Babington Plot
In 1586, a plan to kill Queen Elizabeth I took shape in the shadow of deep religious division. The Protestant monarch ruled England while her Catholic cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, sat imprisoned for nineteen years since 1568. Catholics viewed Mary as the legitimate heir and sought to restore their faith by removing Elizabeth from power. Pope Pius V issued the papal bull Regnans in Excelsis on the 25th of February 1570, granting English Catholics authority to overthrow the queen. This decree turned Mary into the focal point of numerous plots designed to depose Elizabeth and even take her life. Elizabeth had imprisoned Mary under the charge of successive jailers, principally the Earl of Shrewsbury. In 1584, Elizabeth's Privy Council signed a Bond of Association which stated that anyone within the line of succession whose behalf someone plotted against the Queen would be executed. Parliament passed the Act of Association the following year, providing for the execution of anyone who would benefit from the death of the Queen if a plot was discovered. Because of this bond, Mary could be executed if a plot initiated by others led to her accession to England's throne.
Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's Secretary of State and spymaster, realized that implicating Mary in a plot to assassinate Elizabeth would allow her execution and diminish the papist threat. He wrote to the Earl of Leicester that so long as that devilish woman lived, neither Her Majesty must make account to continue in quiet possession of her crown nor her faithful servants assure themselves of safety of their lives. Walsingham used Babington to ensnare Queen Mary by sending his double agent Gilbert Gifford to Paris to obtain the confidence of Thomas Morgan. Morgan previously worked for George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, an earlier jailer of Queen Mary. Through Shrewsbury, Queen Mary became acquainted with Morgan. In 1585 Gifford was arrested returning to England while coming through Rye in Sussex with letters of introduction from Morgan to Queen Mary. Walsingham released Gifford to work as a double agent in the Babington Plot. Gifford used the alias No. 4 just as he had used other aliases such as Colerdin, Pietro and Cornelys. Walsingham had Gifford function as a courier in the entrapment plot against Queen Mary. The turbulent Catholic deacon Gifford had been in Walsingham's service since the end of 1585 or the beginning of 1586.
After the Throckmorton Plot, Queen Elizabeth issued a decree in July 1584 which prevented all communication to and from Mary. However, Walsingham and Cecil realized that that decree also impaired their ability to entrap Mary. They needed evidence for which she could be executed based on their Bond of Association tenets. Thus Walsingham established a new line of communication which he could carefully control without incurring any suspicion from Mary. Gifford approached the French ambassador to England, Guillaume de l'Aubespine, Baron de Châteauneuf-sur-Cher, and described the new correspondence arrangement designed by Walsingham. Gifford and jailer Paulet arranged for a local brewer to facilitate the movement of messages between Queen Mary and her supporters by placing them in a watertight box inside a beer barrel. Thomas Phelippes, a cipher and language expert in Walsingham's employ, was quartered at Chartley Hall to receive the messages, decode them and send them to Walsingham. The cipher used was a nomenclator cipher. Phelippes would decode and make a copy of the letter. The letter was then resealed and given back to Gifford who would pass it on to the brewer. In short order every message coming to and from Chartley was intercepted and read by Walsingham.
On the 7th of July 1586, the only Babington letter that was sent to Mary was decoded by Phelippes. Mary responded in code on the 17th of July 1586 ordering the would-be rescuers to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. The response letter also included deciphered phrases indicating her desire to be rescued: The affairs being thus prepared and I may suddenly be transported out of this place. John Ballard was arrested on the 4th of August 1586 and under torture he confessed and implicated Babington. Although Babington was able to receive the letter with the postscript, he was not able to reply with the names of the conspirators as he was arrested. Others were taken prisoner by the 15th of August 1586. Mary's two secretaries Claude Nau and Gilbert Curle and a clerk Jérôme Pasquier were likewise taken into custody and interrogated. A large chest filled with Mary's papers seized at Chartley was taken to London. Portions of Phellipes' letter translations were read at the trial. Mary denied knowing Babington and Ballard but it was insisted that she had sent a reply to Babington using the same cipher code entrusting the letter to a servant in a blue coat.
