Unknown to History: A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland

So, though the Queen often felt herself carrying her daughter along, she always found that there had been a slipping back to the old standpoint every time she began again. She was considering with some anxiety of the young maiden's future.

"Could I but send thee to my good sister, the Duchess of Lorraine, she would see thee well and royally married," she said. "Then couldst thou be known by thine own name, and rank as Princess of Scotland. If I can only see my Courcelles again, she would take thee safely and prove all—and thy hand will be precious to many. It may yet bring back the true faith to England, when my brave cousin of Guise has put down the Bearnese, and when the poor stumbling-block here is taken away."

"Oh speak not of that, dear madam, my mother."

"I must speak, child. I must think how it will be with thee, so marvellously saved, and restored to be my comfort. I must provide for thy safety and honour. Happily the saints guarded me from ever mentioning thee in my letters, so that there is no fear that Elizabeth should lay hands on thee, unless Langston should have spoken—the which can hardly be. But if all be broken up here, I must find thee a dwelling with my kindred worthy of thy birth."

"Mr. and Mrs. Talbot would take me home," murmured Cicely.

"Girl! After all the training I have bestowed on thee, is it possible that thou wouldst fain go back to make cheeses and brew small beer with those Yorkshire boors, rather than reign a princess? I thought thy heart was nobler."

Cicely hung her head ashamed. "I was very happy there," she said in excuse.

"Happy—ay, with the milkmaid's bliss. There may be fewer sorrows in such a life as that—just as those comely kine of Ashton's that I see grazing in the park have fewer sorrows than human creatures. But what know they of our joys, or what know the commonalty of the joy of ruling, calling brave men one's own, riding before one's men in the field, wielding counsels of State, winning the love of thousands? Nay, nay, I will not believe it of my child, unless 'tis the base Border blood that is in her which speaks."

Cicely was somewhat overborne by being thus accused of meanness of tastes, when she had heard the Queen talk enviously of that same homely life which now she despised so heartily. She faltered in excuse, "Methought, madam, you would be glad to think there was one loving shelter ever open to me."

"Loving! Ah! I see what it is," said the Queen, in a tone of disgust. "It is the sailor loon that has overthrown it all. A couple of walks in the garden with him, and the silly maid is ready to throw over all nobler thoughts."

"Madam, he spoke no such word to me."

"'Twas the infection, child—only the infection."

"Madam, I pray you—"

"Whist, child. Thou wilt be a perilous bride for any commoner, and let that thought, if no other, keep thee from lowering thine eyes to such as he. Were I and thy brother taken out of the way, none would stand between thee and both thrones! What would English or Scots say to find thee a household Joan, wedded to one of Drake's rude pirate fellows? I tell thee it would be the worse for him. They have made it treason to wed royal blood without Elizabeth's consent. No, no, for his sake, as well as thine own, thou must promise me never thus to debase thy royal lineage."

"Mother; neither he nor I have thought or spoken of such a matter since we knew how it was with me.

"And you give me your word?"

"Yea, madam," said Cicely, who had really never entertained the idea of marrying Humfrey, implicit as was her trust in him as a brother and protector.

"That is well. And so soon as I am restored to my poor servants, if I ever am, I will take measures for sending the French remnant to their own land; nor shall my Courcelles quit thee till she hath seen thee safe in the keeping of Madame de Lorraine or of Queen Louise, who is herself a kinswoman of ours, and, they say, is piety and gentleness itself."

"As you will, madam," said Cicely, her heart sinking at the thought of the strange new world before her, but perceiving that she must not be the means of bringing Humfrey into trouble and danger.

Perhaps she felt this the more from seeing how acutely her mother suffered at times from sorrow for those involved in her disaster. She gave Babington and his companions, as well as Nau and Curll, up for lost, as the natural consequence of having befriended her; and she blamed herself remorsefully, after the long experience of the fatal consequences of meddling in her affairs, for having entered into correspondence with the bright enthusiastic boy whom she remembered, and having lured him without doubt to his death.

