Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/68

 48 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. was at the open bar at Westminster Hall, in the presence of the English nation, and the words that he uttered there might be carried to every fireside in the land. Had no other evidence survived, were there no letters, 110 witnesses, no sworn depositions of those who had lived through the whole of that Scottish tragedy and knew it in all its parts, the silence of Norfolk at this the supreme moment of his own fate and Mary Stuart's, would be proof sufficient against her in the minds of all persons who can think upon the subject with reasonable modesty. The Duke knew the truth, and the truth made him dumb ; he could but say that he trusted to God and his own consciousness of loyalty. The Lords withdrew, the High Steward remaining in his chair. The winter day had long departed. The Hall was faintly lighted with pine torches. At eight o'clock, after an absence of an hour and quarter, they returned, and one by one gave in the fatal verdict of Guilty on all the counts. The counsel for the Crown prayed sentence ; and Shrewsbury, in the usual dread- ful terms, told the Duke that he must die. Then, per- haps for the first time, his misdeeds came home to him. Conspiracy had presented itself to him in the disguise of piety and chivalry. He had dreamed of saving his country from the upstarts who were dragging the crown into ignominious alliance with revolution and heresy, of laying to rest the threatening spectre of civil war, and settling the vexed succession question. The sleep was broken, the vision was faded, and there remained only