Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then—not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart.
"'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall.
"Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear.
The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams."
But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself.
In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied.
The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore.
It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties.
"It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty."
The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him.