The MYSTERY of the Multiple Fotheringay TRIAL TRANSCRIPTS October 1586 Queen Elizabeth I/QE1 ordered that 2 clerks, POWELS and SANDS, be present to record the Trial proceedings. We have not found these. Marie Queen of Scots/MQS physician Burgoing and her Chamberlain Arthur Melville were also present. The physician wrote of his observations at the execution so he might also have written his own record of the Trial. Books that contain reports of the Trial that we have found, all report the Trial differently, some short reports, some long reports, some quotes - but not always using the same wording. The source of their Trial reports are not made clear. It is possible to piece together basic events and accusations made form these reports but have not found any recording of the actual confessions or letters read at the Trial. What is clear. There were NO WITNESSES. It also seems that NO DOCUMENTS were submitted as evidence. There were documents read by the Prosecutors but it is not clear if they were seen. They were NOT reviewed by MQS because she requested several times for copies. If a document is not SUBMITTED for review and only read, they could be reading from a cereal box and the jury-judge would not know the difference. It is a lawyer trick that the astute observer should be aware of. DOCUMENTS: 1) BABINGTON CONFESSION - Chief document used as evidence appears to be dead Babingtons Confession. Being dead, having been killed just BEFORE the Trial, he was prohibited from appearing as a witness. MQS pointed out to the Court the convenience of QE1 killing off the chief witness who could prove her innocence. 2 & 3) CONFESSIONS of MQS Secys NAU and CURLE - Since they were alive but NOT present, these confessions are worthless. Besides it seems they only stated that MQS had received letters and dictated letters to Babington but there does not appear that they confessed to what the content of the letters were. At least there is no transcript to that effect. 4) LETTERS related to BABINGTON: It is not clear if Letters were read or not. The terms are tricky. For example receipt of Letter was read. Pursued the rest of the Letters. It is not clear what the source of these Letters were since the originals did not exist. There are NO quotes of the readings in the Walsingham trial transcripts, so thus far it is impossible to know WHAT was read. The Lewis book on the Trial states that the Babington Letters were not letters at all but the Confession written by Walsingham. To prove that she/MQS had received them Babingtons Letters were read OUT of BABINGTONs CONFESSION (Lewis p.101) This would confirm what Budiansky stated in his book about Walsingham, that the Babington letters were NOT used at the Trial, but rather the Babington Confession which was Babingtons memory after several days of torture and written by Walsingham since Babington was paralyzed post torture. Hutchinson states that MQS stated in the Trial that the Babington Letters were written by Walsingham. According to author Budiansky they were. We know that forgery of the letters exist in that the Walsingham copies and the Bardon Papers copies do NOT match. We have not found WHAT was read as to the Babington Letters in any of the sources noted below. However there were excerpts stated later in the Trial by Cecil to pound home his accusations. 5 & 6) CONFESSIONS of SAVAGE and BALLARD - excerpts read but no transcript of WHAT was read. 7) CODE DeCYPHER TABLE: It seems MQS was shown the DeCYPHER Table the Court claimed to use to decode letters. MQS stated there were many Codes used by her. She was not convinced that this was an accurate Table used by her. She stated it is easy to imitate Code Tables. The Table was worthless and thus not material to the case unless the Court produced the CODE LETTERS reputed to be written by MQS and Babington. The Court did NOT produce any Code Letters. So the Code Table was a lawyers grandstand trick. Meaningless and it proved nothing. 8) LETTER by PAGET: The Letter referenced that Mendoza and Ballard had discussed a rescue plan for MQS. MQS stated that the Letter was not material to the case because there was nothing in it related to destruction of QE1 and that MQS had the right to pursue he own liberty. MQS was right. The Letter proved nothing. 9) NOTES by MQS related to Letter planned to Mendoza: That she considered passing her succession rights to the King of Spain and that she sought rescue from imprisonment. Not material to the case. As a Queen and Heir she could grant her succession rights to whomever she chose. Believe this was an older consideration though that she had since been revised. Regardless it was not related to the charges. The Trial did not produce the letter, only notes per Lewis; per Walsingham there was a Letter. As to rescue, MQS avowed she had the right to pursue foreign aide as a political prisoner and she only chose that route when all other negotiation options for release from QE1 were exhausted. TRIAL: The Trial occurred over two days, October 14 and 15, in 1586 a Friday and Saturday, then adjourned. Ten days later QE1 had her boys reconvene in the Star Chamber in London, but there was no Scottish Queen present, so it was not a Trial. It appeared to be a grandstand show staged by Qe1 to ensure they all obeyed and gave her the pre-determined guilty verdict she wanted. We have not been able to find any records of this event, only summaries. The Fotheringay TRIAL was opened by officials like Lord Bromley who seemed reluctant to be there. The clerks Powels and Sands and the sergeant Gawdy were required to do some of the early readings of accusations. Then the attack dogs became restless. Toy-boy Chancellor HATTON stood up and began with some accusations, but soon thereafter the then Treasurer CECIL-Burghley took over and maintained the heat of accusations. Many of the Bardon Papers appear to be extended dress rehearsals by Hatton and Cecil of how they intended to attack the Scottish Queen. They practiced hard and piled on the superfluous accusations to pad their case. At the Trial there were many kitchen-sink accusations. Accusations that were not material to the case. For example complaining again about the banner flown one time decades ago at the French tournament in June 1559, with the 3 lions of England quartered. We have clarified that MQS had the right to fly the banner due to her genealogy - so the banner is a non-issue, a mole dressed up like a mountain. It was very old and stale news. The kitchen sink accusations tended to muddy the case with superfluous trivialities. MQS was strong about pointing this out. Sources of the Trial data: * Walsingham Brief History of MQS pub 1608 & 1681, p.33-39 - Good source with some details, seems like a credible source. Gives overview of the events with some quotes. It appears to be an official document of the Trial, perhaps one of the transcripts. * Lewis Trial of MQS pub 1999 - Has many details but no quotes and the authors source is not clear. It is in modern language. It is longer than the Walsingham record, but does not appear to be an official transcript. * Hutchinson QE1s Spy Master pub 2006 - Has many quotes from Trial, the author is a thorough but bias researcher. Recall that he intentionally omitted the QE1 in jeopardy and maintain QE1 paragraphs from his review of the alleged MQS to Babington letter. Keeping bias in mind, recommend this source for his details. The Trial quotes give spice to the events. * Camden History of QE1 pub 1688 - Gives brief summary. Available online. * Hargreaves State Trials of MQS etc. pub 1816 - Gives brief summary. Available online.
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 15:33:36 +0000
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