The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders.
Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture.
Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers.
Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:—
"My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read."
This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which—still standing—he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear.
"Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ."
The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth.
With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now.
It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed.