Queen of This Realm (64 page)

He suffered horribly and when the news was brought to me I felt ill and I immediately said that the rest of the conspirators should not be cut until after death. They should merely suffer hanging.

I was glad I had done that. I did not want my people looking on such horror and remembering that the order of death came from me.

So Walsingham brought to an end the Babington Plot, which he had set in motion in a desperate attempt to bring Mary of Scotland to the scaffold.

Mary remained. She was as guilty as Babington himself. What should be done with her?

“She must never again be given the opportunity to threaten Your Majesty,” said Burghley.

“We might not be so fortunate next time,” pointed out Walsingham. “She could succeed. Your Majesty must see that the situation is too grave to be lightly set aside.”

I did see it. But I deplored what they were urging me to do.

Five days after Babington and Ballard died so cruelly in the Holborn field, Mary of Scotland was lodged at Fotheringhay.

I WISHED THAT
I could have gone to Fotheringhay to be present at her trial. But I could not do that. As we had never met in all the years she had been in England, it was hardly the time for it now. I told both Walsingham and Burghley who were present that I wanted a detailed account of all that was said, and this was promised me.

The trial was held in the great chamber at Fotheringhay Castle. Walsingham had arranged that a throne should be set on a dais. This was for me, and although I should not be sitting in it, its presence meant that those who conducted the trial did so on authority from me.

A chair covered in red velvet had been put out for the prisoner but when she came in she went straight to the throne thinking it had been provided for her. When it was explained to her that the throne was for the Queen of England, she said: “I am the Queen by right of birth and so it should be my place.”

What a foolish woman she was! She would put her judges against her before the trial started.

“How did she look?” I asked Burghley.

He said: “She looked like a queen.”

“Beautiful?” I insisted.

“I suppose one would say that.”

Maddening man! How could she have looked beautiful?

She was forty-four and suffering acutely from rheumatism. She had spent—was it twenty years?—in cold damp castles.

“How was she dressed?” I demanded.

He could answer that. “In black velvet.”

“And on her head?”

“Oh…a white headdress… rather like a shell.”

I knew it. I had seen a drawing of it.

The charges against her were read out. She had been involved in a plot to assassinate the Queen of England and to destroy her realm, to take her crown and bring the Catholic Faith to these shores. What had she to say?

Mary had replied haughtily that she had come to England to ask my aid, and not as a prisoner. She was a queen and answered to none but God. “I will say,” she added, “that I am not guilty of that of which I am accused.”

The facts were then laid before her—the whole story of the planning of the Babington Plot. She denied that she had been involved, but was told that her letters, which had been placed in a box in beer barrels, had been intercepted and she was proved guilty.

Burghley then reminded her that she was also guilty of carrying the arms of England on her shield and calling herself the Queen of England, to which she replied that she had had no choice in that, for her father-in-law Henri Deux of France had commanded it and she had no alternative but to obey him.

“But,” said Burghley, “you continued to state your claim to the throne after you left France.”

“I have no intention of denying my rights,” she retorted.

How tiresome she was! How reckless! But then she always had been. If she had been as wise after the murder of Darnley as I was after the death of Amy Robsart she might still be on the throne of Scotland and not fighting for her life in the hall of Fotheringhay Castle.

She was allowed to state her case and defend herself. From what I heard I think she was a very tired and disillusioned woman. I think she was not prepared to fight very hard for her life. She said sadly that she had been humiliated, treated as a prisoner ever since she arrived in England; and she longed to be free. She declared that she had had no part in the plot to murder me. It was true that she was a Catholic and her religion meant more to her than anything else on Earth. She may have written to foreign princes. She was a sick and weary woman. All she longed for was to be free and live in peace. She insisted that she had never desired my death.

The court broke up with Walsingham's declaration that he would bring the findings to me. She was guilty but it was for me to pass sentence.

This was what I dreaded. I wanted her dead but I did not want to have any part in her removal.

