CHAP XXII 1572 January secretaries were lying. He was asked to explain, if he was innocent, the letters which he had written to them from the Tower entreating them not to confess. He was of course silent. The confessions all agreed, and not a doubt remained that the troops of Alva had been invited with the Duke's consent to land at Harwich. Wilbraham, the Attorney of the Wards, who was conducting this part of the case, used the opportunity to touch the eternal chord of English national pride. If the Duke of Norfolk had been a true man,' he said, and angry at the matter as he now pretendeth, and had done his duty, though they had come, these Walloons, they might have been so beaten of the old English fashion as they were never so swinged in their lives.' This point,' says an eyewitness, Mr. Attorney spoke with such a grace and cheerfulness of heart and voice as if he had been ready to be one at the doing of it, like a hearty true Englishman, a good Christian, a good subject, a man enough for his religion, prince, and country.' 'The Duke,' the Attorney continued, with less rhetoric but more point- the Duke said that the witnesses had spoken falsely, but their evidence had been taken separately in a great variety of complicated details, and it was all entirely consistent. Of what value, on the other side, was the Duke's assertion? He had broken his oath as Commissioner at York, he had broken his promise to the Queen, he had denied in his examinations what he had afterwards admitted to be true; it was not for the Duke of Norfolk to stand upon discrediting of witnesses and advancing his own credit which he had so much decayed.' The prosecution closed, and Shrewsbury asked the Duke what more he had to say. And what could he say? If indeed the Queen of Scots was an innocent woman-and the Duke, if any one, knew the truth about her he might have appealed to the broad principles of justice; he might have proclaimed, in the face of England and the Peers, the cowardice which had stained her with crimes of which her accusers themselves were guilty. He might have denounced Cecil, Bacon, Sadler, Knollys, Elizabeth herself, for their atrocious hypocrisy, and he would have carried with him the sympathies of the world. He was not standing before a Secret Tribunal in the dungeons of the Tower. He was at the open bar in Westminster Hall, in the presence of the English nation, and the words. that he uttered there might be carried to every fireside in the land. Had no other evidence survived, were there no letters, no witnesses, no sworn depositions of those who had lived through the whole of that Scottish tragedy and knew it in all its parts, the silence of Norfolk at this the supreme moment of his own fate and Mary Stuart's, would be proof sufficient against her in the minds of all persons who can think upon the subject with reasonable modesty. The Duke knew the truth, and the truth made him dumb; he could but say that he trusted to God and his own consciousness of loyalty. The Lords withdrew, the High Sheriff remaining in his chair. The winter day had long departed. The hall was faintly lighted with pine torches. At eight o'clock, after an absence of an hour and quarter, they returned, and one by one gave in the fatal verdict of Guilty on all the counts. The Counsel for the Crown prayed sentence; and Shrewsbury, in the usual dreadful terms, told the Duke that he must die. Then, CHAP XXII 1572 January CHAP XXII 1572 January perhaps for the first time, his misdeeds came home to him. Conspiracy had presented itself to him in the disguise of piety and chivalry. He had dreamed of saving his country from the upstarts who were dragging the crown into ignominious alliance with revolution and heresy, of laying to rest the threatening spectre of civil war, and settling the vexed succession question. The sleep was broken, the vision was faded, and there remained only the axe, the scaffold, the masked headsman, and six feet of earth in the Chapel of the Tower. 'This is the judgment of a traitor,' he said, 'and I shall die as true a man as any that liveth.' He beat his breast wildly. Do not ask for my life,' he cried, 'I do not desire to live. My Lords, as you have put me out of your company I trust shortly to be in better company; only I beseech you intercede with the Queen for my children and for payment of my debts. God knows how true a heart I bear to her Majesty, how true a heart to my country, whatever this day has been falsely objected to me. Farewell, my Lords.' He was led away from the bar. The High Steward broke his rod and the trial was over, and a loud cry rose from the crowd, 'God save the Queen.' It was expected that the resolution which had brought Elizabeth so far would have carried her on to the conclusion, and that the execution would not be postponed beyond the usual time. The Duke evidently was without hope: face to face with death, he thought no more of the creed to which he had told the Pope he was secretly devoted, and he desired that John Foxe the martyrologist, his old teacher, might prepare him for his end. Lord Burghley considered that hesi 1 Skipwith to Burghley, Jan. 17.-MSS. Domestic. tation would be extremely dangerous. No better hope could be given to the evil,' he said, 'than to see justice forborne against the chief offenders in so perilous an enterprise. It would be imputed to fear, to lack of power in the Queen's hand by God's ordinance,' and in the highly wrought condition of Catholic imagination, 'to the Scottish Queen's prayers and fastings.' But Elizabeth, among many faults, had two qualities which were extremely honourable to her. She detested political executions, and much of her popularity was attributed by her to the cessation of the scenes which had made Tower Hill so hideous." She possessed, besides, an insensibility truly regal to personal fear. Never at any time in her whole career was she driven by panic into cruelty. She had lived too long in the expectation of death to be frightened at the sound of it. The very weakness of Norfolk's nature touched her. She let herself hope from the constancy of his denials that he had been less guilty than he seemed; and as he had accused Barker of perjury, she desired that he should be confronted with him. The Duke flinched from the ordeal, but Barker was re-examined by Knollys and Wilson, and made the most of every point which could tell in his master's favour. He blamed the Bishop of Ross, he blamed Southampton, Montague, Lumley-every one more than the Duke; he CHAP XXII 1572 January CHAP XXII 1572 January said that they were for ever complaining of the Duke's backwardness.1 The Bishop of Ross, when again questioned, admitted that Norfolk had been forced into a position which he had not sought and from which he would have broken had he possessed the courage. It was thought that rebellion would fail without his help and sanction, and he had drifted from step to step without his will if not against it.2 The Catholics laid the blame of their failure upon him; and although Elizabeth's judgment remained unaffected as to the broad bearings of his conduct, she dwelt upon every favourable feature of it. She allowed him to know that she thought of him with pity, and the Duke poured out upon her a stream of that voluble emotion which weak natures have so easily at command. He loved her Majesty,' he said, ‘with 3 1 'When I brought the Duke the instructions from Ridolfi, he said if the Princes would help the Queen of Scots they might, but we were subjects; and if such a thing should come he saw another inconvenience, for then some should have that they long looked for, and that was, to rise for religion; and then, as I remember, he named the Lord Montague, "wherewith," said he, "I will never deal to die for it. As touching the Queen of Scots, I am bound to her in honour. If I can comfort or quiet her I will; but to say I will hazard my house and my friends, I will not. Therefore I would to God she would leave this passionate writing, and that the Bishop of Ross should not give ear to any such troublous practices, for it is time that must help her and nothing else; and I doubt not but in time the Queen's Majesty will deal with her to her contentation." 'The Bishop of Ross divers times was on hand with this matter, and as I remember, said he would be one himself and venture his cragge; and when he saw my Lord utterly denying it, he said, "Well then my Lord will do nothing, and so nothing shall come of him. But there is no remedy but patience, and as for the Queen, my mistress, she is no castaway: if he will not do for her there be enough that will."-Confesfession of Barker, Jan. 23. MSS. Domestic. 2 Confession of the Bishop of Ross. -MSS. MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 'They said at Rome if the Duke had had in him that which they looked to have found in him, things had been far otherwise than they were.'-R. Beseley to Burghley, Jan. MSS. Domestic. 27. |