of Sots in CHAP. V. charge of the Earl of Shrewsbury, who treated her rigorously, The number of her attendants was diminished, the allowance of her table was reduced; her correspondence was intercepted; she was never allowed to quit her apartments unless to walk in the courtyard or upon the leads; and even then she had to give an hour's notice to her gaoler, that he might accompany her. So The Queen closely was she kept, that she appears to have been captivity. entirely ignorant of the affair of Throgmorton, or of the intended invasion of Guise; and Parry, in his confession, expressly acquitted her of any knowledge of his designs. In September, 1584, she was removed from Sheffield Castle to Wingfield, under the custody of Sir Ralph Sadler, but in the following January was again taken to Tutbury. Her new gaoler was too indulgent, and he was replaced by Sir Amyas Paulet, and Sir Drue Drury, both stern Puritans, and the creatures of Leicester. These men placed her in apartments so damp and exposed to the weather, that she lost the use of her limbs; but her fate was now approaching its crisis, and her miseries were about to close. In September, 1584, Crichton, the Scottish Jesuit, and Abdy, a Scottish priest, were captured by a Dutch cruiser, and conducted to the Tower, where, in the presence of the rack, the former disclosed all the particulars of Guise's projected invasion. The enemies of Mary, led by Leceister, improved the opportunity to form an association, the members of which bound themselves by the most solemn oaths, not only "to withstand and pursue as well by force of arms as by all other means of revenge," those persons who should attempt the life of the Queen, but to prosecute unto death "any that have, may, or shall pretend title to come to this crown by the untimely death of her majesty so wickedly procured." This bond immediately received the sanction of parliament, in an act "for the security of the Queen's person, and continuance of the realm in peace" (27 Eliz., c. 1); which provided, that any person, by or for whom rebellion should be excited, or the Queen's life attacked, might be tried by commission under the great seal, and adjudged to capital punishment; and if the Queen's life should be taken away, then any person by or for whom such act was committed, should be capitally punished, and the issue of such persons cut off from the succession to the crown. The penal statute against the Jesuits, which led to Parry's arrest and execution, was passed at the same time. Statute against Mary. The Queen of Scots saw that this terrible bond, and the harsh statute which sanctioned it, were engines directly framed for her 1585 execution, and that there was wanting nothing but a conspiracy to put them into action. This soon presented itself. in one. 34. Babington's Conspiracy. Three very distinct elements entered into the composition of this conspiracy—the devoted satellites of the see of Rome; English Catholics inflamed Three plots by religious zeal, enthusiastic temperament, and persecution; and Walsingham's spies. It should be further observed, that there were two plots co-existing in the conspiracy; that of Morgan against the life of Elizabeth, and for the liberation of Mary; the other of Walsingham's against the life of the Scottish Queen. In the summer of 1585, Morgan was actively seeking out agents in every part of England for the accomplishment of his purposes; and one Pooley, a servant to Lady Sydney, Walsingham's The agents. daughter, was recommended to him by Blount, a Roman Catholic gentleman in the service of Leicester. Pooley made several journeys to Paris, and very soon became the medium of correspondence between Mary and her friends. Two other agents were next selected by Morgan-Gifford and Greatley, who had been students in the English seminaries; and they also were strongly recommended to Mary. There was yet a fourth and more important emissary, John Ballard, a priest, who came into England in the disguise of an officer, and made a tour in company with one Maude, along the western coast, through part of Scotland, the northern counties of England, and thence to Flanders and Paris, for the purpose of collecting intelligence, and, if opportunity offered, taking the Queen's life; so he confessed when he was put on the rack. The result of Ballard's tour not being sufficiently satisfactory to the Spanish ambassador, he was sent back to England, to place himself in closer communication with the Roman Catholics, and particularly with one Anthony Babington, of Dethick, in Derbyshire. At the same time an English exile, named Savage, who had served the King of Spain in the Low Countries, was strengthened in a resolution he had made to assassinate Elizabeth, by three priests, two of whom were Gifford and Gilbert Gifford, both spies in the pay of Walsingham. During the month of June, 1586, Babington consulted alternately with Savage and Ballard on the one hand, and Their plans with his intimate friends on the other, and particularly with Pooley. When he was invited by Ballard to join in the plot against the Queen's life, he objected to Savage executing it alone, and proposed that it should be done by six resolute gentlemen, to make success certain. The result of every conference was CHAP. V. regularly reported by Pooley to Walsingham, who now began to scheme how he should inveigle the Queen of Scots into this dangerous conspiracy. Hitherto Mary had contrived to correspond with her friends, notwithstanding the precautions and vigilance of her gaolers, through the agency of Thomas Throgmorton and Gilbert Gifford, whom Morgan had recommended to her. The former lived in London, and all letters which he received he transmitted to the latter, who resided near Burton, and who employed a townsman of that place, nicknamed "the honest man,” to convey the letters to the Queen, who had in the meantime been removed to Chartley. But Gifford, as was before stated, as well as his subordinate, were traitors; and before Mary received her letters they were sent to the council, where they were opened, deciphered, and transcribed, through the aid of Thomas Philipps, the noted decipherer, and Arthur Gregory, a man skilled in the art of counterfeiting seals. dence with Babington now wrote a letter to Mary, revealing to her all the Correspon intentions of himself and his associates, and asking her. Mary. to authorise their proceedings and give them directions. This letter came in due course to the hands of Walsingham, who copied it and sent it on, and then waited anxiously for the important answer. Babington told Mary in his letter