But the court at Fotheringhay had proved her guilty. The letters were as damning as they could be. She deserved to die, and yet…

When the court had adjourned at Fotheringhay it was announced that it should meet again in the Star Chamber at Westminster and there sentence should be passed. It was the 25th of October and I remember that day every year when it comes round. The day Mary Stuart was sentenced to death.

They were all urging me. Walsingham was triumphant. We could remove one of the greatest menaces to our throne for it had been clearly proved that this woman had plotted against my life, which was treason. She had been in touch with foreign courts; she wanted to bring about the ruin of the Protestant Church and set up the Catholic in its place. What greater treason could there be! The execution should take place without delay. It was unwise to dally. It would be better for the Queen of Scots herself if we acted promptly for she must know she was guilty and what the inevitable consequences must be.

I knew they were right. I knew that for the sake of my safety and that of
my country she must die—and yet, I should be the one, in the generations to come, who would be accused of killing her.

If only she would die! If only I did not have to put my name to that death warrant!

I hesitated but they would give me no peace. Even Robert wrote from the Netherlands. He was thinking of me all the time, he wrote. He knew what a quandary I found myself in. Did he not understand my innermost feelings? But Mary of Scotland was a threat to me and to every Englishman who did not hold the Catholic Faith. I must sign that death warrant.

“Your Majesty must sign it,” insisted Walsingham, Burghley, Bacon… all of them.

And still I hesitated.

My secretary William Davison came to me and told me that he was being entreated by Amyas Paulet to beg me to sign the death warrant without delay. It was difficult for him to carry on in such a state of tension. Every day they were expecting the order to arrive, each day the Queen of Scots prepared herself, and still the days passed and there was no decision.

“Davison,” I said, “I am loath to sign this warrant for reasons you know well. I should have thought there might be some means of saving me from this unpleasant duty.”

Davison looked taken aback. I felt impatient with him. He was not one of my favorite men. He lacked the grace of the charmers, and although he was able, he did not have the cold clear brain of the clever ones.

It was irritating to have to explain. Burghley would have caught my meaning at once.

“We have heard much of the sufferings of the Queen of Scots. She is not a young woman. Paulet is in charge up there. Could he not be persuaded to help us out of this delicate matter?”

Davison stammered: “You mean … remove the Queen … by … by secret methods…”

“I believe I have made myself clear,” I said. “Write to Paulet… very discreetly. I am sure he will see the wisdom of this.”

But I had reckoned without Paulet's self-righteousness. His miserable conscience came between him and his duty.

He was almost indignant. He could not perform an act which God and the law forbade.

“God forbid,” he wrote, “that I should make so foul a shipwreck of my conscience or leave so great a blot to my poor posterity, to shed blood without law or warrant.”

I knew I could not delay indefinitely. I had to stop trying to placate outsiders. I should have no criticism from the people who really mattered—my
own Protestant subjects, who wanted the death of Mary Stuart as much as I did.

So I signed the death warrant and at eight o'clock on that February morning Mary Stuart entered the hall at Fotheringhay Castle and went to the block.

As soon as I knew she was dead I was thrown into a panic of remorse.

I
had signed her death warrant. In generations to come I should be known as the one responsible for the death of Mary Stuart. It was no use trying to placate my conscience, to tell myself that
she
had planned
my
death. I could not forget that I had signed the paper without which she would have been alive. I could not ease my mind except by pretending that I had not meant it. I looked about me for someone to blame. I sent for Davison but I was told that he was suffering from an attack of palsy and was not at Court.

I knew that he was subject to these attacks and I had no doubt that this matter of the death warrant had brought on this one. I worked myself into a passion of dislike against this man, and when Christopher Hatton came to me, I burst out that I was distressed because of the death of my kinswoman.

Hatton was too much of a courtier to express surprise. He had been one of those—as indeed had every one of my councilors—who had urged me to sign the death warrant. He must have been a little taken aback but being Hatton of the graceful manners he waited for me to say what was in my mind.

