Tag Archives: Anthony Babington

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.

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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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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?