"Alack! alack!" she said, "and yet such is liberty, that I should forget all I have gone through, and do the like again, if the door seemed opened to me. At least there is this comfort, cruel child, thy little heart was not set on him, gracious and handsome though he were—and thy mother's most devoted knight! Ah! poor youth, it wrings my soul to think of him. But at least he is a Catholic, his soul will be safe, and I will have hundreds of masses sung for him. Oh that I knew how it goes with them! This torture of silent suspense is the most cruel of all."

Mary paced the room with impatient misery, and in such a round the weary hours dragged by, only mitigated by one welcome thunderstorm, for seventeen days, whose summer length made them seem the more endless. Cicely, who had never before in her life been shut up in the house so many hours, was pale, listless, and even fretful towards the Queen, who bore with her petulance so tenderly as more than once to make her weep bitterly for very shame. After one of these fits of tears, Mary pleaded earnestly with Sir Walter Ashton for permission for the maiden to take a turn in the garden every day, but though the good gentleman's complexion bore testimony that he lived in the fresh air, he did not believe in its efficacy; he said he had no orders, and could do nothing without warrant. But that evening at supper, the serving-maid brought up a large brew of herbs, dark and nauseous, which Dame Ashton had sent as good for the young lady's megrim.

"Will you taste it, sir?" asked the Queen of Sir Walter, with a revival of her lively humour.

"The foul fiend have me if a drop comes within my lips," muttered the knight. "I am not bound to taste for a tirewoman!" he added, leaving it in doubt whether his objection arose from distaste to his lady's messes, or from pride; and he presently said, perhaps half-ashamed of himself, and willing to cast the blame on the other side,

"It was kindly meant of my good dame, and if you choose to flout at, rather than benefit by it, that is no affair of mine."

He left the potion, and Cicely disposed of it by small instalments at the windows; and a laugh over the evident horror it excited in the master, did the captives at least as much good as the camomile, centaury, wormwood, and other ingredients of the bowl.

Happily it was only two days later that Sir Walter announced that his custody of the Queen was over, and Sir Amias Paulett was come for her. There was little preparation to make, for the two ladies had worn their riding-dresses all the time; but on reaching the great door, where Sir Amias, attended by Humfrey, was awaiting them, they were astonished to see a whole troop on horseback, all armed with head-pieces, swords and pistols, to the number of a hundred and forty.

"Wherefore is this little army raised?" she asked.

"It is by order of the Queen," replied Ashton, with his accustomed surly manner, "and need enough in the time of such treasons!"

The Queen turned to him with tears on her cheeks. "Good gentlemen," she said, "I am not witting of anything against the Queen. Am I to be taken to the Tower?"

"No, madam, back to Chartley," replied Sir Amias.

"I knew they would never let me see my cousin," sighed the Queen. "Sir," as Paulett placed her on her horse, "of your pity tell me whether I shall find all my poor servants there."

"Yea, madam, save Mr. Nau and Mr. Curll, who are answering for themselves and for you. Moreover, Curll's wife was delivered two days since."

This intelligence filled Mary with more anxiety than she chose to manifest to her unsympathising surroundings; Cis meanwhile had been assisted to mount by Humfrey, who told her that Mrs. Curll was thought to be doing well, but that there were fears for the babe. It was impossible to exchange many words, for they were immediately behind the Queen and her two warders, and Humfrey could only tell her that his father had been at Chartley, and had gone on to London; but there was inexpressible relief in hearing the sound of his voice, and knowing she had some one to think for her and protect her. The promise she had made to the Queen only seemed to make him more entirely her brother by putting that other love out of the question.

There was a sad sight at the gate,—a whole multitude of wretched-looking beggars, and poor of all ages and degrees of misery, who all held out their hands and raised one cry of "Alms, alms, gracious Lady, alms, for the love of heaven!"

Mary looked round on them with tearful eyes, and exclaimed, "Alack, good folk, I have nothing to give you! I am as much a beggar as yourselves!"

The escort dispersed them roughly, Paulett assuring her that they were nothing but "a sort of idle folk," who were only encouraged in laziness by her bounty, which was very possibly true of a certain proportion of them, but it had been a sore grief to her that since Cuthbert Langston's last approach in disguise she had been prevented from giving alms.

