people with them. But Walsingham assigns another reason: that they adjourned in consequence of the consideration due to the quality of the prisoner. The real reasons, no doubt, were, that, as we have seen, Elizabeth had bound them not to pass sentence till they had come back to her; and to this must be added the embarrassing fact that Mary had demanded to see Nau and Curle face to face. That was no more convenient than the production of the original documents on which they pretended to adjudge the Queen of Scots. When they did meet again, they summoned Nan and Curle before them—a perfect farce, if it were done in consequence of Mary's challenge, because she was now absent, and could not interrogate them, or keep them to the truth by her presence. They called on the secretaries to affirm afresh the truth of their depositions. This they did not hesitate to do; but Nau again maintained, as he had done all along, that the only points in the indictment which could criminate Mary as an accomplice in any design against the life of Elizabeth were false, and substantiated by no real and authentic evidence. Walsingham was highly indignant with the secretary, and endeavoured to browbeat and silence him by the depositions of the conspirators already executed, and by those of some of Mary's servants; but Nau maintained his assertion that every atom of evidence which went to inculpate the queen in the design of the conspirators was forged and false, and summoned the commissioners to meet him face to face before God and all Christian kings, where no false evidence could avail, and where he would prove the innocence of his queen—a queen as much as the Queen of England.
But nothing could influence this body, whose one impulse was fear of their sovereign. They had their work to do according to her will, and they did it. With the exception of Lord Zouch, who objected to the charge of assassination, the commissioners unanimously signed Mary's condemnation. The sentence was this:—"For that since the conclusion of the session of Parliament, viz., since the 1st day of June, in the twenty-seventh year of her Majesty's reign and before the date of the commission, divers matters have been compassed and imagined within this realm of England by Anthony Babington and others, with the privity of the said Mary, pretending a title to the crown of this realm of England, tending to the hurt, death, and destruction of the royal person of our lady the queen; and also for that the aforesaid Mary, pretending a title to the crown, hath herself compassed and imagined within this realm divers matters tending to the hurt, death, and destruction of the Royal person of our sovereign lady the queen, contrary to the form of the statute in the commission aforesaid specified." Nau and Curle were declared abettors, so that it was a sentence of death to all the three. To this a provision was added that the sentence should in no way derogate from the right or dignity of her son, James King of Scotland.
On the 29th of October—that is, four days after the passing of this sentence—Elizabeth assembled her Parliament. She had summoned it for the 15th, anticipating quicker work at Fotheringay, but prorogued it to this date. The proceedings of the trial were laid before each house, and both Lords and Commons petitioned Elizabeth to enforce the execution of the Queen of Scots without delay. Serjeant Puckering, the Speaker of the Commons, in communicating the prayer of the House, reminded Elizabeth of the wrath of God against persons who neglected
