. Her secretaries were examined in London, and one of them
gave evidence that she had first heard of the conspiracy by letter from
Babington, of whose design against the life of Elizabeth she thought it
best to take no notice in her reply, though she did not hold herself
bound to reveal it. On September 25th she was removed to the strong
castle of Fotheringay in Northamptonshire. On October 6th she was
desired by letter from Elizabeth to answer the charges brought against
her before certain of the chief English nobles appointed to sit in
commission on the cause. In spite of her first refusal to submit, she
was induced by the arguments of the vice-chamberlain, Sir Christopher
Hatton, to appear before this tribunal on condition that her protest
should be registered against the legality of its jurisdiction over a
sovereign, the next heir of the English crown.

On October 14 and 15, 1586, the trial was held in the hall of
Fotheringay castle. Alone, "without one counsellor on her side among so
many," Mary conducted the whole of her own defence with courage
incomparable and unsurpassable ability. Pathos and indignation, subtlety
and simplicity, personal appeal and political reasoning, were the
alternate weapons with which she fought against all odds of evidence or
inference, and disputed step by step every inch of debatable ground. She
repeatedly insisted on the production of proof in her own handwriting as
to her complicity with the project of the assassins who had expiated
their crime on the 20th and 21st of the month preceding. When the charge
was shifted to the question of her intrigues with Spain, she took her
stand resolutely on her right to convey whatever right she possessed,
though now no kingdom was left her for disposal, to whomsoever she might
choose.

One single slip she made in the whole course of her defence, but none
could have been more unluckily characteristic and significant. When
Burghley brought against her the unanswerable charge of having at that
moment in her service, and in receipt of an annual pension, the
instigator of a previous attempt on the life of Elizabeth, she had the
unwary audacity to cite in her justification the pensions allowed by
Elizabeth to her adversaries in Scotland, and especially to her son. It
is remarkable that just two months later, in a conversation with her
keepers, she again made use of the same extraordinary argument in reply
to the same inevitable imputation, and would no