My dear countrymen,

Albeit my sorrows well may be your joy,

Yet mix your smiles with tears: pity my case,

Who, born out of an house whose name descends

Even from two hundred years ere English earth

Felt Norman heel upon her, were it yet

Till this mishap of mine unspotted. Sirs,

I have a wife, and one sweet child: my wife,

My dear wife Agnes: and my grief is there;

And for six sisters too left on my hand:

All my poor servants were dispersed, I know,

Upon their master's capture: all which things

Most heartily I sorrow for: and though

Nought might I less have merited at her hands,

Yet had I looked for pardon of my fault

From the queen's absolute grace and clemency;

That the unexpired remainder of my years

Might in some sort have haply recompensed

This former guilt of mine whereof I die:

But seeing such fault may find not such release

Even of her utter mercies, heartily

I crave at least of her and all the world

Forgiveness, and to God commend my soul,

And to men's memory this my penitence

Till our death's record die from out the land.

FIRST CITIZEN.

God pardon him! Stand back: what ail these knaves

To drive and thrust upon us? Help me, sir;

I thank you: hence we take them full in view:

Hath yet the hangman there his knife in hand?

 

 

Act III

Burghley
Scene I. The presence-chamber in Fotheringay Castle. At the upper end, a chair of state as for Queen Elizabeth; opposite, in the centre of the hall, a chair for Mary Stuart. The Commissioners seated on either side along the wall: to the right, the Earls, with Lord Chancellor Bromley and Lord Treasurer Burghley; to the left, the Barons, with the Knights of the Privy Council, among them Walsingham and Paulet; Popham, Egerton, and Gawdy, as Counsel for the Crown. Enter Mary Stuart, supported by Sir Andrew Melville, and takes her place.

MARY STUART.

Here are full many men of counsel met;

Not one for me.

 

The Chancellor rises.

 

BROMLEY.

Madam, this court is held

To make strait inquisition as by law

Of what with grief of heart our queen has heard,

A plot upon her life, against the faith

Here in her kingdom stablished: on which cause

Our charge it is to exact your answer here

And put to proof your guilt or innocence.

MARY STUART rising.

Sirs, whom by strange constraint I stand before,

My lords, and not my judges, since no law

Can hold to mortal judgment answerable

A princess free-born of all courts on earth,

I rise not here to make response as one

Responsible toward any for my life

Or of mine acts accountable to man,

Who see none higher save only God in heaven:

I am no natural subject of your land

That I should here plead as a criminal charged,

Nor in such wise appear I now: I came

On your queen's faith to seek in England help

By trothplight pledged me: where by promise-breach

I am even since then her prisoner held in ward:

Yet, understanding by report of you

Some certain things I know not of to be

Against me brought on record, by my will

I stand content to hear and answer these.

BROMLEY.

Madam, there lives none born on earth so high

Who for this land's laws' breach within this land

Shall not stand answerable before those laws.

BURGHLEY.

Let there be record of the prisoner's plea

And answer given such protest here set down,

And so proceed we to this present charge.

GAWDY.

My lords, to unfold by length of circumstance

The model of this whole conspiracy

Should lay the pattern of all treasons bare

That ever brought high state in danger: this

No man there lives among us but hath heard,

How certain men of our queen's household folk

Being wrought on by persuasion of their priests

Drew late a bond between them, binding these

With others of their faith accomplices

Directed first of Anthony Babington

By mean of six for execution chosen

To slay the queen their mistress, and thereon

Make all her trustiest men of trust away;

As my lord treasurer Burghley present here,

Lord Hunsdon, and Sir Francis Walsingham,

And one that held in charge awhile agone

This lady now on trial, Sir Francis Knowles.

That she was hereto privy, to her power

Approving and abetting their device,

It shall not stand us in much need to show

Whose proofs are manifoldly manifest

On record written of their hands and hers.

MARY STUART.

Of all this I know nothing: Babington

I have used for mine intelligencer, sent

With letters charged at need, but never yet

Spake with him, never writ him word of mine

As privy to these close conspiracies

Nor word of his had from him. Never came

One harmful thought upon me toward your queen,

Nor knowledge ever that of other hearts

Was harm designed against her. Proofs, ye say,

Forsooth ye hold to impeach me: I desire

But only to behold and handle them

If they in sooth of sense be tangible

More than mere air and shadow.

BURGHLEY.

Let the clerk

Produce those letters writ from Babington.

MARY STUART.

What then? it may be such were writ of him:

Be it proved that they came ever in my hands.

If Babington affirm so much, I say

He, or who else will say it, lies openly.

GAWDY.

Here is the man's confession writ, and here

Ballard's the Jesuit, and the soldier's here,

Savage, that served with Parma.

MARY STUART.

What of these?

Traitors they were, and traitor-like they lied.

GAWDY.

And here the last her letter of response

Confirming and approving in each point

Their purpose, writ direct to Babington.

MARY STUART.

My letter? none of mine it is: perchance

It may be in my cipher charactered,

But never came from or my tongue or hand:

I have sought mine own deliverance, and thereto

Solicited of my friends their natural help:

Yet certain whom I list not name there were,

Whose offers made of help to set me free

Receiving, yet I answered not a word.

Howbeit, desiring to divert the storm

Of persecution from the church, for this

To your queen's grace I have made most earnest suit:

But for mine own part I would purchase not

This kingdom with the meanest one man's death

In all its commonalty, much less the queen's.

