It is necessary to observe at this point that Elizabeth wrote Burghley on 12th October that as the Scottish Queen refuses to submit to be tried, she requests that, “in case they proceed and find her guilty, they are to defer passing sentence until they return to her and report proceedings.”
The question naturally arises, how did Elizabeth know on 12th October that Mary refused to submit to be tried, when it was on that same day that Mary made the announcement? The one Queen was at Windsor, the other at Fotheringay, and the transmission of letters at that period was slow. Elizabeth did not and could not know on the 12th October what happened at Fotheringay on the same date; she could not but be aware that the Scottish Queen would protest against any such proposal as being tried, and the letter to Burghley was simply a part of her policy to have Mary executed notwithstanding any trial.
On the morning of 14th October the trial began, when Bromley opened the proceedings charging Mary with the Babington Conspiracy. The Queen, notwithstanding the interview of the previous day, defended herself with great eloquence. It was the crowning effort of her life, in spite of the exertions of Bromley and Burghley to crush her. In asserting her innocence she “protested before the living God that she loved the Queen of England,” and in her concluding sentence she “appealed to Almighty God, her Church, and all Christian princes, and the Estates of the kingdom, she was ready and prepared to sustain and defend her honour as an innocent person.” She charged Walsingham as being her enemy. Whether she knew of his interpolations on her letters is not clear, but she undoubtedly suspected him.
Walsingham's reply was significant and cunning: “He bore no ill will to anyone; he had never attempted anyone's life (yet he was plotting against Queen Mary's life at the time he was speaking), and protested that he was a gentleman, and a faithful servant of his mistress.” No one will doubt the last remark, and no one will believe the words that go before. Mary had charged him with being in communication with Ballard, one of the conspirators. If she had followed up this line of argument she would have defeated her accusers, but she was not allowed to produce a single witness nor to refer to her letters, and therefore could only say what she imperfectly remembered.
Petit's version of the Walsingham incident varies from this. She said, addressing him haughtily, “Do you think, Master Secretary, that I am not aware of the artifices you use against me with such knavish cruelty? Your spies beset me on all sides; but you perhaps do not know that many of those spies have made false depositions, and have warned me of what you are about. And if he has so acted, my lords, how shall I be assured that he has not forged my cyphers to put me to death, when I know he has conspired against my child's life and mine?”
Those withering words, falling suddenly and without warning on the head of the guilty Walsingham, called forth a quick reply: “God is my witness,” exclaimed he, “that in private I have done nothing but what an honest man ought to have done, and in public I have done nothing unworthy of my office. I have carefully sifted the conspiracies against Elizabeth, and had Ballard tendered me his services I should have accepted them.”
Queen Mary: “Give no more heed to the words of those who slander me than I do to the statements of those who betray you. No value is to be attached to the testimony of those spies or agents whose words always give the lie to their hearts. Do not believe that I have been vain enough to wish that harm should be done to Elizabeth. No; I shall never seek her ruin at the cost of my honour, my conscience, or my salvation. Your proceedings are unjust: passages are taken from my letters, and their real meaning twisted; the originals were taken from me; neither the religion I profess nor my sacred character as a queen respected. My lords, if my personal feelings can make one sympathetic chord vibrate in your bosoms, think of the royal majesty insulted in my person; think of the example which you set; think of your own Queen, who was, like me, wrongly mixed up in a conspiracy. I am accused of having written to Christian princes in the interest of my freedom. I confess I have done so, and I should do so again. What human creature, O good God, would not do the same to escape from a captivity such as mine! You lay to my charge my letters to Babington. Well, be it so, I deny them not; only show me a single word in them about Elizabeth, and then I shall allow your right to prosecute me.”
That Mary was so persistently attacked and importuned about this, first by Gorges, then by Paulet, Bromley, and Burghley, without proof, indicates pretty clearly:—
1. That she was ignorant of the so-called assassination plot.