(There was a dim sense of pride with regard to this, in many
Derbyshire minds. A Derbyshire man, it appeared, was more than a match
for even a Londoner and a sworn servant of her Grace.) It was said that
Mr. Audrey would have to be helped up the ladder, even though he had not
been racked for a whole week since his sentence.
Next, the trial itself had been full of interest. A Papist priest was,
of course, fair game. (Why, the Spanish Armada itself had been full of
them, it was said, all come to subdue England.... Well, they had had
their bellyful of salt water and English iron by now.) But this Papisher
had hit back and given sport. He had flatly refused to be caught, though
the questions were swift and subtle enough to catch any clerk. Certainly
he had not denied that he was a priest; but he had said that that was
what the Crown must prove: he was not there as a witness, he had said,
but as a prisoner; he had even entreated them to respect their own
legal dignities! But there had been a number of things against him, and
even if none of these had been proved, still, the mere sum of them was
enough; there could be no smoke without fire, said the proverb-quoters.
It was alleged that he had been privy to the plot against the Queen (the
plot of young Mr. Babington, who had sold his house down there a week or
two only before his arrest); he had denied this, but he had allowed that
he had spoken with her Grace immediately after the plot; and this was a
highly suspicious circumstance: if he allowed so much as this, the rest
might be safely presumed.
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