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Guest Post Monday: The Babington Plot, Espionage, and Execution

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Yes – I know it’s Tuesday! let’s just say that the wifi and I agreed to disagree.

I am delighted to welcome Helene Harrison, the TudorBlogger, to the History jar to talk about her book. If you’re a fan of the Tudors in both fiction and non-fiction and haven’t yet found her blog, I urge your to take a digital stroll in her direction! I did wonder which conspiracy Helene would post about and was very pleasantly surprised when I opened up her email to discover the Babington Plot – I’d never thought about having a favourite rebellion but I’d have to say, now she’s said it – Babington is right up there, mainly I think because of childhood memories of a BBC serialisation of A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley. I would have to say I have a sneaking regard for the Northern Rebellion of 1569 mainly because quite a lot of the action takes place on the borders between England and Scotland – and as those of you who know me are aware, anything hinting of border reivers makes me very happy.

And now over to Helene.

When I was invited to write something for The History Jar, it took me a while to decide what to write about – my first book is entitled ‘Elizabethan Rebellions: Conspiracy, Intrigue and Treason’ and I wondered whether to write about a popular rebellion, or a lesser known one, but in the end, I’ve decided to write about my favourite of the Elizabethan rebellions: the Babington Plot of 1586. There is so much to it, and I discovered a lot in the research.

The Babington Plot of 1586 was a key plot in Elizabeth I’s reign, as it resulted in the execution of Mary Queen of Scots the following year. But it also demonstrated many of the things that our secret services traditionally are believed to have used and valued, including espionage, double agents, and codes and ciphers. Elizabeth’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, and Secretary of State, William Cecil, Baron Burghley, were critical figures who effectively highjacked a plot in its very early stages and turned it to their own advantage – to condemn Mary for treason and stop her being a threat to Elizabeth.

Mary Queen of Scots had been in England since she had fled from Scotland in 1568 after her forced abdication in 1567. She had been shunted between various residences in England, never allowing to meet her cousin, Elizabeth I. She had hoped that Elizabeth would provide her with an army to retake the Scottish throne from her son, James VI, who was governed by a Regency in his infancy. Mary became desperate when it was obvious that she wasn’t going to get any help from Elizabeth and that the queen just intended to keep her in captivity, not really knowing quite what to do with her.

The plot gets its name from Anthony Babington, who was raised in a Catholic family, and had previously worked for Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, who was Mary Queen of Scots’s gaoler. There were even rumours that Shrewsbury was having an affair with Mary; his wife, Bess of Hardwick, is certainly said to have believed it. It is probably while working for Shrewsbury that Babington first encountered Mary and became her supporter. Many of these young Catholic gentlemen that Babington gathered around him saw Mary almost as a damsel in distress who needed to be rescued. It was this which drew them together in their decision to assassinate Elizabeth I and replace her on the throne with Mary Queen of Scots.

Mary’s communications were cut off when she was moved to Chartley in the charge of the much stricter Amyas Paulet. When Mary was approached by Gilbert Gifford, who told her he could reopen her lines of communications securely, she jumped at the chance! Walsingham had planned well, hoping that cutting Mary’s lines of communication completely and then reintroducing some hope for word from the outside world, would force her into making a mistake. It worked. The plan was for any letter Mary wrote to be put in a waterproof pouch and inserted into a cask used to delivered ale to the house. The brewer would then remove the letter and give it to Gifford who would take the letter to the plotters in London. It would also work in reverse for Mary to receive letters. 

However, what Mary didn’t know was that Gilbert Gifford was a double agent working for Francis Walsingham. The brewer was also in Walsingham’s pay as well as Mary’s. Any letters that Gifford couriered would go via Walsingham and his codebreaker, Thomas Phelippes. Walsingham was aware of the Babington Plot almost from the beginning, using it to attempt to implicate Mary Queen of Scots in treasonous activity. The letters would all be written in cipher, but Phelippes cracked the cipher, it seems fairly easily, and so could read all of the letters going between Mary and the plotters. Neither the plotters nor Mary realised that their cipher had been broken and their plans revealed. The plot never had a chance of succeeding. 

Babington wrote to Mary at Chartley asking her to consent to the killing of Elizabeth I, her own rescue, and her replacing Elizabeth on the English throne. Mary made a fatal mistake and wrote back, consenting to Elizabeth’s assassination, and asking the six men to go about their work. When the codebreaker, Phelippes, received Mary’s letter he drew a small gallows on the bottom of the deciphered letter before sending it to Walsingham. Mary had condemned herself, even though the plan never really got off the ground. Phelippes also added a postscript to the original letter before sending it on to its destination, asking for the names of the men who would carry out the regicide. 

