Legal arguments for trying Mary, Queen of Scots

The lawyers' objections and answers test whether Mary could lawfully be tried in England. The book compares this search for jurisdiction and precedent with later legal debates surrounding the Nuremberg proceedings and Saddam Hussein's trial. The Elizabethan lawyers argued that deposition in Scotland weakened Mary's claim to sovereign immunity and that, outside her own realm, she could be treated as a private person. A second argument held that an alien could still commit treason under the positive law of England. Burghley and Walsingham used this reasoning to persuade Elizabeth and shape public opinion before convening a commission of at least twenty-four councillors and nobles under the previous year's statute for the surety of the queen's person. Intelligence work here includes finding a legal framework that could turn allegations of treason into a politically defensible prosecution.