Many there be have dangerously designed

Things that I knew not: yea, but very late

There came a letter to my hand which craved

My pardon if by enterprise of some

Were undertaken aught unknown of me:

A cipher lightly may one counterfeit,

As he that vaunted him of late in France

To be my son's base brother: and I fear

Lest this, for aught mine ignorance of it knows,

May be that secretary's fair handiwork

Who sits to judge me, and hath practised late,

I hear, against my son's life and mine own.

But I protest I have not so much as thought

Nor dreamed upon destruction of the queen:

I had rather spend most gladly mine own life

Than for my sake the Catholics should be thus

Afflicted only in very hate of me

And drawn to death so cruel as these tears

Gush newly forth to think of.

BURGHLEY.

Here no man

Who hath showed himself true subject to the state

Was ever for religion done to death:

But some for treason, that against the queen

Upheld the pope's bull and authority.

MARY STUART.

Yet have I heard it otherwise affirmed

And read in books set forth in print as much.

BURGHLEY.

They that so write say too the queen hath here

Made forfeit of her royal dignity.

WALSINGHAM.

Here I call God to record on my part

That personally or as a private man

I have done nought misbeseeming honesty,

Nor as I bear a public person's place

Done aught thereof unworthy. I confess

That, being right careful of the queen's estate

And safety of this realm, I have curiously

Searched out the practices against it: nay,

Herein had Ballard offered me his help,

I durst not have denied him; yea, I would

Have recompensed the pains he had taken. Say

I have practised aught with him, why did he not,

To save his life, reveal it?

MARY STUART.

Pray you, sir,

Take no displeasure at me: truth it is

Report has found me of your dealings, blown

From lip to ear abroad, wherein myself

I put no credit: and could but desire

Yourself would all as little make account

Of slanders flung on me. Spies, sure, are men

Of doubtful credit, which dissemble things

Far other than they speak. Do not believe

That I gave ever or could give consent

Once to the queen's destruction: I would never,

These tears are bitter witness, never would

Make shipwreck of my soul by compassing

Destruction of my dearest sister.

GAWDY.

This

Shall soon by witness be disproved: as here

Even by this letter from Charles Paget's hand

Transcribed, which Curle your secretary hath borne

Plain witness you received, touching a league

Betwixt Mendoza and Ballard, who conferred

Of this land's foreordained invasion, thence

To give you freedom.

MARY STUART.

What of this? ye shoot

Wide of the purpose: this approves not me

Consenting to the queen's destruction.

GAWDY.

That

Stands proven enough by word of Babington

Who dying avowed it, and by letters passed

From him to you, whom he therein acclaims

As his most dread and sovereign lady and queen,

And by the way makes mention passingly

Of a plot laid by transference to convey

This kingdom to the Spaniard.

MARY STUART.

I confess

There came a priest unto me, saying if I

Would not herein bear part I with my son

Alike should be debarred the inheritance:

His name ye shall not have of me: but this

Ye know, that openly the Spaniard lays

Claim to your kingdom, and to none will give

Place ever save to me.

BURGHLEY.

Still stands the charge

On written witness of your secretaries

Great on all points against you.

MARY STUART.

Wherefore then

Are not these writers with these writings brought

To outface me front to front? For Gilbert Curle,

He is in the Frenchman's hands a waxen toy,

Whom the other, once mine uncle's secretary,

The cardinal's of Lorraine, at his mere will

Moulds, turns, and tempers: being himself a knave

That may be hired or scared with peril or coin

To swear what thing men bid him. Truth again

Is this that I deny not, seeing myself

Against all right held fast in English ward,

I have sought all help where I might hope to find:

Which thing that I dispute not, let this be

The sign that I disclaim no jot of truth

In all objected to me. For the rest,

All majesty that moves in all the world

And all safe station of all princes born

Fall, as things unrespected, to the ground,

If on the testimony of secretaries

And on their writings merely these depend,

Being to their likeness thence debased: for me,

Nought I delivered to them but what first

Nature to me delivered, that I might

Recover yet at length my liberty.

I am not to be convicted save alone

By mine own word or writing. If these men

Have written toward the queen my sister's hurt

Aught, I wist nought of all such writ at all:

Let them be put to punishment: I am sure,

Were these here present, they by testimony

Would bring me clear of blame.

GAWDY.

Yet by their mean

They could not in excuse of you deny

That letters of communion to and fro

Have passed between you and the Spaniard, whence

What should have come on England and the queen

These both well know, and with what messages

Were English exiles entertained of you

By mean of these men, of your secretaries,

Confirmed and cherished in conspiracy

For this her kingdom's overthrow: in France

Paget and Morgan, traitors in design

Of one close mind with you, and in your name

Cheered hence for constant service.

MARY STUART.

That I sought

Comfort and furtherance of all Catholic states

By what mean found soever just and good,

Your mistress from myself had note long since

And open warning: uncompelled I made

Avowal of such my righteous purpose, nor

In aught may disavow it. Of these late plots

No proof is here to attaint mine innocence,

Who dare all proof against me: Babington

I know not of, nor Ballard, nor their works,

But kings my kinsmen, powers that serve the church,

These I confess my comforters, in hope

Held fast of their alliance. Yet again

I challenge in the witness of my words

The notes writ of these letters here alleged

In mine own hand: if these ye bring not forth,

Judge all good men if I be not condemned

In all your hearts already, who perchance

For all this pageant held of lawless law

Have bound yourselves by pledge to speak me dead:

But I would have you look into your souls,

Remembering how the theatre of the world

Is wider, in whose eye ye are judged that judge,

Than this one realm of England.

BURGHLEY.

Toward that realm

Suffice it here that, madam, you stand charged

With deadly purpose: being of proven intent

To have your son conveyed to Spain, and give

The title you pretend upon our crown

Up with his wardship to King Philip.