Elizabeth I (111 page)

The jurors were called and answered one by one. Then all sat.

The charges—plotting to deprive the Queen of her crown and life, imprisoning the councillors of the realm, inciting the people to rebellion with untruths, and resisting arrest—were read out, and both men declared themselves not guilty. Then Sergeant Yelverton opened the prosecution, accusing the prisoners of treason as heinous as Catiline's conspiracy in ancient Rome. Attorney General Coke followed, reminding the jury that merely resisting royal authority with force was treason; it was not necessary to prove premeditation. And furthermore, he orated, Essex's plan to call a parliament was subversive, and “a bloody parliament that would have been, where my Lord of Essex, that now stands all in black, would have worn a bloody robe!”

Next the witnesses were called. First was a statement by Henry Widdington, describing the events of the morning of February 8 at Essex House. Next, Chief Justice Popham, swapping places, was sworn in as a witness and recounted his treatment when his party had gone to Essex with the Great Seal. The Earl of Worcester backed him up in all the details. Raleigh told of his encounter with Gorges and being warned, “You are like to have a bloody day of it.”

Sir Gorges himself testified about the conferences in Drury House planning the coup, and then claimed that he had urged Essex, the afternoon of the event, to submit to the Queen.

Essex asked for the right to question him, and it was granted. Essex warned him to answer truthfully. “Did you in fact advise me to surrender?”

“My lord, I think I did,” was all Gorges was prepared to admit.

Essex almost yelped. “This is not the time to answer ‘I think so'—you would not have forgotten.”

Southampton, the other accused, rose to defend himself. He made a sorry showing. First he said that although he had plotted to capture the court and the City, these plans had come to nothing; therefore he was not guilty. He also said he had had no idea when he went to Essex House that Sunday morning that Essex had any fell intentions. Furthermore, he had not heard the herald in London proclaiming them traitors, nor had he drawn his sword the whole day.

“My lord, you were seen with a pistol,” said Coke.

“Oh, that!” said Southampton. “I had taken it from someone in the street, and anyway, it didn't work.”

“You were with Essex the entire day in the City. If you did not agree with his aim, you had many chances to separate yourself.”

“I was carried away with love for him!” said Southampton sadly. “I am a victim.”

As further evidence, the court produced the written confessions of Danvers, Rutland, Sandys, Monteagle, and Christopher Blount. The latter had said, “If we had failed in our ends, we should, rather than have been disappointed, even have drawn blood from the Queen herself.”

Finally Francis Bacon rose, testifying against Essex. He likened Essex's false cries about his life being sought to when Peisistratus of Athens cut himself and then entered the city claiming his life was in danger. “But this does not excuse you. How did imprisoning the Queen's councillors protect you against these people—Raleigh and Cobham and Grey—you claim threatened you?”

Essex sputtered. “You! You false man! What about the bogus correspondence between myself and your brother that you arranged, so the Queen would be impressed?”

Bacon just smiled pityingly. “'Tis true. I did everything I could to help you win the Queen's goodwill. I cared more about you, and made more efforts for you, than I did for myself. But that was when you were still her loyal servant.”

“I only wanted to petition the Queen to impeach Cecil.”

“Did you need swords and violence to do that? Are petitioners armed? What man will be such a fool as to believe this was anything other than naked treason?”

Essex began to fall apart, as he did under pressure. “Cecil! You and Cecil! He's leading a Spanish conspiracy, and you are in on it! When I cried out in the streets that the Crown was sold to the Spaniard, it was not of my own imagination. A trusted councillor had told me that Cecil said the Infanta's claim was as good as any other's.”

A great silence fell, and Essex smiled. Now he had said it. Stony faces of judges, jury, and prosecutors stared back at him. Then there was the sound of curtain rings sliding over a rod, and from behind a curtain at the top of the steps emerged Robert Cecil, who had not been present until now.

He limped down the stairs and took his place opposite Essex, staring him down. The tall, black-clad Essex faced Cecil, more than a head shorter.

Furious but, unlike Essex, able to speak coldly and calmly, Cecil let loose. “My Lord of Essex! The difference between you and me is great. For wit I give you preeminence—you have it absolutely. For nobility I also give you place. I am not noble, yet a gentleman. I am no swordsman—there you also have the odds; but I have innocence, conscience, truth, and honesty to defend me against the scandal and sting of slanderous tongues, and in this court I stand as an upright man, and Your Lordship as a delinquent.” He paused to draw breath, then continued, “I protest, before God, I have loved your person and justified your virtues. And had I not seen your ambitious hunger inclined to usurpation, I would have gone on my knees to Her Majesty to have helped you, but you have a wolf's head in a sheep's garment. God be thanked, we know you now!” He shook his head. “Ah, my lord, were it but your own case, the loss had been less. But you have drawn a number of noble persons and gentlemen of birth and quality into your net of rebellion, and their bloods will cry vengeance against you.”

Still standing on his height and nobility, Essex mocked, “Ah, Master Secretary, I thank God for my humiliation, that you in the ruff of all your bravery, have come hither to make your oration against me today.”

