The bar enclosed the ends of this great horseshoe; and there, between two arquebusiers of the king's guards, sat Lady Jane Seton.
Destitute of every ornament save an amber rosary, she was plainly attired in a deep-skirted and close-bodied dress of blue silk, with hanging sleeves, each of which, from the elbow, had three rows of broad lace; and beneath these, from elbow to wrist, her round white arms were bare. A simple angular cap, of that graceful fashion which we see in the old portraits of Anne Boleyn, covered her head. She was pale as death, and the plain braids of her dark, almost black-brown hair, made her seem paler still. She had become fearfully thin and hollow-cheeked, but the character of her beauty was rather increased than impaired by this attenuation.
There was an expression of intense sadness in her quiet and limpid eye, and of sorrow on her lip; but there were times when her eyes flashed and her lip quivered with surprise and contempt, or a cloud of horror would descend upon her brow at the various proceedings of this new court, and the bitter humiliation to which it subjected her. But now, nearly broken in spirit, crushed, and feeling that she was for ever degraded by the frightful accusation brought against her, in general she was careless of what was done, or said, or thought of her.
There was something antique in her beauty; but nothing could be softer, purer, or more delicate than its aspect.
In silence she heard the low muttered revilings and exclamations around her; when harassed by the stern questions of the hardhearted and the credulous, or confounded by their energy and ferocity, their determination and their sophistry, she became utterly silent, and sought to bend all her thoughts on inward prayer.
A maze was before her eyes, and amid the maze were fifteen scarlet spots, her fifteen judges; a confused murmur was in her ears, but amid that murmur she could hear the beating of her own heart. In its inner recesses there was but one thought—Roland; and her heart only shrunk when her chain rattled; for they had chained her.
She was a witch!.....
Many a familiar face was in the crowd, yet not one deigned to look on her with kindness or with friendship. The terrible accusation had frozen the hearts of all; thus she saw less perhaps of sorrow than of indignation in every face; while, generally, a silence the most profound reigned throughout the whole assembly.
In Scotland trials for sorcery were mere formalities; the same blind terror and insane credulity which brought forward the accusation and hurried on the decision, led at once to the frightful condemnation. When first indicted, Jane had some hope of mercy, and that her perfect innocence might avail her; for sorcery was then a new crime, and there were many who totally denied its existence; but the moment she entered the court, and looked on the faces of her judges, and saw that there were eight Hamiltons in the jury-box, she felt that her doom was written, and gave herself up for lost—as the majority of votes form the opinion of a Scottish jury.
The proceedings of the Supreme High Court of Justiciary in 1537, the year of its birth, were, in detail, widely different from what they are to-day; and such was its informality, that there was not one witness for the defence, the counsel for which based his arguments solely on the blameless life, the innocence, and conscious rectitude of the accused.