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!"

"Well, Will, for all your mighty word we, you are but the pen in Mr. Secretary's hand, so there is no need to argue the matter with you," said Richard.

The speech considerably nettled Master William, especially as it made Lord Talbot laugh.

"Father!" said Diccon afterwards, "Humfrey tried to warn Mr. Babington that we had seen this Langston, who hath as many metamorphoses as there be in Ovidius Naso, coming privily forth from Sir Francis Walsingham's closet, but he would not listen, and declared that Langston was holding Mr. Secretary in play."

"Deceiving and being deceived," sighed his father. "That is ever the way, my son! Remember that if thou playest false, other men will play falser with thee and bring thee to thy ruin. I would not leave thee here save that the gentlemen pensioners are a more honest and manly sort of folk than yonder gentlemen with their state craft, wherein they throw over all truth and honour as well as mercy."

This conversation took place as the father and son were making their way to a house in Westminster, where Antony Babington's wife was with her mother, Lady Ratcliffe. It had been a match made by Lady Shrewsbury, and it was part of Richard's commission to see and confer with the family. It was not a satisfactory interview. The wife was a dull childish little thing, not yet sixteen; and though she cried, she had plainly never lived in any real sympathy or companionship with her husband, who had left her with her parents, while leading the life of mingled amusement and intrigue which had brought him to his present state; and the mother, a hard-featured woman, evidently thought herself cheated and ill used. She railed at Babington and at my Lady Countess by turns; at the one for his ruinous courses and neglect of her daughter, at the other for having cozened her into giving her poor child to a treacherous Papist, who would be attainted in blood, and thus bring her poor daughter and grandchild to poverty. The old lady really seemed to have lost all pity for her son-in-law in indignation on her daughter's account, and to care infinitely less for the saving of his life than for the saving of his estate. Nor did the young wife herself appear to possess much real affection for poor Antony, of whom she had seen very little. There must have been great faults on his side; yet certainly Richard felt that there was some excuse for him in the mother-in-law, and that if the unfortunate young man could have married Cicely his lot might have been different. Yet the good Captain felt all the more that if Cis had been his own he still would never have given her to Babington.

CHAPTER XXXII
WESTMINSTER HALL

Beneath the noble roof of Westminster Hall, with the morning sun streaming in high aloft, at seven in the morning of the 14th of September, the Court met for the trial of Antony Babington and his confederates. The Talbot name and recommendation obtained ready admission, and Lord Talbot, Richard, and his son formed one small party together with William Cavendish, who had his tablets, on which to take notes for the use of his superior, Walsingham, who was, however, one of the Commissioners.

There they sat, those supreme judges, the three Chief-Justices in their scarlet robes of office forming the centre of the group, which also numbered Lords Cobham and Buckhurst, Sir Francis Knollys, Sir Christopher Hatton, and most of the chief law officers of the Crown.

"Is Mr. Secretary Walsingham one of the judges here?" asked Diccon. "Methought he had been in the place of the accuser."

"Peace, boy, and listen," said his father; "these things pass my comprehension."

Nevertheless Richard had determined that if the course of the trial should offer the least opportunity, he would come forward and plead his former knowledge of young Babington as a rash and weak-headed youth, easily played upon by designing persons, but likely to take to heart such a lesson as this, and become a true and loyal subject. If he could obtain any sort of mitigation for the poor youth, it would be worth the risk.

The seven conspirators were brought in, and Richard could hardly keep a rush of tears from his eyes at the sight of those fine, high-spirited young men, especially Antony Babington, the playfellow of his own children.

Antony was carefully dressed in his favourite colour, dark green, his hair and beard trimmed, and his demeanour calm and resigned. The fire was gone from his blue eye, and his bright complexion had faded, but there was an air of dignity about him such as he had never worn before. His eyes, as he took his place, wandered round the vast assembly, and rested at length on Mr. Talbot, as though deriving encouragement and support from the look that met his. Next to him was another young man with the same look of birth and breeding, namely Chidiock Tichborne; but John Savage, an older man, had the reckless bearing of the brutalised soldiery of the Netherlandish wars. Robert Barnwell, with his red, shaggy brows and Irish physiognomy, was at once recognised by Diccon. Donne and Salisbury followed; and the seventh conspirator, John Ballard, was carried in a chair. Even Diccon's quick eye could hardly have detected the ruffling, swaggering, richly-clad Captain Fortescue in this tonsured man in priestly garb, deadly pale, and unable to stand, from the effects of torture, yet with undaunted, penetrating eyes, all unsubdued.