In due time Chartley was reached, and the first thing the Queen did on dismounting was to hurry to visit poor Barbara Curll, who had—on her increasing illness—been removed to one of the guest-chambers, where the Queen now found her, still in much distress about her husband, who was in close imprisonment in Walsingham's house, and had not been allowed to send her any kind of message; and in still more immediate anxiety about her new-born infant, who did not look at all as if its little life would last many hours.

She lifted up her languid eyelids, and scarcely smiled when the Queen declared, "See, Barbara, I am come back again to you, to nurse you and my god-daughter into health to receive your husband again. Nay, have no fears for him. They cannot hurt him. He has done nothing, and is a Scottish subject beside. My son shall write to claim him," she declared with such an assumed air of confidence that a shade of hope crossed the pale face, and the fear for her child became the more pressing of the two griefs.

"We will christen her at once," said Mary, turning to the nearest attendant. "Bear a request from me to Sir Amias that his chaplain may come at once and baptize my god-child."

Sir Amias was waiting in the gallery in very ill-humour at the Queen's delay, which kept his supper waiting. Moreover, his party had a strong dislike to private baptism, holding that the important point was the public covenant made by responsible persons, and the notion of the sponsorship of a Roman Catholic likewise shocked him. So he made ungracious answer that he would have no baptism save in church before the congregation, with true Protestant gossips.

"So saith he?" exclaimed Mary, when the reply was reported to her. "Nay, my poor little one, thou shalt not be shut out of the Kingdom of Heaven for his churlishness." And taking the infant on her knee, she dipped her hand in the bowl of water that had been prepared for the chaplain, and baptized it by her own name of Mary.

The existing Prayer-book had been made expressly to forbid lay baptism and baptism by women, at the special desire of the reformers, and Sir Amias was proportionately horrified, and told her it was an offence for the Archbishop's court.

"Very like," said Mary. "Your Protestant courts love to slay both body and soul. Will it please you to open my own chambers to me, sir?"

Sir Amias handed the key to one of her servants but she motioned him aside.

"Those who put me forth must admit me," she said.

The door was opened by one of the gentlemen of the household, and they entered. Every repository had been ransacked, every cabinet stood open and empty, every drawer had been pulled out. Wearing apparel and the like remained, but even this showed signs of having been tossed over and roughly rearranged by masculine fingers.

Mary stood in the midst of the room, which had a strange air of desolation, an angry light in her eyes, and her hands clasped tightly one into the other. Paulett attempted some expression of regret for the disarray, pleading his orders.

"It needs not excuse, sir," said Mary, "I understand to whom I owe this insult. There are two things that your Queen can never take from me—royal blood and the Catholic faith. One day some of you will be sorry for what you have now put upon me! I would be alone, sir," and she proudly motioned him to the door, with a haughty gesture, showing her still fully Queen in her own apartments. Paulett obeyed, and when he was gone, the Queen seemed to abandon the command over herself she had preserved all this time. She threw herself into Jean Kennedy's arms, and wept freely and piteously, while the good lady, rejoicing at heart to have recovered "her bairn," fondled and soothed her with soft Scottish epithets, as though the worn woman had been a child again. "Yea, nurse, mine own nurse, I am come back to thee; for a little while—only a little while, nurse, for they will have my blood, and oh! I would it were ended, for I am aweary of it all."

Jean and Elizabeth Curll tried to cheer and console her, alarmed at this unwonted depression, but she only said, "Get me to bed, nurse, I am sair forfaughten."

She was altogether broken down by the long suspense, the hardships and the imprisonment she had undergone, and she kept her bed for several days, hardly speaking, but apparently reposing in the relief afforded by the recovered care and companionship of her much-loved attendants.

There she was when Paulett came to demand the keys of the caskets where her treasure was kept. Melville had refused to yield them, and all the Queen said was, "Robbery is to be added to the rest," a sentence which greatly stung the knight, but he actually seized all the coin that he found, including what belonged to Nau and Curll, and, only retaining enough for present expenses, sent the rest off to London.