Mary was arrested when out riding at Chartley, and her rooms were searched. Anthony Babington was discovered hiding in a tree in St John’s Wood. Legend says that the plotters commissioned a painting of them together and that is how they were identified and captured. The plotters were executed in two batches, having been found guilty of treason. The first batch, including Babington himself, were hung, drawn, and quartered. Elizabeth wouldn’t allow any mercy. However, there was a public outcry, so the second batch were allowed to hang until dead before being disembowelled and quartered. 

Mary Queen of Scots was tried in the great hall at Fotheringhay Castle in October 1586, where statements from her own secretaries were read out, and Walsingham presented the evidence of the letters and the cipher. Babington had signed a copy of the cipher to confirm that this was in fact the cipher used. Mary was found guilty of treason at a council session at Westminster and condemned to death. Elizabeth I initially refused to sign the death warrant, but signed it several times and destroyed it, before finally signing it and entrusting it to her secretary, William Davison. Davison took it straight to the privy council who sealed it and sent it to Fotheringhay Castle without further consultation with the queen.

Mary Queen of Scots was executed in the great hall at Fotheringhay Castle on 8 February 1587. She died wearing red, the colour of martyrdom. The executioner, Bull, missed the neck with the first stroke and hit the back of the head. The second stroke hit the neck leaving only a few sinews attached which were quickly severed. The executioner held up the head, but it fell, leaving Bull holding only a wig. Mary’s dog was found hiding in her skirts, covered in his mistress’s blood. The dog was cleaned up but pined away shortly after Mary’s death.

Peterborough Cathedral was Mary’s initial place of burial, before her removal from there to be buried at Westminster Abbey when her son, James VI of Scotland, became James I of England. Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I are now closer in death than they ever were in life.

Author Bio

Helene Harrison MA MSc BA (Hons) studied at the University of Northumbria in Newcastle, achieving both a BA and an MA in History before going on to complete an MSc in Library Management. Her passion for Tudor history started when studying for A Levels and completing a module on Tudor rebellions. Her Masters dissertation focused on portrayals of Anne Boleyn through the centuries, from contemporary letters to modern TV and film adaptations. Now she writes two blogs, one Tudor history and one book-related, and loves visiting royal palaces and snuggling up with a book or embroidery project.

Book Blurb & Links

Elizabeth I. Tudor, Queen, Protestant.

Throughout her reign, Elizabeth I had to deal with many rebellions which aimed to undermine her rule and overthrow her. Led in the main by those who wanted religious freedom and to reap the rewards of power, each one was thwarted but left an indelible mark on Queen Elizabeth and her governance of England. Learning from earlier Tudor rebellions under Elizabeth’s grandfather, father, and siblings, they were dealt with mercilessly by spymaster Francis Walsingham who pushed for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots due to her involvement, and who created one of the first government spy networks in England. 

Espionage, spying, and hidden ciphers would demonstrate the lengths Mary was willing to go to gain her freedom and how far Elizabeth’s advisors would go to stop her and protect their Virgin Queen. Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots were rival queens on the same island, pushed together due to religious intolerance and political instability, which created the perfect conditions for revolt, where power struggles would continue even after Mary’s death. The Elizabethan period is most often described as a Golden Age; Elizabeth I had the knowledge and insight to deal with cases of conspiracy, intrigue, and treason, and perpetuate her own myth of Gloriana.

Pen & Sword – https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Elizabethan-Rebellions-Hardback/p/22351

Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elizabethan-Rebellions-Conspiracy-Intrigue-Treason/dp/1399081993

Waterstones – https://www.waterstones.com/book/elizabethan-rebellions/helene-harrison/9781399081993

Barnes and Noble – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/elizabethan-rebellions-helene-harrison/1142446644?ean=9781399081993

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Mary Queen of Scots – World Tour of Derbyshire…with a detour to Yorkshire and Staffordshire

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https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=1tr7DAWFXmfmVzbHQu5nBIXLKysbFlu4&hl=en&ehbc=2E312F

Next week we’re off on a Tudor adventure, on the trail of Mary Queen of Scots with our middle grand daughter who is doing her GCSE in history next year. Some of the places on the list are more obvious than others and some are not accessible.

Wingfield Manor is in need of some renovations. English Heritage has had to close the site while it’s made safe which is a shame because the fifteenth century manor it is a splendid ruin with its twin court yards and walnut tree allegedly grown from a nut dropped by Sir Anthony Babington when he visited the queen there in secret – the fact that its a fairy tale is neither here nor there, it makes for a good story. Dethick Manor where Babington was born is in private hands and I’m not sure if the church, which the Babingtons patronised, is open on a daily basis.

