Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (84 page)

forcing him to abandon his devious tactics and swoop down upon the

known conspirators at once. It took several weeks to track Babington

down and the Secretary was weak with relief when news of the arrest

was finally brought to him, knowing how close to disaster his intrigue

had brought him.

The Queen of Scots was promptly removed to Tixall under the façade

of a hunting expedition, and during her absence Chartley was ransacked

by Walsingham’s men. All her private papers, with the keys to sixty

different ciphers, were seized and a mass of paper evidence was stacked

high on a table before Elizabeth at Windsor.

“The proof,” said Walsingham, softly triumphant, “written, irrefu-

table, and positive.”

Over the neat stacks of documents her eyes met his with hatred, but he

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did not flinch; instead he removed a document from the Chartley papers

and handed it to her.

She read through the list of English nobles who had secretly tendered

their future allegiance to Mary, and dropped it wearily into the fire.

“Your Majesty!” he protested and made a move towards the hearth.

But the parchment was already curling and shrivelling in the flames.

“I see but say nothing,” she said quietly. “What else can I do?”

He was about to tell her, but she turned away abruptly and went

through into her private chamber. After a moment Burghley extracted

another document, exchanged a significant glance with Walsingham, and

hobbled after her.

He found her sitting by the fire, staring bleakly into the leaping flames;

as he entered slowly she looked up at the paper in his hand and burst out

angrily, “Christ’s soul—you surely don’t expect me to read that whole

mountain out there!”

Burghley looked at her steadily in the candlelight.

“There is one letter, madam, which in common decency we will not

produce in evidence against the Scottish Queen—nevertheless, since it is

addressed to Your Majesty I feel you should be allowed to read it, in spite

of,” he hesitated, “its distasteful nature.”

She eyed him cautiously for a moment, then held out her hand for the

sheets of paper. The letter was written in Mary’s own hand and for sheer

venomous libel it would be hard to surpass. It was a cruel and malicious

catalogue of every low rumour that had ever circulated about Elizabeth’s

habits and morals and it contained some new and startling anecdotes,

apparently related to Mary by the wife of her former custodian, the

Countess of Shrewsbury. Elizabeth had bedded with Leicester and many

others including Alençon and Simier, but, owing to her physical malfor-

mation, her sexual excesses could only be partially consummated. She

had forced Hatton into bed against his will. She was vain to the point of

open ridicule and secretly mimicked by her ladies, several of whom had

suffered from her violent physical assaults. She had broken the finger of

one with a candlestick and slashed another’s hand with a knife. She was

rotting with a foul disease inherited from her father…

Elizabeth glanced up at Burghley, who was watching her hopefully, and

she knew quite well why he had shown her this humiliating document;

he was hoping to see her wreak a quick revenge on the authoress of this

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filth. But, oddly enough, though shocked, she was not angry. She could

imagine the mood of bitter frustration and blind hatred in which Mary had

written this, obviously more for her own satisfaction in getting it all down

on paper than for anything else. It had never been sent, because Mary had

never found the courage to send it. She was helpless and resentful and

afraid and a wealth of pity suddenly coursed through Elizabeth. How well

she remembered the impotent resentment of the hopeless prisoner!

She leaned towards the fire, but this time Burghley was too quick for

her and caught her hand.

“No, madam, I beg you, don’t destroy it—I give you my word no one

has read it except Walsingham and myself.”

She looked up at him coldly.

“It is
not
to be filed among the Chartley papers.”

“Then at least allow me to file it among my personal documents—it’s

a valuable piece of evidence, madam—it shows the true feelings of the

Queen of Scots towards you more plainly than anything else.”

Her painted lips curled suddenly in a sardonic smile.

“You want it as a souvenir—is that it?”

Burghley smoothed the rescued document between his gnarled fingers.

“I want it for posterity, madam. Those who defend the integrity of the

Scottish Queen have only to set eyes on this to see her for what she is.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes. “It’s late and I’m tired. Take your trophy

and go.”

He bowed and began to shuffle backwards to the door. When he had

reached it she called after him quietly.

“This makes no difference to my attitude towards her crime—no

difference at all. But allow me to congratulate you, my friend. I have

long suspected you would sink to anything if you felt it would further

your cause and you have just confirmed that belief. I admire you a little

more—and like you a little less. Do you understand me, Burghley?”

“Your Majesty.” He inclined his head in brief acknowledgement and

went out to report his failure to Walsingham.

t t t

The trial of Babington and his confederates went smoothly enough, the

verdict a foregone conclusion, the sentence to be hanged and quartered

alive at the Queen’s pleasure.

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“And that,” spat Elizabeth, rounding on Burghley hysterically, “is

not enough. Devise something new and let the people see the price

of treason!”

He was astonished at this sudden brutality, which seemed so dreadfully

out of character.

“Madam, to alter the penalty would be illegal and, to be honest with

you, quite unnecessary. If the executioner takes care to prolong their

pain, I feel sure their end will be as terrible as you could ever wish.”

She turned away, grinding her fist into the palm of her hand. The first

numb daze at the extent of the treachery around her had worn off in a

savage reaction. She wanted them to suffer. She wanted to rend and tear

all those who had lightly tossed aside her three decades of ceaseless labour,

thirty years which had changed her from a handsome, high-spirited girl

to a bitter, lonely old woman who had never known a moment’s peace.

