With the withdrawal of Shrewsbury, a new and more ominous period opened in the life of the Scottish Queen. She was removed from Sheffield to Wingfield; and again from Wingfield to Tutbury. Here, in April, 1585, she was committed to the charge of that "narrow, boorish and bitter secretary," Sir Amias Paulet, who seems to have been selected mainly with a view of driving her to desperation and of rendering the last days of her life as bitter and insufferable as possible. Shrewsbury had, it is true, executed the commands of his mistress; but he had done so without making it clear that he found pleasure in being the instrument of tyranny. In the meantime his upright, gentlemanly character modified, as far as was consistent with his duty and safety, the rigour which it was his office to enforce. Paulet, on the contrary, carried into effect the will of Elizabeth to the letter, and in addition satiated his own fierce and fanatical hatred of his helpless prisoner. What wonder if Mary should become desperate and resolve to embark on whatever expedition, daring and reckless though it might be, that gave even a probable hope of securing her liberty? Seventeen years of waiting and negotiating for a peaceable settlement of her case, had resulted in failure; nay, had left her in greater distress than ever. Whatever quota of humanity had tempered the severity of her treatment, was now replaced by the studied rudeness of her keeper; her son had just disassociated completely his political interests from hers; and the movements and tactics of her enemies awakened and intensified her old fear that she should soon be visited with a secret and unnatural death.
The defection of James deeply wounded the mother's heart. "This was the most unkindest cut of all." That the one for whom she had so long defended the independence of Scotland against the English claim of suzerainty; that the one from whom she had hopefully waited through years of patient suffering to receive even one word that would assure her that she had a son growing up to love and assist her; that the one whom she remembered only as an innocent and playful infant, from whom she had been, torn away by heartless traitors,--that he should abandon her when fresh miseries were gathering thick and fast around her, was more than she could calmly suffer, and for a short time her wounded love and feelings of indignation were revealed in sad and bitter complaint. "Was it for this," she wrote to the French Ambassador, "that I have endured so much, in order to preserve for him the inheritance to which I have a just right? I am far from envying his authority in Scotland. I desire no power, nor wish to set my foot in that kingdom, if it were not for the pleasure of once embracing a son, whom I have hitherto loved with too tender affection. Whatever he either enjoys or expects, he derived it from me. From him I never received assistance, supply or benefit of any kind. Let not my allies treat him any longer as a king; he holds that dignity by my consent; and if a speedy repentance does not appease my just resentment, I will load him with a parent's curse, and surrender my crown, with all its pretensions, to one who will receive them with gratitude, and defend them with vigour."
The English Parliament had recently framed a statute, out of special consideration for the Queen of Scots, by which it was enacted that, not only the person by whom, but also the person for whom, a rebellion should be excited against the majesty of Elizabeth, might be visited with several penalties, and "pursued to death," and it only remained to induce Mary to avail herself of the benefits of that benign legislation.[#] The event long hoped for by her enemies ere long came to pass. The net of Secretary Walsingham's cunning intrigue gradually involved the unsuspecting victim in its deadly meshes. In April, 1586, a young English Catholic gentleman, named Babington, whom a spirit of chivalry had deeply interested in the Scottish Queen's behalf, and who was stung to desperation by the injustices which he and his co-religionists were obliged to suffer because they would not forswear the faith of their English forefathers, was drawn into a plot, devised by Morgan and Paget in France, for the overthrow of Elizabeth and the liberation of Mary. This plot is known in English history as the Babington plot, though it might, with far more truth, be called the Walsingham plot. Walsingham was aware of its existence for some months before the services of Babington were solicited. His agents, especially Pooley and Gilbert Gifford, combined the offices of staunch conspirators and spies at the same time, and kept their master fully informed of what was being done. The assassination of Elizabeth formed no part of the original design. It was only at a consultation, held at Paris, in April, in which Gifford took an active part, that this daring project was agreed upon, and that it was resolved to seek the aid of the unfortunate young Babington. In the meantime, Walsingham, anxious that Mary might be entangled as completely as possible in his net, and tempted to ratify the compromising scheme that he himself, through his worthy agent, had helped to concoct, arranged that she should be given favourable opportunities for communication with her outside friends; but he equally provided that the medium of communication should be persons in his own service. Thus, the letters she sent out, as well as those she received, all passed through the office of the Secretary of State, were deciphered there by another noted instrument of the Secretary's, named Philipps, and forwarded to their destination with whatever addition or interpolation seemed best calculated to provoke a reply directly implicating the unsuspecting captive.
