ravers, Powis,
Mounteagle, Clinton, Sandys, Windsor, Wentworth, Burgh, and Mordaunt:
twenty-seven in all: men hitherto of unblemished honour--the noblest
blood in the realm.

[Sidenote: Monday, May 15. Account of the trial in the Baga de
Secretis.]

These noblemen assembled in the Tower on the 15th of May. The queen was
brought before them; and the record in the Baga de Secretis relates the
proceeding as follows:--

"Before the Lord High Steward at the Tower, Anne, Queen of England,
comes in the custody of Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower,
and is brought to the bar. Being arraigned of the before-mentioned
treasons, she pleads not guilty, and puts herself upon her peers;
whereupon the Duke of Suffolk, Marquis of Exeter, and others the
before-mentioned earls and barons, peers of the said queen, being
charged by the said Lord High Steward to say the truth, and afterwards
being examined severally by the Lord High Steward, from the lowest peer
to the highest, each of them severally saith that she is guilty.

[Sidenote: The queen is found guilty, and sentenced to be burned or
beheaded at the king's pleasure.]

"Judgment--that the queen be taken by the said Constable back to the
king's prison within the Tower; and then, as the king shall command, be
brought to the green within the said Tower, and there burned or
beheaded, as shall please the king."[591]

In such cold lines is the story of this tragedy unrolling itself to its
close. The course which it followed, however, was less hard in the
actual life; and men's hearts, even in those stern times, could beat
with human emotions. The Duke of Norfolk was in tears as he passed
sentence.[592] The Earl of Northumberland "was obliged by a sudden
illness to leave the court."[593] The sight of the woman whom he had
once loved, and to whom he was perhaps married, in that dreadful
position, had been more than he could bear; and the remainder of the
work of the day went forward without him.

[Sidenote: Lord Rochfort found guilty also.]

The queen withdrew. Her brother took his place at the bar. Like Anne, he
declared himself innocent. Like Anne, he was found guilty, and sentenced
to die.[594]

We can form no estimate of the evidence; for we do not know what it was.
We cannot especially accuse the form of the trial; for it was the form
which was always observed. But the fact remains to us, that these
twenty-seven peers, who were not ignorant, as we are, but were fu