CHAPTER XXXI

EVIDENCE

In the meantime the two Richard Talbots, father and son, had safely arrived in London, and had been made welcome at the house of their noble kinsman.

Nau and Curll, they heard, were in Walsingham's house, subjected to close examination; Babington and all his comrades were in the Tower. The Council was continually sitting to deliberate over the fate of the latter unhappy men, of whose guilt there was no doubt; and neither Lord Talbot nor Will Cavendish thought there was any possibility of Master Richard gaining permission to plead how the unfortunate Babington had been worked on and deceived. After the sentence should be pronounced, Cavendish thought that the request of the Earl of Shrewsbury might prevail to obtain permission for an interview between the prisoner and one commissioned by his former guardian. Will was daily attending Sir Francis Walsingham as his clerk, and was not by any means unwilling to relate anything he had been able to learn.

Queen Elizabeth was, it seemed, greatly agitated and distressed. The shock to her nerves on the day when she had so bravely overawed Barnwell with the power of her eye had been such as not to be easily surmounted. She was restless and full of anxiety, continually starting at every sound, and beginning letters to the Queen of Scots which were never finished. She had more than once inquired after the brave sailor youths who had come so opportunely to her rescue; and Lord Talbot thought it would be well to present Diccon and his father to her, and accordingly took them with him to Greenwich Palace, where they had the benefit of looking on as loyal subjects, while her Majesty, in royal fashion, dined in public, to the sound of drums, trumpets, fifes, and stringed instruments. But though dressed with her usual elaborate care, she looked older, paler, thinner, and more haggard than when Diccon had seen her three weeks previously, and neither her eye nor mouth had the same steadiness. She did not eat with relish, but almost as if she were forcing herself, lest any lack of appetite might be observed and commented upon, and her looks continually wandered as though in search of some lurking enemy; for in truth no woman, nor man either, could easily forget the suggestion which had recently been brought to her knowledge, that an assassin might "lurk in her gallery and stab her with his dagger, or if she should walk in her garden, he might shoot her with his dagg, or if she should walk abroad to take the air, he might assault her with his arming sword and make sure work." Even though the enemies were safe in prison, she knew not but that dagger, dagg, or arming sword might still be ready for her, and she believed that any fatal charge openly made against Mary at the trial might drive her friends to desperation and lead to the use of dagg or dagger. She was more unhinged than ever before, and commanded herself with difficulty when going through all the scenes of her public life as usual.

The Talbots soon felt her keen eye on them, and a look of recognition passed over her face as she saw Diccon. As soon as the meal was over, and the table of trestles removed, she sent a page to command Lord Talbot to present them to her.

"So, sir," she said, as Richard the elder knelt before her, "you are the father of two brave sons, whom you have bred up to do good service; but I only see one of them here. Where is the elder?"

"So please your Majesty, Sir Amias Paulett desired to retain him at Chartley to assist in guarding the Queen of Scots."

"It is well. Paulett knows a trusty lad when he sees him. And so do I. I would have the youths both for my gentlemen pensioners—the elder when he can be spared from his charge, this stripling at once."

"We are much beholden to your Majesty," said Richard, bending his head the lower as he knelt on one knee; for such an appointment gave both training and recommendation to young country gentlemen, and was much sought after.

"Methinks," said Elizabeth, who had the royal faculty of remembering faces, "you have yourself so served us, Mr. Talbot?"

"I was for three years in the band of your Majesty's sister, Queen Mary," said Richard, "but I quitted it on her death to serve at sea, and I have since been in charge at Sheffield, under my Lord of Shrewsbury."

"We have heard that he hath found you a faithful servant," said the Queen, "yea, so well affected as even to have refused your daughter in marriage to this same Babington. Is this true?"

"It is, so please your Majesty."

"And it was because you already perceived his villainy?"

"There were many causes, Madam," said Richard, catching at the chance of saying a word for the unhappy lad, "but it was not so much villainy that I perceived in him as a nature that might be easily practised upon by worse men than himself."

"Not so much a villain ready made as the stuff villains are made of," said the Queen, satisfied with her own repartee.