[#] In justice it must be stated, that it was not under this statute, but under a later one requiring the complicity of the party in whose interest the treasonable measures should be taken, that the Queen of Scots was subsequently condemned.
Elizabeth and her Minister knew that the plot had now reached a point beyond which it would be perilous to allow it to proceed. Early in August, Babington and his associates were arrested, and on the 16th of the same month Mary, who was then at Chartley, in Staffordshire, was removed without forewarning, her two Secretaries, Curle and Nau being separated from her, and all her papers seized; a few weeks later (25th September) she was lodged in the ominous castle of Fotheringay, in Northamptonshire.
"The name of Fotheringay had been connected through a long course of years with many sorrows and much crime, and during the last three years the castle had been used as a state prison. Catherine of Arragon, more fortunate than her great-niece, had flatly refused to be imprisoned within its walls, declaring that 'to Fotheringay she would not go, unless bound with cart rope and dragged thither.' Tradition, often kinder than history, asserts that James VI., after his accession to the English throne, destroyed the castle; and though it is no longer possible to credit him with this act of filial love or remorse, time has obliterated almost every trace of the once grim fortress. A green mound, an isolated mass of masonry, and a few thistles, are all that now remain to mark the scene of Mary's last sufferings. Very different was the aspect of Fotheringay at the time of which we write. Then, protected by its double moat, it frowned on the surrounding country in almost impregnable strength. The front of the castle and the great gateway faced the north, while to the southwest rose the keep. A large courtyard occupied the interior of the building, in which were situated the chief apartments, including the chapel and the great hall destined to be the scene of the queen's death."[#]
[#] Hon. Mrs. Maxwell Scott in "The Tragedy of Fotheringay."
A moment had now arrived in which the helpless Queen, broken down by nineteen years of close confinement and consequent ill-health, had heed to summon up all her native courage. Her papers and most of her private correspondence had been carried off to London; her Secretaries, who had been privy to all her plots and plans, had been separated from her, and with the terrors of the rack before their minds would be forced not only to divulge what they knew, but still worse to subscribe, perhaps, to what they did not believe; and she, without counsel or comfort, was left in the hands of her enemies. The manoeuvrings of her enemies at this time show that they expected that, finding herself alone and in the extremity of danger, she would cast herself at the feet of Elizabeth, confess that she was guilty, and sue for pardon. But they had yet to learn the calm dignity, the unflinching courage and the Christian hopefulness with which Mary Stewart could place her neck upon the block.
A commission of the nobles was appointed to try her at Fotheringay, on the charge of plotting against the life of Elizabeth. Mary protested against the manner in which she was to be tried as belittling an independent sovereign, who was subject neither to the laws nor to the Queen of England. But at length, through fear that her refusal to appear before the commissioners would be interpreted as a sign of guilt, and through dread of being dispatched secretly by poison--in which case her enemies could assert what they wished about the way she died--she consented to appear, and for two days sat before the commissioners listening to and answering accusations.
The proceedings in which she was constrained to take part cannot properly be called a trial. She was deprived, as far as possible, of every means of defence; she had no secretary, her correspondence was withheld from her, she was refused counsel. "Alas," she said to her faithful servant Melville, as she took her seat the first day before the Commissioners, "Alas, here are many counsellors, but not one for me." Nevertheless she spoke with so much courage and energy, and showed so little regard for the wrath of her enemies, or even for death itself, so long as her honour was vindicated, that she surprised and partly confounded the hard-hearted zealots who were hounding her to death.