“That fool Davison…He knew I did not wish him to send the warrant to Paulet… yet he did so…”

Hatton looked grave. I could see the words forming in his mind: Then why did you sign it? But he did not say them, of course. Wise, tactful Hatton!

“He hurried it off,” I declared, “although I had told him to hold it back until he had permission to release it.”

That was not strictly true. I had told myself that it was what I wanted and that Davison had known it. Had he? He was not a mind-reader. He had not the subtlety of Burghley and Walsingham.

“The Queen of Scots has been executed and it is Davison's fault. I want him in the Tower.”

Hatton said: “He is a sick man. It may be that he has misconstrued Your Majesty's orders, but…”

“I want him in the Tower,” I insisted.

Hatton knew better than to argue with me.

Looking back, I am ashamed. It is a great weakness to take a certain action and then try to defend it by blaming others. As always, I had done what my common sense urged me to do. It was just that I felt so deeply
about this woman. I had been so envious of her; she had had so much… and yet so little. The Tudor claim to the throne was not built on a very strong foundation. There were many who said that Queen Katharine had never been married to Owen Tudor; there were many who would say that my father had never truly been married to my mother and that I was a bastard. These matters rankled. The Stuart claim was legitimate, based on royalty. Then there was that legendary beauty of hers which attracted all men. I had my admirers, but I had always known in the secret places of my mind that the glitter of a crown and absolute power can be an irresistible magnet. Yes, I had envied her in so many ways… and pitied her. I often thought of what her childhood and girlhood had been at the elegant Court of France and compared it with mine when I had lived through those formative years under the shadow of the axe; hers so cushioned; mine so harsh; and then myself on the throne triumphant and Mary an uneasy Queen and a captive for twenty years. I had no reason to envy her and yet I could not altogether erase that feeling from my mind. I had thought of her so much and the fact that I should never see her somehow added to the mystic bond between us.

She had been such a fool. In fact it seemed to me that she had rarely shown any wisdom at all. She had plunged headlong into disaster; she had had lovers but what had any of them brought her but misery—except perhaps little Franois who had adored her, but that was in the early days when she was the darling of the French Court.

It was true that she had obsessed me in life and now she was doing so in death and in such a manner that to give myself some ease of mind I was accusing a sick and innocent man of something he had never committed. He had never swerved from his duty, yet here I was raging against him, insisting that the poor palsy-stricken creature be taken to the Tower.

Burghley was horrified. He came to me and said it would be well to release Davison without delay.

“Davison has failed in his duty,” I insisted.

“Your Majesty signed the death warrant, which was the right and proper action to take. Davison merely delivered it to Paulet.”

“He knew that I did not wish it to be delivered.”

“Did Your Majesty tell him this?”

“It was understood, and since when has my Lord Burghley become the Queen's judge?”

He was silent but very disturbed.

“I beg Your Majesty to release Davison,” he said quietly.

I could not do it. I derived some comfort from blaming my secretary and I needed comfort. I could not sleep at night. I dreamed of her headless body. I saw her eyes fixed on me accusingly.

Davison in the Tower offered me some comfort and I clung to that.

He was charged with misprision and contempt, and tried in the Star Chamber. He said that I had signed the death warrant and told him that I could not be troubled anymore with it, which he had taken to mean that I did not want it set before me a second time. He said that there was nothing else he could say and that he had acted sincerely and honestly.

They fined him ten thousand marks and sent him back to the Tower to await my pleasure.

One thing he did not do—which he might have—was to disclose the fact that I had made him write to Paulet suggesting that the Queen of Scots might be quietly removed. I had behaved badly to that man; but while I could convince myself that I had never meant the execution of Mary to be carried out, I could placate my conscience. Like most people who have done some person an injury, I disliked that person more than I had before I wronged him. I built up the case against him in my mind. It was weak; and I hated weakness in myself more than in others. But this was a matter so disturbing to me that I had to ease my conscience even with untruths.