Mary vehemently denied the accusations, said she had never conspired against the queen, declared herself always Elizabeth’s ‘good sister and friend’.1 She begged her servants to defend her with their swords, but they were surrounded and Curle and Nau were arrested and taken away. She agreed to return with Paulet and his escort to Chartley, but then when she realised they were riding in a different direction, she pulled herself off her horse, sat on the ground and refused to move, saying piteously that she wished to die on the spot. Paulet threatened to forcibly remove her and only when her doctor came to comfort her and beg her to move did she agree to stand. He came up with the strange idea that Elizabeth was already dead and the men were simply attempting to keep her safe. Mary knew it was a lie. But she was still defiant. She knelt against a tree to pray and said she would not leave until she had finished.
While Mary was out riding, her rooms in Chartley had been searched, men ransacking her drawers and cabinets, collecting together the carefully drawn keys for codes. Four justices of the peace arrived to oversee the search and three boxes of her letters were packed up and taken post-haste to Elizabeth. Mary, meanwhile, was taken off to Aston’s house, Tixall, at which there was nothing for her, not even a change of clothes. Two of her ladies and an equerry were sent to attend her in her new prison. She begged Paulet to allow her to write to Elizabeth but he refused her paper. He told her he would not speak to her either.2
Mary passed days of misery, afraid and terrified of when men were going to invade, seize her, accuse her. After a fortnight, she was returned to her rooms at Chartley, devastated and shocked, crying out to those who watched her go in, ‘All is taken from me,’ and saying she had nothing to give the beggars for she was one too. She was still defending herself, saying she had not been ‘privy to anything intended against the queen’.3 She saw how her rooms had been ransacked: her papers and drafts confiscated, the keys to her various secret codes taken. She wept bitterly and said that she still had two things that could not be taken from her: her royal blood and her religion.
Elizabeth had moved to Windsor Castle, a fortress that she disliked but which was judged her most secure of palaces. She wrote a grateful letter to Paulet, addressing him as ‘my most faithful and careful servant’, telling him God would reward him ‘for the most troublesome charge so well discharged’.4 But the thought of executing a queen sickened her and, as they knew, Spain might protest and use it as a ruse for invading. For if a queen could be executed, then what did it say about the special blood of monarchy?
Walsingham and Cecil were keen for a trial, her privy councillors the same. Elizabeth, with her desire to avoid upset, hoped that Mary might die of natural causes. For surely the queen’s illnesses would only intensify if she was kept in confinement and her body would simply waste away. Cecil was resistant. Mary might take years to die, and in the meantime, plot against Elizabeth again. As he saw it, he had the evidence he needed and it was time to strike.
Elizabeth refused to listen to Cecil. The Scots queen was sick and ailing, looking much older than her forty-three years, and her body was nearly broken. Elizabeth sent orders to make Mary’s life difficult. Her servants were taken from her and Paulet was to seize her money. When he arrived to claim it, Mary was ill in bed and refused to give him the key to her closet. She pleaded but Paulet was intransigent and ordered his burly servants to break its door. Mary gave in and asked her gentlewoman to hand him the key. Paulet’s servants piled up the money under his hawkish eye and Mary dragged herself out of bed and followed him, barefoot, begging for mercy. She told him that she was keeping the money for her funeral expenses and to pay her servants their final legacies.5 He seized it anyway.
Mary had no idea of the further humiliations to come. Babington had confessed all. Her own secretaries, under punishing interrogation, had held out bravely and denied they had ever seen the letter in which Mary had talked of the ‘six gentlemen’ and given assent to Babington’s plan. But when they were shown a version in which Phelippes had written Mary’s letter to Babington back into code, they gave in and confessed all, for it was in the correct code, evidence that Walsingham really had seen the original. As Curle confessed, ‘they showed me the two very letters written by me in cipher and received by Babington’.6 Cecil thought them cowardly, shrugging that they would have given up all their information if they thought there was a chance of saving themselves. The confessions of the secretaries were key: since Mary had not written the letters herself she could otherwise still claim that Nau and Curle had written without her knowledge. Cecil needed them to say that they knew – and they obliged.
