plot for a queen

8/14/2019 Plot for a Queen

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Plot for a Queen

By

John Irvine

On 20th and 21st September 1586 fourteen young menwere executed with barbaric cruelty at St Giles in the Fields, having beencondemned for conspiring treason against Queen Elizabeth. The fourteen

have become known in history as the Babington conspirators. Theaccusation made against them was that, they did falsely, horribly,traitorishly and devilishly conspire, conclude and agree, the Queens mostexcellent majesty, not only from her most royal Crown and dignity todepose, but also how to kill and slay, and sedition, insurrection and rebellionto stir up and procure, and the government of the realm and the trueChristian religion therein planted to subvert and the whole state thereof todestroy, and for to raise and levy war within the realm.

Although the conspiracy has become known as the BabingtonPlot after one of the accused, Anthony Babington, who was deemed to be theringleader, the truth is not so clear-cut. The whole account of the period isembroiled with partisanship, but it can be argued with convincing evidencethat the conspiracy was set up and fostered by Elizabeths Secretary, FrancisWalsingham, and that the purpose of the sting was to bring Mary Stuart toher execution. Walsingham was fanatically anti-Catholic and the focus of his hatred was Mary Stuart who had been languishing for eighteen years inElizabeths prisons. In order to bring about her death, fervently desired byWalsingham and the Privy Council, it was essential that they find proof that

Mary was contriving the death of Elizabeth. The plot was, therefore, only ameans to an end, the execution of Mary.

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For this purpose Walsingham employed his vast network of spies, particularly one Gilbert Gifford, the evil genius, who approached andseduced first John Ballard, a fanatical priest dedicated to the overthrow of Elizabeth and the restoration of the Catholic religion, and then John Savagewhom he encouraged to take a vow to assassinate the Queen. From themBabington and many of his friends were drawn into a conspiracy whose

primary purpose was the liberation of the Queen of Scots and the restorationof the Catholic religion.

They were all young men, spirited, scholarly, from goodestablished Catholic families. They were also adventurous and fired withromantic enthusiasm. In the reign of terror which existed at that time, whenthe Mass was proscribed and to admit to being a Catholic was treasonableand punishable with disembowelment and death, the young men consideredthat freeing the rightful heir to the throne and re-establishing the trueCatholic faith was an honorable and patriotic undertaking. They were notevil, violent men. There was little of the Machiavelli about them. They sawthemselves more in the role of Perseus liberating Andromeda from her chains.

When these men met together, Walsingham made sure that oneof his agents Gifford, Maude or Poley was with them, encouraging themand leading them on to further excesses. Imprudent and gullible as theywere, it was not difficult to fan their enthusiasm.

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In order to have legal grounds to bring Mary to trial andexecution there had to be documentary evidence that she approved of theassassination of Elizabeth. This was easily done by means of lettersexchanged between Mary and Babington, a channel of communication setup by Walsingham himself. Every letter received by Mary and every replywas intercepted, deciphered, resealed and sent on. In order to trap Mary,incriminating phrases were forged and inserted in the original letters. Weknow that Walsingham in other places and at other times had had documentsforged and used in evidence. For this particular purpose he employed amaster decipherer, one Thomas Phelippes, an unscrupulous time-server skilled in forgery. One particular letter, from Babington to Mary containedthe incriminating phrase the dispatch of the usurping competitor. Whether these words were inserted by Phelippes or not, Mary in her reply did notrespond to them. However, a postscript is known to have been added on theinstructions of Walsingham asking for the names of the proposed assassins.This was also ignored.

These were the letters, the originals of which were never produced, that were used at Marys trial and which, together with theconfessions of her secretaries, extracted under fear and intimidation, that

brought about Marys execution. However, that trial is another story. Toreturn to the conspirators: Walsingham could have nipped the whole plot inthe bud at an early stage and had two of them tried - Ballard and Savage -

pour encourager les autres, before any of the others were thoroughlyinvolved, but that would not have accomplished his true purpose. When hefelt he had enough evidence to bring against Mary, he had the fourteenarrested. They were tried, forced to plead guilty, and condemned.