But Cecil brushed the insult off and pressed him. “Which councillor was it who quoted me about the Infanta? Name him if you dare. If you do not name him, it must be believed to be a fiction.”

“Aha!” crowed Essex. “Southampton here heard it as well.”

“Who was it, then? Again I say, name him!”

“It was ... the comptroller, Sir William Knollys.”

“Summon him here,” ordered Buckhurst. “I know he has absented himself out of family loyalty, so he would not have to testify against his nephew, but now he must come. And do not tell him what this is about. He must be utterly ignorant of the coming question.”

The proceedings were suspended while Knollys was fetched from his home and escorted into the court. He stood before Buckhurst, who detailed Essex's accusation against Cecil and asked if he had ever heard the secretary express those thoughts.

Knollys took a deep breath and thought out loud. “Yes ... he did speak of it. But ... it had to do with something else. Something else ... What was it?” He shook his head as if he could tumble his thoughts around inside. “Oh yes. It was when that Jesuit had written the tract ‘Conference on the Next Succession.' Cecil said it was impudent of him to claim that the Infanta had the same rights in the succession as anyone else.”

“That was what he said? That it was
wrong
of the Jesuit to make that claim?”

“I believe his exact words were ‘a strange impudence,'” said Knollys.

Buckhurst wagged his head from side to side. “And so now we have it. You have lived under an illusion, Lord Essex. An illusion of your own making.”

The court was adjourned while the jury members withdrew to make their verdict. When they assembled again, they stood and, one by one, placing their left hands on their right sides, made the pronouncement: “Guilty, my lord, of high treason, upon mine honor.”

Essex stood quietly, asking only for clemency for Southampton. Southampton whimpered and asked for mercy.

Buckhurst pronounced sentence. “You shall both be led from hence to the place from whence you came and there remain during Her Majesty's pleasure: from thence to be drawn upon a hurdle through the midst of the city, and so to the place of execution, there to be hanged by the neck and taken down alive—your bodies to be opened, and your bowels taken out and burned before your face: your bodies to be quartered—your heads and quarters to be disposed of at Her Majesty's pleasure, and so God have mercy on your souls.”

Essex looked around, his head held high. “I think it fitting that my poor quarters, which have done Her Majesty service in diverse parts of the world, should now at the last be sacrificed and disposed at Her Majesty's pleasure.” Then he bowed, flipping his cape out.

The court was stunned at his arrogance and lack of contrition.

The prisoners were returned to the Tower with the executioner's blade now turned toward them.

I
was sitting in a high-backed chair, rigid like a Byzantine icon, as the day drew to its close. I had not eaten all day, fasting in order to feel more keenly what was happening in Westminster Hall. The hall's carved wooden ceiling had looked down alike on the joyous and the tormented, and that just within my own family. Today what did they see, what did they hear?

A knock; then a messenger entered. “They are pronounced guilty,” he said.

I stood. “When?”

“Just now. I have run straight from the hall.”

It was so nearby he was not even out of breath. “Both of them?”

“Yes, both Essex and Southampton. They are on their way back to the Tower.”

I went to the window and peered out. There were enough boats on the river that it was hard to know which one carried the prisoners. I let the curtain fall. “They shall never leave it,” I said. “They go upon the river for the last time.” What must it be like to ride anywhere, knowingly, for the last time?

“Mr. Secretary Cecil clinched the day,” he said. “He made a surprise appearance from behind a curtain, just as in a play. But he turned the tables so thoroughly against Essex that the earl had no recourse. Standing beside that strapping man, never did Cecil, in his small stature, play taller. He will be providing a transcript of all the happenings. The scribes are copying furiously this very moment. But it will take several hours.”

“But you have brought me the meat of it,” I said. “The rest is pastry decoration.”

It was done, then. It was done. I felt immense relief to be delivered from the long-hovering threat, but no satisfaction. Just so I had felt when Walsingham had exposed the Scots queen unequivocally and the judges had pronounced sentence. My suspicions had been confirmed. But I would rather have had them turn out to be unfounded.

I gathered my women about me. These faithful companions of my chamber deserved to hear immediately what had happened. Then I withdrew with Catherine, and we were alone in the bedchamber.

“Once more I will be thanking Charles for his timely service to the realm,” I told her.

“He still has Essex's sword,” said Catherine. “What will you tell him to do with it?”

“It should be returned to the family,” I said. “When all this is—over.”

“When will that be?”

“As soon as the papers can be drawn up and arrangements made.”

“Arrangements? The executioner, a grave plot? There is already a scaffold at Tower Hill. He will not be going to Tyburn, I assume?”

“No, nor to Tower Hill. He will have a private execution on Tower Green. A new scaffold must be built. It has been almost fifty years since there has been an execution there. Lady Jane Grey was the last one.”

“Why send him there?”

“Because he requested a private execution.”

“Or because it would be too dangerous to permit the public to witness it out on Tower Hill?”

“Both, Catherine. If the public makes a ruckus, then it reverses our victory. He must perish out of sight.”