After a trial on 13 and 14 September, Babington and six others were hanged, drawn and quartered on 20 September. Their dispatch was so brutal and the public outcry so great that the men had been disembowelled while still sentient that the Privy Council panicked and Elizabeth sent a personal order that the next seven to be executed should be hanged but then not mutilated until they were entirely dead.
Mary was utterly friendless. The French ambassador pressed her case but Elizabeth refused to listen. Rome could not help. Her son, James, declared that Mary had gone too far and should stick to prayer. He even declared that she should be put in the Tower. Instead he occupied himself with offering marriage to Elizabeth – over thirty years his senior. The young king had not grasped the seriousness of the matter. He thought that his mother could be imprisoned for ever and had not understood that her life was under threat.
Elizabeth was accepting there must be a trial, but not in London. The sight of Mary riding through the capital’s streets in disgrace might stir people to pity or even to rise up for her. Finally, Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire was decided upon – far from Scotland and London, and Mary’s journey there would be short, which meant that fewer people would see her. The law had been passed that Mary could be put on trial by nobles and Cecil planned that it would be heard by twenty-four nobles and privy councillors, advised by common-law judges. Careful arrangements were made for accommodating and feeding such a party. The knights and gentlemen of the county would be allowed in to watch proceedings.
On 21 September, Mary left Chartley for she knew not where, escorted by a band of Protestant gentlemen and men with guns. On a stop in Leicester, the crowd protested her incarceration and made to attack Paulet’s carriage, but were driven off. She arrived after a four-day journey, in great pain due to her swollen legs. She had been much reduced but she did travel in state, with twenty baggage carts. She was still entirely unaware that all her letters had been read and intercepted – and so she believed that the evidence against her was only that which came from accusers. She naturally presumed that one of the conspirators had caved and admitted the plot, and then all the names had followed. Other men could say she knew of the plot – but how could they prove it? Her brilliant way of hiding the letters in the beer cask, put into code, meant that no one could have read her letters – and Babington had promised to burn it immediately. Even if he had not, the message had not been in her hand and was written in a code she thought no one could decipher. She was much bowed by her indignities at the hands of Paulet and the others but remained convinced that she could prove her innocence.
Mary was hopeful when she realised she was travelling south, thought she might be moved closer to London and finally receive her day in Parliament to defend herself, her journey there witnessed by all London. Instead, she was told they were not pausing at Fotheringhay but it was her new home. She was to be squirrelled away in the landlocked Midlands. Although Fotheringhay was large, Mary was lodged in a small section and at first wondered at what was now to happen. When she realised that the state rooms were empty, she guessed that she was to be put on trial. Her captors had not even told her this, so afraid were they of her creating a defence or even escaping. By moving her with short notice, not telling her where she was going and then not communicating with her when she arrived, they hoped to disorientate and reduce her completely.
On 1 October, Paulet told her that she was to be interrogated about her crimes by lords and suggested she confess all and beg for forgiveness. She said that ‘as queen and sovereign, I am aware of no fault or offence for which I have to render account to anyone here below’.7 As she could not offend anyone, she would not ask for pardon. Talbot was summoned to judge his old captive. He attempted to plead ill health but Cecil told him sharply that if he did not appear, the world would think that he had truly been Mary’s lover.
The Act for the Queen’s Safety was the official excuse for putting Mary on trial. But also Elizabeth had finally given in to the demands of her advisors and ministers. For so long, she had resisted the importuning of Parliament that she must try Mary for the death of Darnley, treat her as a common subject, execute her. It had been her great moment of resistance, of maintaining that an anointed queen was above all she surveyed. But now Mary was to be tried – and the very role of queen undermined. When Elizabeth had relented to the articles providing that Mary should be tried by peers if she were found plotting again, she destroyed much of Mary’s position and a little of her own. For so long, she and Parliament had fought over sovereignty. She had refused what they had advised her to do. But now it was a fait accompli that she could not refuse. And if we accept that the latter part of the sixteenth century saw Parliament and the state gather more power, much of this was due to Mary and the precedent set by her trial. If a queen could be tried, then what was a queen?
