Against their verdict what could be brought forward?
In reality nothing but the prisoner's own strongly-attested innocence--an attestation most forcible in the minds of the Sovereign and the nobles, but of no weight whatever to men accustomed to weigh, and examine, and cross-examine, and decide on proof, or at least from analogy, and never from an attestation, which the greatest criminals might as forcibly make.

The power and election of these men Ferdinand and Isabella had confirmed.

How could they, then, interfere in the present case, and shackle the judgment which they had endowed with authority, dispute and deny the sentence they had previously given permission to pronounce?
Pardon they might, and restore to life and liberty; but the very act of pronouncing pardon supposed belief in and proclamation of guilt.

There was but one thing which could save him and satisfy justice, and that was the sentence of "not guilty." For this reason Ferdinand refused every petition for Stanley's reprieve, hoping indeed, spite of all reason, that even at the eleventh hour evidence of his innocence would and must appear.
Stanley himself had no such hope.

All his better and higher nature had been called forth by the awful and mysterious death of Morales, dealt too by his own sword--that sword which, in his wild passions, he had actually prayed might shed his blood.