After the proclamation, Oyez, Oyez, and the command to keep silence, Sandys, the Clerk of the Crown, began the proceedings. "John Ballard, Antony Babington, John Savage, Robert Barnwell, Chidiock Tichborne, Henry Donne, Thomas Salisbury, hold up your hands and answer." The indictment was then read at great length, charging them with conspiring to slay the Queen, to deliver Mary, Queen of Scots, from custody, to stir up rebellion, to bring the Spaniards to invade England, and to change the religion of the country. The question was first put to Ballard, Was he guilty of these treasons or not guilty?

Ballard's reply was, "That I procured the delivery of the Queen of Scots, I am guilty; and that I went about to alter the religion, I am guilty; but that I intended to slay her Majesty, I am not guilty."

"Not with his own hand," muttered Cavendish, "but for the rest—"

"Pity that what is so bravely spoken should be false," thought Richard, "yet it may be to leave the way open to defence."

Sandys, however, insisted that he must plead to the whole indictment, and Anderson, the Chief-Justice of Common Pleas, declared that he must deny the whole generally, or confess it generally; while Hatton put in, "Ballard, under thine own hand are all things confessed, therefore now it is much vanity to stand vaingloriously in denying it."

"Then, sir, I confess I am guilty," he said, with great calmness, though it was the resignation of all hope.

The same question was then put to Babington. He, with "a mild countenance, sober gesture," and all his natural grace, stood up and spoke, saying "that the time for concealment was past, and that he was ready to avow how from his earliest infancy he had believed England to have fallen from the true religion, and had trusted to see it restored thereto. Moreover, he had ever a deep love and compassion for the Queen of Scots. Some," he said, "who are yet at large, and who are yet as deep in the matter as I—"

"Gifford, Morgan, and another," whispered Cavendish significantly.

"Have they escaped?" asked Diccon.

"So 'tis said."

"The decoy ducks," thought Richard.

Babington was explaining that these men had proposed to him a great enterprise for the rescue and restoration of the Queen of Scots, and the re-establishment of the Catholic religion in England by the sword of the Prince of Parma. A body of gentlemen were to attack Chartley, free Mary, and proclaim her Queen, and at the same time Queen Elizabeth was to be put to death by some speedy and skilful method.

"My Lords," he said, "I swear that all that was in me cried out against the wickedness of thus privily slaying her Majesty."

Some muttered, "The villain! he lies," but the kindly Richard sighed inaudibly, "True, poor lad! Thou must have given thy conscience over to strange keepers to be thus led astray."

And Babington went on to say that they had brought this gentleman, Father Ballard, who had wrought with him to prove that his scruples were weak, carnal, and ungodly, and that it would be a meritorious deed in the sight of Heaven thus to remove the heretic usurper.

Here the judges sternly bade him not to blaspheme, and he replied, with that "soberness and good grace" which seems to have struck all the beholders, that he craved patience and pardon, meaning only to explain how he had been led to the madness which he now repented, understanding himself to have been in grievous error, though not for the sake of any temporal reward; but being blinded to the guilt, and assured that the deed was both lawful and meritorious. He thus had been brought to destruction through the persuasions of this Ballard.

"A very fit author for so bad a fact," responded Hatton.

"Very true, sir," said Babington; "for from so bad a ground never proceed any better fruits. He it was who persuaded me to kill the Queen, and to commit the other treasons, whereof I confess myself guilty."

Savage pleaded guilty at once, with the reckless hardihood of a soldier accustomed to look on death as the fortune of war.

Barnwell denied any intention of killing the Queen (much to Diccon's surprise), but pleaded guilty to the rest. Donne said that on being told of the plot he had prayed that whatever was most to the honour and glory of Heaven might be done, and being pushed hard by Hatton, turned this into a confession of being guilty. Salisbury declared that he had always protested against killing the Queen, and that he would not have done so for a kingdom, but of the rest he was guilty. Tichborne showed that but for an accidental lameness he would have been at his home in Hampshire, but he could not deny his knowledge of the treason.

All having pleaded guilty, no trial was permitted, such as would have brought out the different degrees of guilt, which varied in all the seven.

A long speech was, however, made by the counsel for the Crown, detailing the plot as it had been arranged for the public knowledge, and reading aloud a letter from Babington to Queen Mary, describing his plans both for her rescue and the assassination, saying, "he had appointed six noble gentlemen for the despatch of the wicked competitor."

Richard caught a look of astonishment on the unhappy young man's face, but it passed into hopeless despondency, and the speech went on to describe the picture of the conspirators and its strange motto, concluding with an accusation that they meant to sack London, burn the ships, and "cloy the ordnance."

A shudder of horror went through the assembly, and perhaps few except Richard Talbot felt that the examination of the prisoners ought to have been public. The form, however, was gone through of asking whether they had cause to render wherefore they should not be condemned to die.

The first to speak was Ballard. His eyes glanced round with an indomitable expression of scorn and indignation, which, as Diccon whispered, he could have felt to his very backbone. It was like that of a trapped and maimed lion, as the man sat in his chair with crushed and racked limbs, but with a spirit untamed in its defiance.