The conspirators were sentenced to death for treason and conspiracy against the crown and were to be hanged drawn and quartered. This first group included Babington Ballard Chidiock Tichborne Thomas Salisbury Henry Donn Robert Barnewell and John Savage. A further group of seven men including Edward Habington Charles Tilney Edward Jones John Charnock John Travers Jerome Bellamy and Robert Gage were tried and convicted shortly afterward. Ballard and Babington were executed on the 20th of September 1586 along with the other men who had been tried with them. Such was the public outcry at the horror of their execution that Elizabeth changed the order for the second group to be allowed to hang until quite dead before disembowelling and quartering. The long-term goal of the plot was the invasion of England by the Spanish forces of King Philip II and the Catholic League in France leading to the restoration of the old religion. The chief conspirators were Anthony Babington and John Ballard. Babington a young recusant was recruited by Ballard a Jesuit priest who hoped to rescue the Scottish queen.
In October 1586 Mary was sent to be tried at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire by 46 English lords bishops and earls. She was not permitted legal counsel nor permitted to review the evidence against her nor to call witnesses. Mary denied knowing Babington and Ballard but it was insisted that she had sent a reply to Babington using the same cipher code entrusting the letter to a servant in a blue coat. One English Lord voted not guilty. Elizabeth signed her cousin-once-removed's death warrant and on the 8th of February 1587 in front of 300 witnesses Mary Queen of Scots was executed by beheading. At the Fotheringay trial in October 1586 Elizabeth's Lord High Treasurer William Cecil Lord Burghley and Walsingham used the letter against Mary who refused to admit that she was guilty. However Mary was betrayed by her secretaries Nau and Curle who confessed under pressure that the letter was mainly truthful. In January 1598 a French diplomat in London Huraut de Maisse laid the blame for the discovery of the plot and Mary's execution on the ambassador Guillaume de l'Aubespine de Châteauneuf and his secretary Jean Arnault de Cherelles.
Mary Stuart a dramatised version of the last days of Mary Queen of Scots including the Babington Plot was written by Friedrich Schiller and performed in Weimar Germany in 1800. This in turn formed the basis for Maria Stuarda an opera by Donizetti in 1835. Although the Babington Plot occurs before the events of the opera and is only referenced twice during the opera the second such occasion being Mary admitting her own part in it private to her confessor. The story of the Babington Plot is dramatised in the novel Conies in the Hay by Jane Lane and features prominently in Anthony Burgess's A Dead Man in Deptford. A fictional account is given in the My Story book series The Queen's Spies retitled To Kill A Queen 2008 told in diary format by a fictional Elizabethan girl named Kitty. The simplified version of the Babington plot is also the subject of the children's or Young Adult novel A Traveller in Time 1939 by Alison Uttley who grew up near the Babington family home in Derbyshire. A young modern girl finds that she slips back to the time shortly before the Plot is about to be implemented.
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Common questions
What was the Babington Plot and when did it take place?
The Babington Plot was a plan to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England that took shape in 1586. The conspirators aimed to rescue Mary Queen of Scots from imprisonment and restore Catholic rule in England.
Who were the main conspirators in the Babington Plot?
The chief conspirators were Anthony Babington and John Ballard. Babington was a young recusant recruited by Ballard, who was a Jesuit priest hoping to rescue the Scottish queen.
How did Walsingham uncover the Babington Plot involving Mary Queen of Scots?
Sir Francis Walsingham used double agent Gilbert Gifford to intercept messages between Mary and her supporters through a beer barrel containing a watertight box. Thomas Phelippes decoded the ciphered letters sent via this method to provide evidence for execution under the Bond of Association.
When was Mary Queen of Scots executed following the Babington Plot discovery?
Mary Queen of Scots was executed on the 8th of February 1587 after being tried at Fotheringhay Castle in October 1586. She was beheaded in front of 300 witnesses after signing her death warrant by Queen Elizabeth I.
What happened to the Babington Plot conspirators after their arrest in August 1586?
Conspirators including Babington and Ballard were sentenced to death for treason and executed on the 20th of September 1586. They faced hanging drawn and quartered though public outcry led to changes in how the second group of seven men was treated during execution.