Meanwhile fresh noblemen commissioned to sit on the trial arrived day by day.  There was trampling of horses and jingling of equipments, and the captive suite daily heard reports of fresh arrivals, and saw glimpses of new colours and badges flitting across the court, while conferences were held with Mary in the hope of inducing her to submit to the English jurisdiction.  She was sorely perplexed, seeing as she did that to persist in her absolute refusal to be bound by English law would be prejudicial to her claim to the English crown, and being also assured by Burghley that if she refused to plead the trial would still take place, and she would be sentenced in her absence.  Her spirit rose at this threat, and she answered disdainfully, but it worked with her none the less when the treasurer had left her.

“Oh,” she cried that night, “would but Elizabeth be content to let me resign my rights to my son, making them secure to him, and then let me retire to some convent in Lorraine, or in Germany, or wherever she would, so would I never trouble her more!”

“Will you not write this to her?” asked Cicely.

“What would be the use of it, child?  They would tamper with the letter, pledging me to what I never would undertake.  I know how they can cut and garble, add and take away!  Never have they let me see or speak to her as woman to woman.  All I have said or done has been coloured.”

“Mother, I would that I could go to her; Humfrey has seen and spoken to her, why should not I?”

“Thou, poor silly maid!  They would drive Cis Talbot away with scorn, and as to Bride Hepburn, why, she would but run into all her mother’s dangers.”

“It might be done, and if so I will do it,” said Cicely, clasping her hands together.

“No, child, say no more.  My worn-out old life is not worth the risk of thy young freedom.  But I love thee for it, mine ain bairnie, mon enfant a moi.  If thy brother had thy spirit, child—­”

“I hate the thought of him!  Call him not my brother!” cried Cicely hotly.  “If he were worth one brass farthing he would have unfurled the Scottish lion long ago, and ridden across the Border to deliver his mother.”

“And how many do you think would have followed that same lion?” said Mary, sadly.

“Then he should have come alone with his good horse and his good sword!”

“To lose both crowns, if not life!  No, no, lassie; he is a pawky chiel, as they say in the north, and cares not to risk aught for the mother he hath never seen, and of whom he hath been taught to believe strange tales.”

The more the Queen said in excuse for the indifference of her son, the stronger was the purpose that grew up in the heart of the daughter, while fresh commissioners arrived every day, and further conversations were held with the Queen.  Lord Shrewsbury was known to be summoned, and Cicely spent half her time in watching for some well-known face, in the hope that he might bring her good foster-father in his train.  More than once she declared that she saw a cap or sleeve with the well-beloved silver dog, when it turned out to be a wyvern or the royal lion himself.  Queen Mary even laughed at her for thinking her mastiff had gone on his hind legs when she once even imagined him in the Warwick Bear and ragged staff.