y into the testimony of the two secretaries, who alone were
certainly acquainted with their mistress's concurrence in Babington's
conspiracy, but who knew themselves exposed to all the rigors of
imprisonment, torture, and death, if they refused to give any evidence
which might be required of them. In the case of an ordinary criminal,
this proof, with all its disadvantages, would be esteemed legal, and
even satisfactory, if not opposed by some other circumstances which
shake the credit of the witnesses: but on the present trial, where
the absolute power of the prosecutor concurred with such important
interests, and such a violent inclination to have the princess
condemned, the testimony of two witnesses, even though men of character,
ought to be supported by strong probabilities, in order to remove all
suspicion of tyranny and injustice. The proof against Mary, it must be
confessed, is not destitute of this advantage; and it is difficult, if
not impossible, to account for Babington's receiving an answer written
in her name, and in the cipher concerted between them, without allowing
that the matter had been communicated to that princess. Such is the
light in which this matter appears, even after time has discovered
every thing which could guide our judgment with regard to it: no
wonder, therefore, that the queen of Scots, unassisted by counsel,
and confounded by so extraordinary a trial, found herself incapable
of making a satisfactory defence before the commissioners. Her reply
consisted chiefly in her own denial: whatever force may be in that
denial was much weakened by her positively affirming, that she never had
had any correspondence of any kind with Babington; a fact, however, of
which there remains not the least question.[*] [25] She asserted, that
as Nau and Curle had taken an oath of secrecy and fidelity to her, their
evidence against her ought not to be credited. She confessed, however,
that Nau had been in the service of her uncle, the cardinal of Lorraine,
and had been recommended to her by the king of France, as a man in
whom she might safely confide. She also acknowledged Curle to be a very
honest man, but simple and easily imposed on by Nau. If these two
men had received any letters, or had written any answers, without her
knowledge, the imputation, she said, could never lie on her. And she was
the more inclined, she added, to entertain this suspicion against them,
because Nau had, in other instances, been gu