that he would await the receipt of her reply at Lichfield, on the 12th of July; and as that town was too near Mary's prison for the letter to be forwarded to London to be copied, Philipps and Gregory went to Chartley to decipher it on the spot. When Mary received Babington's letter she had only just been informed of the treaty which her son had concluded with Elizabeth a few days before (5th of July, 1586), in which both sovereigns bound themselves to support the reformed faith, and to aid each other in resisting any invasion which might be made to overthrow it. James's right to the English throne was acknowledged, but the name of Mary was never once mentioned during the negotiations. The captive Queen was therefore in a state of great irritation and despondency, and, under the influence of these feelings, she resolved to accept the offer of the conspirators. Her secretaries, Nau and Curle, accordingly drew up, with her entire knowledge and approval, a series of instructions for Babington, in French and English, and the latter copy was at once put into cipher for the conspirators. On the 17th of July, this important document, in which Mary had made herself a party to the project of insurrection, if not to that of assassination, was entrusted to the care of "the honest man," who, with his usual fidelity, transmitted it to Philipps, by whom it 1586 was immediately deciphered, and the copy sent to Walsingham. But Babington had now discovered that he was betrayed, and instead of keeping his appointment at Lichfield, he repaired to London, where he moved about freely and publicly, as if he were the most loyal subject in the realm. Still intent, however, upon the objects of the conspiracy, he resolved to hasten their accomplishment by sending Ballard to France, and proceeding thither himself afterwards. He procured a passport for the priest from Walsingham, through the agency of Pooley, the spy; and to obtain one for himself, he offered, at that traitor's suggestion, to serve the minister abroad, and inform him of the intrigues of Morgan, Paget, and the other exiles. Walsingham pretended to believe in his loyalty, readily accepted his offers, promised him a passport, and advised him how to proceed. The infatuated man flattered himself that he had duped the wily secretary, and he immediately wrote to the Queen of Scots, accounting for his absence from Lichfield, and assuring her that the conspirators were more determined than ever; that they had vowed, and would perform, or die (August 3rd). spirators The next morning Ballard was suddenly arrested, and Babington all at once discovered that Pooley, his most intimate The eonfriend, was his betrayer. He immediately went to Savage, arrested. whom he left with the understanding that the Queen should be murdered the next day; but Walsingham quieted his alarm by informing him that Ballard had been taken through mistake as a seminary priest. He therefore returned to his original design of having the Queen assassinated by the party of six. The closeness with which he was now watched, however, again excited his suspicions, and he escaped, with his fellow conspirators, to St. John's Wood and Harrow. At the end of a week they were all captured except one, and condemned and executed (September 20th and 21st, 1586). Seven out of the fourteen who suffered confessed their crime, but whether voluntarily or on the rack, is uncertain. Babington's lands were conferred upon Sir Walter Raleigh. 35. The trial of Mary, Queen of Scots. The Scottish Queen had been kept in profound ignorance of these proceedings. On the 8th of August, she was taken from Chartley to Tixhall, kept there closely confined for twenty days, and then brought back to her prison, where she found that her cabinets had been broken open, her papers seized, and her secretaries, Nau and Curle, taken into custody. Elizabeth's council, meanwhile, had been deliberating what should be her doom. Some proposed closer tions Mary's She is Fotheringay CHAP. V. Delibera- confinement, which, with her bodily infirmities, would concerning soon destroy her; Leicester wrote from the Netherlands, disposal. recommending poison, and sent a divine to satisfy Walsingham of its Christian lawfulness. It was at last resolved to proceed against her by criminal trial, for which purpose, after some debate, she was removed to Fotheringay Castle (September 16th). When Elizabeth heard that her victim was thus safely lodged at the last stage of her captivity and life, she removed to could not restrain her joy; and she wrote a letter to Castle. Paulet, beginning with these words:" Amyas, my most faithful and careful servant, God Almighty reward thee treblefold for thy most troublesome charge so well discharged." Shortly after this, Paulet received orders to kill Mary outright, in case he heard any noise or disturbance in her apartments; he had had, for some time, a standing order to shoot her, if she attempted to escape; and one night, when the chimney of her room took fire, he, imagining it to be a signal for conspirators outside, appointed four servants to kill her in her antechamber if she attempted to go out.* Forty-two commissioners, peers, privy counsellors, and judges, were now appointed by Elizabeth to proceed to Fotheringay, and inquire into and determine all offences committed against the statute passed in the 27th year of the reign (the one enacted for the very purpose of taking the captive's life), either by Mary Stuart, daughter and heiress of James V., late King of Scotland, or by any other person whomsoever, (October 5th). On the 11th of October, thirty-six of these commissioners arrived at the castle, among whom were the Earls of Shrewsbury and Warwick, Burleigh, Walsingham, Hatton, and Sadler; and the next day they informed the prisoner of their commission, and that she was charged with being accessory to Babington's conspiracy. Mary denied their right to sit in judgment upon her; but Hatton adroitly said that if she refused to plead, the world would believe her guilty; which, together with a letter from Elizabeth, promising her favour if she acted candidly, overcame Mary's resolution, and she consented to appear before the court, but under a protest against its authority. The trial began on the 15th of October, in the presence chamber of the castle, at the upper end of which stood a canopied chair of state, as if for Elizabeth, and below it and opposite, a plain chair for the Queen of Scots. The commissioners sat upon benches placed towards the wall on either side of the apartment. The accused had no assistance-no * Mackintosh, III., 310. |