torturing the suspected, it employed paid spies, who will always
lie for their own profit. It even made some of the conspiracies it
brought to light, by sending false letters to disaffected people,
inviting them to join in pretended plots, which they too readily
did.
But, one great real plot was at length discovered, and it ended the
career of Mary, Queen of Scots. A seminary priest named BALLARD,
and a Spanish soldier named SAVAGE, set on and encouraged by
certain French priests, imparted a design to one ANTONY BABINGTON –
a gentleman of fortune in Derbyshire, who had been for some time a
secret agent of Mary’s – for murdering the Queen. Babington then
confided the scheme to some other Catholic gentlemen who were his
friends, and they joined in it heartily. They were vain, weakheaded
young men, ridiculously confident, and preposterously proud
of their plan; for they got a gimcrack painting made, of the six
choice spirits who were to murder Elizabeth, with Babington in an
attitude for the centre figure. Two of their number, however, one
of whom was a priest, kept Elizabeth’s wisest minister, SIR FRANCIS
WALSINGHAM, acquainted with the whole project from the first. The
conspirators were completely deceived to the final point, when
Babington gave Savage, because he was shabby, a ring from his
finger, and some money from his purse, wherewith to buy himself new
clothes in which to kill the Queen. Walsingham, having then full
evidence against the whole band, and two letters of Mary’s besides,
resolved to seize them. Suspecting something wrong, they stole out
of the city, one by one, and hid themselves in St. John’s Wood, and
other places which really were hiding places then; but they were
all taken, and all executed. When they were seized, a gentleman
was sent from Court to inform Mary of the fact, and of her being
involved in the discovery. Her friends have complained that she
was kept in very hard and severe custody. It does not appear very
likely, for she was going out a hunting that very morning.
Queen Elizabeth had been warned long ago, by one in France who had
good information of what was secretly doing, that in holding Mary
alive, she held ‘the wolf who would devour her.’ The Bishop of
London had, more lately, given the Queen’s favourite minister the
advice in writing, ‘forthwith to cut off the Scottish Queen’s
head.’ The question now was, what to do with her? The Earl of
Leicester wrote a little note home from Holland, recommending that
she should be quietly poisoned; that noble favourite having
accustomed his mind, it is possible, to remedies of that nature.
His black advice, however, was disregarded, and she was brought to
trial at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire, before a tribunal
of forty, composed of both religions. There, and in the Star
Chamber at Westminster, the trial lasted a fortnight. She defended
herself with great ability, but could only deny the confessions
that had been made by Babington and others; could only call her own
letters, produced against her by her own secretaries, forgeries;
and, in short, could only deny everything. She was found guilty,
and declared to have incurred the penalty of death. The Parliament
met, approved the sentence, and prayed the Queen to have it
executed. The Queen replied that she requested them to consider
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whether no means could be found of saving Mary’s life without
endangering her own. The Parliament rejoined, No; and the citizens
illuminated their houses and lighted bonfires, in token of their
joy that all these plots and troubles were to be ended by the death
of the Queen of Scots.
She, feeling sure that her time was now come, wrote a letter to the
Queen of England, making three entreaties; first, that she might be
buried in France; secondly, that she might not be executed in
secret, but before her servants and some others; thirdly, that
after her death, her servants should not be molested, but should be
suffered to go home with the legacies she left them. It was an
affecting letter, and Elizabeth shed tears over it, but sent no