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On 20th September the first seven John Ballard, AnthonyBabington, John Savage, Chidiock Tichborne, Charles Tilney, RobertBarnwell and Edward Abingdon were taken from the Tower and led incarts through jeering crowds to the scaffold. The populace had beendeliberately incited by the government. Rumours of invasion (that theFrench had already landed), of murder, revolution and arson, had beenspread to fan their fear and hatred of papists. In spite of this, the large crowd

that had come to witness the executions were not all unsympathetic to theaccused. With their last words they all confessed that it was zeal for their religion that had induced them to join in the conspiracy.

Charles Tilney said; I am a Catholic and believe in JesusChrist and by his Passion I hope to be saved, and I confess I can do nothingwithout him; which opinion all Catholics firmly hold; and wherein they arethought to hold the contrary, they are in that, as in all things, greatlyabused. When a Protestant clergyman objected, Tilney said: I came hereto die, doctor, not to argue. When questioned further about the faith heupheld, he said: I am of that faith which prevails in almost all Christendom,excepting here in England.

Chidiock Tichbourne spoke the longest. He said: I am descended from ahouse from two hundred years before the Conquest, never stained till thismy misfortune. I have a wife and one child: my wife Agnes, my dear wife,and theres the grief and six sisters left in my hand - my poor servants, Iknow, their master being taken, are dispersed, for all which I do mostheavily grieve. He composed a poem in the Tower the night before his

execution * which could stand as an epitaph for all his companions, and hewrote a touching letter to his wife. Disraeli said of him: He perished withall the blossoms of life and genius about him in the May time of hisexistence.



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Ballard, the ordained priest, was the first to be executed.Having swung on the rope for a few seconds, he was cut down while stillalive, disembowelled slowly and then cut up. Babington was next. When hewas taken down and during his disembowelment, while still conscious, hecried aloud several times: Parce mihi, Domine Jesu! Then came Savage, a

big man who broke the rope and fell down from the gallows. He was

castrated (his privities were cut off) and disembowelled. The other four suffered a similar fate.

A dangerous change came over the crowd of onookers duringthe executions. Even in those sanguinary times they were horrrified at the

barbarity and the suffering. It was considered prudent not to repeat thehorrors the next day. The official version was that Elizabeth herself detesting such cruelty had ordered the clemency. This is unacceptable asit was Elizabeth who a few days even before the trial had demanded of Burghley that the sufferings of the condemned should be protracted andmade more horrible than the law of the time allowed. The second batch Thomas Salisbury, Henry Dunn, John Charnock, Edward Jones, JohnTravers, Robert Gage and Jerome Bellamy were therefore hanged untildead before being bowelled and quartered. The last two had been merelyaccessories after the fact Gage because he had lent Savage a horse to rideto Croyden, Bellamy because he had given shelter in a barn to Babingtonand his friends. Jeromes brother, Bartholomew, had also been arrested butdied in prison while being tortured. Their mother, too, was arrested and shedied of the intolerable prison conditions after a few months.


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Thus ended the Babington conspiracy, but it was not the end of the affair. The inevitable conclusion, carefully planned by Walsingham andBurghley, was the execution five months later of Mary Queen of Scots onthe trumped-up charge of collusion with the plotters. Walsingham andElizabeth had had their way. As the Earl of Kent said to Mary the night

before her execution: Your life would be the death of our religion and your death will be its preservation.

Mary Stuart was the first monarch in the history of these islandsto be executed by the State. Her grandson, some sixty years later, was to bethe second.

(1,510 words)

The elegy written by Chidiock Tichborne while awaiting death:

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,My crop of corn is but a field of tares,And all my good is but vain hope of gain.The day is gone and yet I saw no sun,And now I live and now my life is done.

The spring is past and yet it hath not sprung,The fruit is dead and yet the leaves are green,My youth is gone and yet I am but young,I saw the world and yet I was not seen.

My thread is cut and yet it was not spun,And now I live and now my life is done.

I sought my death and found it in my womb,I looked for life and saw it was a shade,I trode the earth and knew it was my tomb,And now I die and now I am but made.


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The glass is full and now the glass is run,And now I live and now my life is done.

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