Elizabeth's advocates were not a little surprised at the eloquent and able manner in which Mary conducted her defence. They had expected to have every thing their own way, and to gain an easy victory over one unacquainted with the forms of legal procedure, and unable to cope with their own professional talents. But they were disappointed and baffled; and in order to maintain their ground even plausibly, they were obliged to protract the proceedings for two whole days. Nor, after all, did the Commissioners venture to pronounce judgment, but adjourned the court to the Star-Chamber at Westminster, where they knew that Mary would not be present, and where, consequently, they would have no opposition to fear.[193] On the 25th of October, they assembled there, and having again examined the Secretaries, Naw and Curl, who appear to have been persons of little fidelity or constancy, and who confirmed their former declarations, a unanimous judgment was delivered, that "Mary, commonly called Queen of Scots and dowager of France, was accessary to Babington's conspiracy, and had compassed and imagined divers matters within the realm of England, tending to the hurt, death, and destruction of the royal person of Elizabeth, in opposition to the statute framed for her protection."[194] Elizabeth ordered this verdict to be laid before her Parliament, which assembled a few days afterwards; and, at Walsingham's instigation, its legality was not only confirmed, but the Lord Chancellor was sent up with an address to the Queen, in which, after stating their conviction that her security was incompatible with Mary's life, they requested that she would give the sentence effect, by ordering her immediate execution. Elizabeth, though conscious that, if her personal safety had been endangered, she had herself to blame, was rejoiced at the opportunity at length afforded her, for gratifying her long cherished hatred. She affected, however, to be greatly perplexed how to act. She declared that, if she were not afraid of endangering the welfare of her people, she would freely pardon Mary for all her treasonable practices, and she beseeched the House to endeavour to discover some less severe method of procedure. The Parliament, as she expected, replied firmly, that they could not recommend any more lenient measure; and in the pedantic language of the day, called to Elizabeth's remembrance the examples of God's vengeance upon Saul for sparing Agag, and on Ahab for sparing Benhadad. Elizabeth still affected to be irresolute; and indeed it was not unlikely that she was so in reality; for, though anxious to have Mary removed, she was not so hardened and insane as not to know, that however it might be sanctioned by the world, murder was as criminal and as contrary to the unchanging code of moral justice, when commanded by a Queen, as when perpetrated by a peasant. She desired that her Parliament should be content for the present "with an