Hardwick Hall was completed by bess of Hardwick in 1597 but some of the wooden panelling came from Chatsworth and there’s a statue of Mary. It will also be an opportunity to explore the medieval manor and Bess’s Tudor creation. History students are required to study a Tudor location as their exams approach, although it could be as random as the site of the Battle of the Armada. This year it was Sheffield Manor Lodge.

Mary spent much of her captivity in Sheffield Castle which no longer exists but she also stayed at Sheffield Manor, hence the stop there. It’s opening is restricted but school holidays are a good time to visit. The journey across the moors between Sheffield and the Cavendish residence at Chatsworth or to Shrewsbury’s home at Wingfield can be typified by a walk at Longshaw. Mary is known to have enjoyed the opportunity to ride part of the way across the moors.

Talking of Chatsworth, not much remains of the Tudor building apart from Queen Mary’s Bower, a raised platform near the entrance to the house. Haddon Hall is on the list not because of Mary but because its one of the finest medieval manor houses in the country. Henry Vernon completed much building work during the Tudor period but when the male line died out it was very little used – so a good example to explore in terms of architecture and evolution.

Ashover Church contains many Babington monuments and accounts for the families position in the Derbyshire gentry. Ashbourne Church houses a monument to one of Mary’s jailors; The Babington Arms was the family’s Derby home and does what it says on the can; the Earl of Shrewsbury is buried in Sheffield Cathedral while his countess rests in Derby. Both have rather splendid monuments.

Tutbury, which is of course in Staffordshire, was another of Mary’s prisons and the Old Hall Hotel is where she went to take the water as a cure from her rheumatism. It may also be the location for a cream tea if the aforementioned grandchild plays her cards right. And of course, as some of you will remember, this is the child whose first question at Fountains Abbey (when she was knee high to a grass hopper) was “does it have a cafe?” – to which the answer to all of the above is if it doesn’t, I know where one is.

Anthony Babington

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Anthony was born at Dethick in Derbyshire on 24 October 1561. His father died when Anthony was just 9 years old and his mother remarried into another of Derbyshire’s gentry families. At some point the boy, who was a third son, was employed in the household of the Earl of Shrewsbury where he served as a page to Mary Queen of Scots.

In 1580 he met with Thomas Morgan, in the employ of Mary Queen of Scots agent James Beaton and probably Sir Francis Walingham, Elizabeth I’s spymaster. He was persuaded to take letters to Mary. In early 1586 he refused to carry letters as by then the Earl of Shrewsbury had been relieved of his duties as Mary’s gaoler and the terms of her confinement were much stricter. It was at about that time that he made the acquaintance of Robert Poley, who unknown to Anthony, was yet another of Walsingham’s agents (who needs James Bond?)

When Walsingham captured Gilbert Giffard and turned him (well who wants to die a very nasty death anyway) the stage was set for a more letters to be smuggled to Mary. Giffard contacted the French and arranged for letters to be smuggled into Mary by beer barrels at Chartley Castle. No one realised the whole set up was carefully staged by Sir Francis Walsingham. In July 1586 Babington laid out the details of a plot to put Mary on the throne and condemned himself and by her response, Mary, to death.

By the 3rd September 1586 Babington was in the Tower. His house at Dethick was searched. Two of his sisters were there and his 2 year old daughter Ellen. Ellen’s mother, who was married to Babington 1579 had fled.

Unsurprisingly Babington was convicted of treason, hanged, drawn and quartered on 20 September along with Ballard and five others somewhere near Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Seven more conspirators died the following day. It was a week since their trial.

babington

The Babington Plot

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In 1586, 25 year old, Anthony Babington of Dethick in Derbyshire and a jesuit priest, John Ballard, plotted to remove Elizabeth I from her throne and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots – restoring Catholicism to England in the process. The plot when it came to Sir Francis Walsingham’s attention resulted in letters sent to Mary being monitored and her eventual execution when one of the letters was used to entrap her.

It was the third plot against Elizabeth since the Rudolf Plot of 1571 and the Throckmorton Plot of 1583. The Elizabethan world was full of agents and plots. Robert Poley and Gilbert Giffard were double agents working for Walsingham who wanted to have Mary executed because of the danger she represented while she still lived. Anthony Babington was drawn into the conspiracy by Thomas Morgan who asked him to carry letters to Mary. Morgan worked for Mary’s official agent in Paris, James Beaton, but it is likely that Morgan also worked for Sir Francis Walsingham. Robert Poley ensured that the young man did not back out when he got cold feet.

