Ballard's reply was, "That I procured the delivery of the Queen of Scots, I am guilty; and that I went about to alter the religion, I am guilty; but that I intended to slay her Majesty, I am not guilty."
"Not with his own hand," muttered Cavendish, "but for the rest—"
"Pity that what is so bravely spoken should be false," thought Richard, "yet it may be to leave the way open to defence."
Sandys, however, insisted that he must plead to the whole indictment, and Anderson, the Chief-Justice of Common Pleas, declared that he must deny the whole generally, or confess it generally; while Hatton put in, "Ballard, under thine own hand are all things confessed, therefore now it is much vanity to stand vaingloriously in denying it."
"Then, sir, I confess I am guilty," he said, with great calmness, though it was the resignation of all hope.
The same question was then put to Babington. He, with "a mild countenance, sober gesture," and all his natural grace, stood up and spoke, saying "that the time for concealment was past, and that he was ready to avow how from his earliest infancy he had believed England to have fallen from the true religion, and had trusted to see it restored thereto. Moreover, he had ever a deep love and compassion for the Queen of Scots. Some," he said, "who are yet at large, and who are yet as deep in the matter as I—"
"Gifford, Morgan, and another," whispered Cavendish significantly.
"Have they escaped?" asked Diccon.
"So 'tis said."
"The decoy ducks," thought Richard.