nd
the said commissioners about her--

The Queen of Scotland began to speak in these terms:

"I do not admit that any one of you here assembled is my peer or my
judge to examine me upon any charge. Thus what I do, and now tell you,
is of my own free will, taking God to witness that I am innocent and
pure in conscience of the accusations and slanders of which they wish
to accuse me. For I am a free princess and born a queen, obedient to no
one, save to God, to whom alone I must give an account of my actions.
This is why I protest yet again that my appearance before you be not
prejudicial either to me, or to the kings, princes and potentates, my
allies, nor to my son, and I require that my protest be registered, and
I demand the record of it."

Then the chancellor, who was one of the commissioners, replied in his
turn, and protested against the protestation; then he ordered that there
should be read over to the Queen of Scotland the commission in virtue of
which they were proceeding--a commission founded on the statutes and law
of the kingdom.

But to this Mary Stuart made answer that she again protested; that the
said statutes and laws were without force against her, because these
statutes and laws are not made for persons of her condition.

To this the chancellor replied that the commission intended to proceed
against her, even if she refused to answer, and declared that the
trial should proceed; for she was doubly subject to indictment, the
conspirators having not only plotted in her favour, but also with her
consent: to which the said Queen of Scotland responded that she had
never even thought of it.

Upon this, the letters it was alleged she had written to Babington and
his answers were read to her.

Mary Stuart then affirmed that she had never seen Babington, that she
had never had any conference with him, had never in her life received
a single letter from him, and that she defied anyone in the world to
maintain that she had ever done anything to the prejudice of the said
Queen of England; that besides, strictly guarded as she was, away from
all news, withdrawn from and deprived of those nearest her, surrounded
with enemies, deprived finally of all advice, she had been unable to
participate in or to consent to the practices of which she was accused;
that there are, besides, many persons who wrote to her what she had
no knowledge of, and that she had received a number of letters without
knowing whence they