On the 13th, the greatest nobles arrived at the house and others scattered themselves around dwellings nearby. A group of lords including Paulet visited Mary in her privy chamber and gave her a letter from the queen, with the formal information that she would be interrogated, since she persisted in denying the plot of which Elizabeth possessed proof. As she put it, Mary had been guilty of plotting against her in ‘the most horrible and unnatural attempt on her life’.8 Elizabeth justified it by saying that Mary was in England, so must bow to the laws of the country. They wanted to convince Mary that she must come in front of the court.
Mary refused to appear. ‘I am a true queen and will do nothing that will prejudice mine own royal majesty, or other princes in my place and rank, or my son.’ To her, it was a matter of principle. A queen could not be put on trial. She emphasised that she had come to England of her own volition for help and had been taken captive (this was important to stress for it made it clear that she had not been captured in battle). She told them that she had no papers or notes, did not know the laws of England and ‘am alone, without counsel or anyone to speak on my behalf’ and ‘am destitute of all aid, taken at a disadvantage’. Her dignity and majesty were as impressive as ever. ‘My mind is not dejected’, she said.9 Still, the servants took one of her crimson velvet chairs for use in the trial.
Cecil tried again, and when he led a large delegation, he found her yet more majestic. ‘I am a queen and not a subject’, she said. ‘If I appeared, I should betray the dignity and majesty of kings and it would be tantamount to confession that I am bound to submit to the laws of England, even in matters touching religion. I am willing to answer all questions, providing I am interrogated before a free Parliament, and not before these commissioners, who doubtless have been carefully chosen, and who have probably already condemned me unheard.’ Her basic point was correct: as a foreign queen, she could not be found guilty of treason. But every part of her trial was unfair: she had no lawyers to advise her before she entered, she had not been allowed to review the evidence, and the place would be packed with those who were vowed against her. ‘Look to your consciences and remember that the theatre of the world is wider than the realm of England,’ she said. She spoke brilliantly, but Cecil was not turning back now. He told Mary that if she did not appear, she could still be tried in her absence. And her claims of royal blood were as nothing to him. ‘The queen, my mistress, knows no other queen in the realm but herself’.10
Sir Christopher Hatton, future Lord Chancellor and one of the men presiding over the trial, tried to sway Mary by telling her that the best way of proving her innocence was to appear in front of the court. Indeed, Mary herself was deeply protective of her reputation. And, fatally, she thought that the charges against her were circumstantial because she still had no idea that all her letters had been read and deciphered. She did not know that her secretaries had confessed all. Mary asked again to be tried in front of Parliament and made the condition that she should first be acknowledged as Elizabeth’s kinswoman and heir to the throne. Cecil lost patience and said that the trial would continue, whether she appeared or not. Elizabeth sent a letter, accusing Mary of planning in ‘divers ways and manners to take my life, and to ruin my kingdom by the shedding of blood’. She attacked Mary for ingratitude. ‘I never proceeded so harshly against you; on the contrary, I have maintained you and preserved your life with the same care which I use myself.’11 Elizabeth had reduced Mary’s allowance, ordered her to lose the entourage, demanded close captivity and no outside access – and finally instructed Paulet to take her remaining money. But she wrote that there was still a chance: ‘answer fully, and you may receive greater favour from us’.12
Should Mary have refused to speak at the trial? If she had, she would never have had a chance to put her case. And if she had not appeared, she would have been criticised, for it would have been said that she could have avoided a guilty verdict by defending herself. But most importantly, she did not know what evidence they had against her.
Mary agreed to appear before the court and then fainted with the strain.