On 7 July 1585, Babington sent a letter to Mary at Chartley Castle in code. The letters were sent to Mary inside beer barrels – but it was Walsingham who masterminded the method. Babington was watched every step of the way. It was intercepted and decoded by Thomas Phelippes who also decoded Mary’s reply which indicated her desire to be rescued from her imprisonment which began in 1569. Since 1585 she had been under the supervision of Sir Amias Paulet, a Puritan who had torn down her cloth of state and restricted her movements even more than they were in the past. It was essential that it could be proved that Mary was plotting to overthrow Elizabeth, otherwise the English queen would not have her cousin put on trial or executed.

The Babington Plot advocated a Spanish invasion of England to ensure that the Protestants were deposed from power and to ensure that Mary became queen. It was essential that Elizabeth was assinated. Ultimately it was agreed that the Spanish would finance a French army to invade England.

Babington’s letter identified six stages for the plot to succeed . Step 5 was to free Mary and step 6 was to kill Elizabeth. Mary’s letter, written on 17 July 1586, affirming her desire to escape assented to the plan and did not forbid the murder of her cousin. She was guilty by association. The Bond of Association devised in 1584, and signed by Mary Queen of Scots, after the failure of the Throckmorton Plot in 1583 clearly stated that not only were plotters to be executed but anyone in whose interest the plot was made – i.e. Mary.

When Phelippes translated the letter he drew a gallows to signify that Mary had incriminated her self and the Bond of Association would bring an end to her life.

The end result was not only the execution of Mary but also of Anthony Babington who may have made Mary’s acquaintance when he was a ward of the Earl of Shrewsbury who was Mary’s long term gaoler.

Robert Poley

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marlowe

Christopher Marlowe

He appears to have studied at Cambridge but left without taking a degree.  This was not unusual especially for a Catholic and would have given him credence. By 1583 he was married with a child but was becoming drawn to  the Earl of Leicester’s and Sir Francis Walsingham’s murky world of conspiracy.  His credentials as an ex-Catholic would have made him ideal material but before beginning his career as a spy he was imprisoned in the Marshalsea for a year – perhaps an incentive to remain loyal to  his paymasters or a reminder of what might happen if he tried to double cross the State.  During this time he refused to see his wife but entertained other women.  His gaoler proclaimed that Poley could beguile you of your wife or your life.

 

Upon gaining his freedom he moved into the orbit of the Earl of Leicester and then was placed in household of Francis Walsingham’s daughter who was married to Sir Philip Sydney.  Anthony Babington asked him to obtain a passport from Walsingham to travel for between three to five years.  Babington trusted him implicitly but others were more suspicious.  Babington retained his faith in Poley even when he found him copying documents and later when he was  taken to the Tower.  Afterall, Poley was there as well as a conspirator rather than a loyal servant of the crown.

In fact Poley remained in the Tower until 1588.  An Irish Catholic Bishop called Richard Creagh died during this time. Robert Southwell, a Jesuit,  wrote that Poley had poisoned the unfortunate bishop with a piece of cheese.

Unable to resume his career undercover he became a more formal member of Walsingham’s staff and later Sir Robert Cecil’s going on official journeys overseas. He is recorded as having his own cyphers. It is somewhat surprising therefore that he was involved in the tavern brawl that saw Christopher Marlowe killed with a dagger.  Even more surprising that in the aftermath of Marlowe’s death Poley appears to disappear from the radar for a week or more before resurfacing with secret information of some description for the Privy Council.

There are many theories as to why and how Christopher Marlowe died or perhaps didn’t.  Poley’s involvement implies a cover up of some description.  One suggestion is that the men involved with the death of Marlowe were faking his demise in order to allow him to avoid charges relating to being an atheist.  It has also been suggested that Scotland was a safer place for Marlowe and who better to escort him there than a man who could get in and out of the country undetected.  Alternatively Marlowe who’d carried letters into Scotland himself may have become a dangerous inconvenience who needed to be removed from the scene before Poley’s network of agents working for Cecil to improve links with James VI of Scotland was exposed.  After all, Marlowe had been hauled up  in front of the Star Chamber and was in Deptford on bail pending further investigations.

Poley wasn’t finished with playwrights.  He returned to the Marshalsea to spy in Ben Johnson who later wrote a poem entitled “Inviting a Friend to Dinner” Poley gets a mention.  It isn’t complimentary.

 

Stephen Alford records that Cecil kept Poley on the payroll until 1601.  Alford also records that Poley wasn’t entirely as secretive as he should have been.  He seduced his landlady with tales of spying and probably infuriated Walsingham by suggesting that his urinary infection was contracted from a French prostitute – so a man who didn’t always know how to win friends and influence people.

History doesn’t record what happened to him.  I wonder if it involved a dark night and a dark alley somewhere?