"Cause, my Lords?" he replied. "The cause I have to render will not avail here, but it may avail before another Judgment-seat, where the question will be, who used the weapons of treason, not merely against whom they were employed. Inquiry hath not been made here who suborned the priest, Dr. Gifford, to fetch me over from Paris, that we might together overcome the scruples of these young men, and lead them forward in a scheme for the promotion of the true religion and the right and lawful succession. No question hath here been put in open court, who framed the conspiracy, nor for what purpose. No, my Lords; it would baffle the end you would bring about, yea, and blot the reputation of some who stand in high places, if it came to light that the plot was devised, not by the Catholics who were to be the instruments thereof, nor by the Lady in whose favour all was to be done,—not by these, the mere victims, but by him who by a triumph of policy thus sent forth his tempters to enclose them all within his net—above all the persecuted Lady whom all true Catholics own as the only lawful sovereign within these realms. Such schemes, when they succeed, are termed policy. My Lords, I confess that by the justice of England we have been guilty of treason against Queen Elizabeth; but by the eternal law of the justice of God, we have suffered treachery far exceeding that for which we are about to die."

"I marvel that they let the fellow speak so far," was Cavendish's comment.

"Nay, but is it so?" asked Diccon with startled eyes.

"Hush! you have yet to learn statecraft," returned his friend.

His father's monitory hand only just saved the boy from bursting out with something that would have rather astonished Westminster Hall, and caused him to be taken out by the ushers. It is not wonderful that no report of the priest's speech has been preserved.

The name of Antony Babington was then called. Probably he had been too much absorbed in the misery of his position to pay attention to the preceding speech, for his reply was quite independent of it. He prayed the Lords to believe, and to represent to her Majesty, that he had received with horror the suggestion of compassing her death, and had only been brought to believe it a terrible necessity by the persuasions of this Ballard.

On this Hatton broke forth in indignant compassion,—"O Ballard! Ballard! what hast thou done? A sort of brave youth, otherwise endowed with good gifts, by thy inducement hast thou brought to their utter destruction and confusion!"

This apparently gave some hope to Babington, for he answered—"Yes, I protest that, before I met this Ballard, I never meant nor intended for to kill the Queen; but by his persuasions I was induced to believe that she being excommunicate it was lawful to murder her."

For the first time Ballard betrayed any pain. "Yes, Mr. Babington," he said, "lay all the blame upon me; but I wish the shedding of my blood might be the saving of your life. Howbeit, say what you will, I will say no more."

"He is the bravest of them all!" was Diccon's comment.

"Wot you that he was once our spy?" returned Cavendish with a sneer; while Sir Christopher, with the satisfaction of a little nature in uttering reproaches, returned—"Nay, Ballard, you must say more and shall say more, for you must not commit treasons and then huddle them up. Is this your Religio Catholica? Nay, rather it is Diabolica."

Ballard scorned to answer this, and the Clerk passed on to Savage, who retained his soldierly fatalism, and only shook his head. Barnwell again denied any purpose of injuring the Queen, and when Hatton spoke of his appearance in Richmond Park, he said all had been for conscience sake. So said Henry Donne, but with far more piety and dignity, adding, "fiat voluntas Dei;" and Thomas Salisbury was the only one who made any entreaty for pardon.

Speeches followed from the Attorney-General, and from Sir Christopher Hatton, and then the Lord Chief Justice Anderson pronounced the terrible sentence.

Richard Talbot sat with his head bowed between his hands. His son had begun listening with wide-stretched eyes and mouth, as boyhood hearkens to the dreadful, and with the hardness of an unmerciful time, too apt to confound pity with weakness; but when his eye fell on the man he had followed about as an elder playmate, and realised all it conveyed, his cheek blanched, his jaw fell, and he hardly knew how his father got him out of the court.

There was clearly no hope. The form of the trial was such as to leave no chance of escape from the utmost penalty. No witnesses had been examined, no degrees of guilt acknowledged, no palliations admitted. Perhaps men who would have brought the Spanish havoc on their native country, and have murdered their sovereign, were beyond the pale of compassion. All London clearly thought so; and yet, as Richard Talbot dwelt on their tones and looks, and remembered how they had been deluded and tempted, and made to believe their deed meritorious, he could not but feel exceeding pity for the four younger men. Ballard, Savage, and Barnwell might be justly doomed; even Babington had, by his own admission, entertained a fearfully evil design; but the other three had evidently dipped far less deeply into the plot, and Tichborne had only concealed it out of friendship. Yet the ruthless judgment condemned all alike! And why? To justify a yet more cruel blow! No wonder honest Richard Talbot felt sick at heart.