“Justice!” grumbled the mob. “Let us have justice.”

This was a State trial and all the trappings of ceremony must be observed. Many of the foremost lords led by the Lord Chancellor Ellesmore had been summoned to appear; everyone wanted to be at the trial; and many of the lesser nobility traveled up from the country for the express purpose of seeing the Countess of Somerset brought to justice.

The bells were chiming as the Lord Chancellor followed the six sergeants-at-arms, all carrying maces, into the hall. After him came all the dignitaries of the Court. The Lord High Steward and the peers of the realm. There was the Recorder, somberly clad in black; and Sir George More, the Lieutenant of the Tower, who had taken the place of the executed Helwys, was already at the Bar.

The Sergeant Crier demanded silence while the indictments were read; and when this was done he cried in a voice which could be heard all over the court: “Bring the prisoner to the Bar.”

The Lieutenant of the Tower disappeared for a few minutes and when he returned he brought Frances with him.

She was very pale and her lovely eyes betrayed her fear. She was dressed in black with a ruff and cuffs of finest lace; and as she stood at the Bar and raised her eyes toward the Lord High Steward she looked so exquisite that she might have stepped, exactly as she was, from a picture frame.

“My Lords,” began the Lord High Steward, “you are called here today to sit as peers of Frances, Countess of Somerset.”

A voice echoed through the Court: “Frances, Countess of Somerset, hold up your hand.”

Frances obeyed.

The accusation of murder was then read to her in detail and when it was finished the Clerk of the Crown cried in a resonant voice: “Frances, Countess of Somerset, what say you? Are you guilty of this felony and murder, or not guilty?”

Everyone in the hall was strained forward to hear her reply.

She gave it unfalteringly, because, knowing her letters to Forman and Anne Turner were in the hands of her judges, there was only one answer she could give.

“Guilty,” she answered.

The trial was not long. Because she had confessed her guilt, there was no need then to bring out those lewd wax figures, those revealing letters. But it did not matter; many of these people had already seen the images, heard the letters read.