It was at this period that popular madness was raised to its utmost height by the detection of Babington’s conspiracy. Rich, young, brave, and romantic; stimulated by the hope of gaining the hand of Mary, forgetful that the personal loveliness for which she had once been conspicuous must long have yielded to the joint influence of misery and time; and deceived by the fatal maxim, then too much in vogue, that means are justified by ends—this gentleman resolved on bringing about the liberation of the Scottish by the murder of the English queen. The affair was not looked upon as so atrocious, but that twelve associates were easily found for the execution of the plot; and it is barely possible that, had they proceeded at once to action, their desperate effort might have been crowned with success. They delayed—they talked—they were discovered! Beneath the protracted agonies of the question, one was found of these convicted traitors who asserted the privity of Mary to the whole affair; and at once, as though a torch had been applied to some train long prepared, the whole of England burst forth into a perfect frenzy of terror. A people are never so terrible, never so barbarous, as when they are thoroughly and needlessly terrified. From every quarter of the kingdom the cry was at once for blood; and Elizabeth, looking in cool delight upon the tumult, perceived that the moment had arrived when she might gratify, without fear, her jealous thirst for her hated guest’s destruction. Addresses showered into either house of parliament, beseeching the queen and her ministers to awaken themselves at once to the perils of the people; to provide against the impended dangers of a catholic succession; and to remove at once all possibility of future conspiracies by the immediate removal of her who was, as they asserted, not the cause only, but the principal mover of every successive plot.
It is not to be supposed that, after pining so long in secret for an opportunity of gratifying her malice, Elizabeth doubted an instant. It is true indeed that, with a loathsome affectation of tender-heartedness, she pretended to regret the stern necessity; that she whined forth doleful remonstrances to her trusty ministers, entreating them to discover some mode by which she might herself be preserved from the risk of assassination, without undergoing the misery of seeing her well-beloved cousin of Scotland suffer in her stead! Well, however, did those ministers know the meaning of the motives of their odious mistress; well were they aware that there was no more of pity or reluctance in the bosom of Elizabeth than there is of mirth in that of the hyena when he sends forth his yells of laughter above his mangled prey!
It was a lovely morning in the autumn; the sun was shedding a mellow light upon the long glades and velvet turf of a park-like lawn before the feudal towers of the earl of Shrewsbury. Before the gate were assembled a group of liveried domestics, with many a noble steed pawing the earth and champing its foamy bits; hounds clamored in their couples, and falcons shook themselves and clapped their restless wings in vain impatience. It was evident that the attendants were but awaiting the approach of some distinguished personage, to commence their sports; and by their whispered conversation it appeared that this personage was no other than the wretched Mary. The castle-gates were thrown open; a heavy guard, with arquebuss, and pike, and bow, filed through the gloomy gateway; and then, leaning upon the arm of the still stately Shrewsbury, the poor victim of inveterate persecution came slowly forward. Several gentlemen in rich attire, and among them Sir Thomas Georges, blazing in the royal liveries of England, yet bearing on his soiled buskins and the bloody spurs that graced them tokens of a long and hasty journey, followed; and another band of warders brought up the rear.
The charms which had once rendered Mary the loveliest of her sex, had faded, it is true; the dimpled cheek was sunken, and its hues, that once had vied with the carnation, had fled for ever; her tresses were no longer of that rich and golden brown that had furnished subjects for a thousand sonnets, for many a line of gray marked the premature and wintry blight which had been cast upon her beauties by the sternness and misery of her latter years. Still, there was an air of such sweet resignation in every feature, such a dignity in the port of her person—still symmetrical, though it had lost something of its roundness—such a majesty in her still-brilliant eyes—that even the wretches who had determined on her destruction dared not meet the glance of her whom they so foully wronged.
She was already seated in the saddle, and the reins just grasped in a delicate but masterly hand, when Georges, stepping forward and bending a knee—almost, as it would seem, in mockery—informed her that her confederates in the meditated slaughter of Elizabeth were convicted; that it was the pleasure of the queen that her grace of Scotland should proceed at once to the sure castle of Fotheringay, and that it was resolved that she should set forth upon the instant. For a moment, but for a single moment, did Mary gaze into the eyes of the courtly speaker, with a gaze of incredulity, almost of terror; a quick shudder ran through every limb; and once she wrung her hands bitterly—but not a word escaped her pallid lips, not a tear disgraced her noble race.
“It is well, sir,” she said, “it is well. We thank you, no less for your pleasant tidings, than the knightly considerations which prompted you to choose so well your opportunity for conveying them to our ear when we were about to set forth in search of such brief pleasure as might for a moment gild the monotony of a prisoner’s life! We thank you, sir, most warmly, and we doubt not your own noble heart will reward you by that best of gifts, a happy and approving conscience! For the rest—lead on! it matters little to the wretched and the captive by what title the prison-bars, which shut them out from light, and liberty, and hope, are dignified; and well do we know that for us there is but one exit from our dungeon, or rest from our calamities—the grave!”
She had commenced her speech in that tone of calm and polished raillery for which she had in her earlier days been so renowned, and which even pierced deeper into the feelings of those who writhed beneath it than the most bitter sarcasm; but her concluding sentences were uttered with deep feeling: and, as she turned her liquid eyes toward heaven, it seemed most wonderful that men should exist capable of exciting a single pang in the heart of such a creature.
The gates of Fotheringay received her; and, as she rode beneath the gloomy archway, a prophetic chill fell upon her soul, and she felt that here her wanderings and her sorrows would shortly be brought to a close! Scarcely had she reached the miserable privacy of her chamber, when steps were heard without. Mildmay, Paulet, and Barker, entered, and delivering a letter full of hypocritical regrets and feigned affection, informed her that the queen’s commissioners were even then assembled in the castle-hall, and prayed the lady Mary to descend and refute the foul charges preferred against her name.
Enfeebled as she had been by sufferings and sorrows, wearied by her long and rapid journey, and, above all things, crushed by this last blow, it little seemed that so frail and delicate a form could have contained a soul so mighty as flashed forth in one blaze of indignation. Her pale cheek crimsoned, her sunken eye glared with unwonted fire; she started upon her feet, her limbs trembling, not with terror or debility, but with strong and terrible excitement.
“Knows not your mistress,” she cried, in clear, high tones, “that I, too, am a queen? or would she knowingly debase the dignity which is common to her with me? Away! I will not deign to plead! I—I, the queen of Scotland, the mother and the wife of kings—I plead to mine inferiors? Go tell your mistress that neither eighteen years of vile captivity, nor dread, nor misery, has sunk the soul of Mary Stuart so low, that she will speak one syllable to guard her life, save in the presence of her peers! Let her assemble her high courts of parliament, if she so will it: to them, and to them only, will I plead. Here she may slay me, it is true; but she must slay me by the assassin’s knife, not by the prostituted sword of justice. I have spoken!”—and she threw herself at once into a seat, immoveable alike in position and in resolve.