"So please your Majesty, the metal that in good hands becomes a brave sword, in evil ones becomes a treacherous dagger."

"Well said, Master Captain, and therefore, we must destroy alike the dagger and the hands that perverted it."

"Yet," ventured Richard, "the dagger attempered by your Majesty's clemency might yet do noble service."

Elizabeth, however, broke out fiercely with one of her wonted oaths.

"How now? Thou wouldst not plead for the rascal! I would have you to know that to crave pardon for such a fellow is well-nigh treason in itself. You have license to leave us, sir."

"I should scarce have brought you, Richard," said Lord Talbot, as soon as they had left the presence chamber, "had I known you would venture on such folly. Know you not how incensed she is? Naught but your proved loyalty and my father's could have borne you off this time, and it would be small marvel to me if the lad's appointment were forgotten."

"I could not choose but run the risk," said Richard. "What else came I to London for?"

"Well," said his cousin, "you are a brave man, Richard Talbot. I know those who had rather scale a Spanish fortress than face Queen Elizabeth in her wrath. Her tongue is sharper than even my stepdame's, though it doth not run on so long."

Lord Talbot was not quite easy when that evening a gentleman, clad in rich scarlet and gold, and armed to the teeth, presented himself at Shrewsbury House and inquired for Mr. Talbot of Bridgefield. However, it proved to be the officer of the troop of gentlemen pensioners come to enroll Diccon, tell him the requirements, and arrange when he should join in a capacity something like that of an esquire to one of the seniors of the troop. Humfrey was likewise inquired for, but it was thought better on all accounts that he should continue in his present situation, since it was especially needful to have trustworthy persons at Chartley in the existing crisis. Master Richard was well satisfied to find that his son's immediate superior would be a gentleman of a good Yorkshire family, whose father was known to him, and who promised to have a care of Master Richard the younger, and preserve him, as far as possible, from the perils of dicing, drinking, and running into bad company.

Launching a son in this manner and equipping him for service was an anxious task for a father, while day after day the trial was deferred, the examinations being secretly carried on before the Council till, as Cavendish explained, what was important should be disclosed.

Of course this implied what should be fatal to Queen Mary. The priest Ballard was racked, but he was a man of great determination, and nothing was elicited from him. The other prisoners, and Nau and Curll, were questioned again and again under threats and promises before the Council, and the letters that had been copied on their transit through the beer barrels were read and made the subject of cross-examination—still all in private, for, as Cavendish said, "perilous stuff to the Queen's Majesty might come out."

He allowed, however, day after day, that though there was quite enough to be fatal to Ballard, Babington, Savage, and Barnwell, whatever else was wanting was not forthcoming. At last, however, Cavendish returned full of a certain exultation: "We have it," he said,—"a most undoubted treasonable letter, which will catch her between the shoulders and the head."

He spoke to Lord Talbot and Richard, who were standing together in a window, and who knew only too well who was referred to, and what the expression signified. On a further query from his step-brother, Cavendish explained that it was a long letter, dated July 16, arranging in detail the plan for "the Lady's" own rescue from Chartley at the moment of the landing of the Spaniards, and likewise showing her privy to the design of the six gentlemen against the life of the Queen, and desiring to know their names. Nau had, he said, verified the cipher as one used in the correspondence, and Babington, when it was shown to him, had declared that it had been given to him in the street by a stranger serving-man in a blue coat, and that it had removed all doubt from his mind, as it was an answer to a letter of his, a copy of which had been produced, but not the letter itself.

"Which we have not found," said Cavendish.

"Not for all that search of yours at Chartley?" said Richard. "Methought it was thorough enough!"

"The Lady must have been marvellously prudent as to the keeping of letters," said Will, "or else she must have received some warning; for there is absolutely naught to be found in her repositories that will serve our purpose."

"Our purpose!" repeated Richard, as he recollected many little kindnesses that William Cavendish when a boy had received from the prisoner at Sheffield.

"Yea, Master Richard," he returned, unabashed. "It is absolutely needful that we should openly prove this woman to be what we know her to be in secret. Her Majesty's life will never be safe for a moment while she lives; and what would become of us all did she overlive the Queen!"