And so, on the 20th of September 1586, the first batch of conspirators

were drawn on hurdles to St. Giles-in-the-Fields to meet their tormented

ends in a skilful execution which was prolonged for three hours. First

hung, but cut down quickly while still alive, they were thrown to the

ground and ripped open from neck to groin. The crowds pressed forward

as the first animal screams of anguish tore through the air and the street

became littered with burning entrails. Castration followed the removal

of lesser organs. Babington was heard to cry “
Jesus
!” three times as his

heart lay in the executioner’s hands and abruptly the mood of the crowd

changed. Women vomited and turned away, while the men moved

forward with a low menacing growl and the executioner quailed for a

moment, bloody-handed and shamefaced. The full penalty for treason

was seldom exacted in this manner and no one present was prepared to

believe that their beloved Queen had ordered this.

When the hideous, screaming deaths were reported in detail to

Elizabeth, she was sickened by her own cruelty and gave orders that the

second batch of traitors, scheduled to die the following day, were to hang

until dead before the mutilation of their bodies took place. Supper was

served with all its attendant ceremony, but she remained alone in her

chamber and no one dared to approach her.

Her behaviour was becoming increasingly erratic and Burghley was

privately disturbed. He knew that she had written a desperate letter to

Mary, begging for a confession: “…if you will do this in your own hand

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as Queen to Queen, woman to woman, then you will not be tried in

open court and I will find some means of leniency towards you…”

The answer had come in the form of a flat refusal, couched in the

terms of coldly incredulous outrage, and said in effect that Mary could not

confess to a crime she had not committed. Elizabeth stared at the letter

in despair, frantically trying to reconcile its dignified, martyred air with

the evidence Walsingham had presented. For the first time she began to

doubt the Secretary’s integrity. What had he done behind her back and

how could she ever dare to expose forgery at this stage? Would anyone in

their right minds, knowing their guilt, choose death when they had been

offered life? Was Mary innocent of the main charge, after all?

Elizabeth was thrown into an agony of doubt and panic, for Mary’s

letter was the death blow to her hope of reasonable compromise. Events

were now drawing her relentlessly towards the very act she had spent

eighteen years eluding; her advisers and her people were clamouring

for Mary’s punishment with a violence that she knew she could no

longer contain or deflect. To bring Mary to trial would be the first step

towards that irrevocable act of madness, the execution of a sovereign,

the one crime which she knew she could never bring herself to accept.

But Burghley and Walsingham had her in a vice. Twist and turn as she

might, there was no escape from the path she must now tread, and with

her back to the wall Elizabeth felt the first strand snap in the threadbare

fabric of sanity which she had miraculously preserved through more than

fifty years of constant uncertainty and danger. Her mind veered like a

rudderless ship, desperately seeking some loophole in the net which had

tightened around her, so that she seemed quite incapable of holding to

the smallest decision for any length of time.

She flatly refused to bring Mary to the Tower, but could not seem to

make up her mind where she should go to be tried instead—Hertford

was too near, Fotheringay too far. The men who worked with her were

astonished by the treacherous, shifting bog of confused emotion which

threatened to blot her calm rationality out of existence.

It was October before Elizabeth even agreed to bring her cousin to

trial, but when Burghley, Walsingham, and the rest of the commissioners

arrived at Fotheringay, the Queen of Scots refused to acknowledge their

authority to try her. She was not a subject and she was not answerable

to any English court! It was three days before Hatton convinced her that

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it was in her own interests to appear, since if she refused to attend, her

case would go by default. And so at last the miserable farce began. Mary

conducted her own defence before a jury of thirty-six men who had

reached their verdict weeks before. In the Great Hall of Fotheringay, she

passed the empty, throne-like chair, symbolic of Elizabeth’s presence, on

her way to the prisoner’s stool, set significantly lower.

“I am a Queen by right of birth,” she said quietly, gazing up at

Elizabeth’s empty throne. “My place should be there.”

A rustle of indignation ran through the assembled men. She had

condemned herself out of her own mouth. But she was not dead yet and

she had many uncomfortable moments to give them before this trial was

ended. The evidence against her was all produced in copies of the original

documents and, as she listened to the forged postscript of her reply to

Babington, she understood why.

“How can I reply to this accusation without access to the original

papers?” she demanded acidly. “I do not deny that I have earnestly wished

for liberty and done my utmost to procure it for myself. In this I acted

from a very natural wish; but can I be held responsible for the criminal

actions of a few desperate men which they planned without my knowl-

edge? I demand to see the original letters, my lords. It is quite possible

that my ciphers have been tampered with by my enemies.” She swung

round and pointed a finger at Walsingham, whose eyes were fixed on a

point on the far wall. “
He
may well have composed your documents.”
For

I know how he hates me and all I stand for
.

There was an uneasy stir. Walsingham got to his feet with pious indig-

nation and looked around the court with an unblinking stare.

“My mind is free of all malice,” he lied smoothly. “I call God to witness

that as a private person I have done nothing unworthy of an honest man,

nor as a public person have I done anything unworthy of my place.”

The hours dragged away, the second day set in, and still she fought.

“What becomes of the majesty of princes if the oaths and attestations

of their secretaries are to be taken against their solemn protestations?—I