The poor prisoner, who for three years had only seen the country through her prison bars, joyfully accepted, and left Tutbury between two guards, mounted, for greater security, on a horse whose feet were hobbled.

These two guards took her to Fotheringay Castle, her new habitation, where she found the apartment she was to lodge in already hung in black.

Mary Stuart had entered alive into her tomb.

As to Babington and his accomplices, they had been already beheaded.
Meanwhile, her two secretaries, Curle and Nau, were arrested, and all her papers were seized and sent to Elizabeth, who, on her part, ordered the forty commissioners to assemble, and proceed without intermission to the trial of the prisoner.

They arrived at Fotheringay the 14th October 1586; and next day, being assembled in the great hall of the castle, they began the examination.
At first Mary refused to appear before them, declaring that she did not recognise the commissioners as judges, they not being her peers, and not acknowledging the English law, which had never afforded her protection, and which had constantly abandoned her to the rule of force.