In 1586 the younger brother of Sir Edward Stafford, the English ambassador in Paris, went to see the secretary of the French ambassador, a man called Leonard des Tappes. Stafford had a plan. Des Tappes informed his master – Chateauneuf.

Stafford explained that the plan was to blow up the queen’s bed with the queen in it. Unfortunately the queen was afraid of the dark and never slept without one of her ladies in waiting. Stafford’s own mother Lady Dorothy Stafford served Elizabeth faithfully. Although the job title Mistress of the Robes hadn’t yet been created it was what Dorothy did.

The ambassador pointed out that the risk of blowing up Lady Dorothy was quite great. Stafford said that in that case it would probably be best to stab Elizabeth or possibly poison her.

Stafford was very swiftly arrested and escorted to the Tower as was Des Tappes. The ambassador was questioned and eventually admitted that he knew about the plot. What he should have done was to reveal to the Privy Council, to Cecil, to Walsingham…to any one who would listen really…that there was a dastardly plot afoot. He hadn’t blabbed which wrong footed him and effectively put him out of the complicated Anglo-French game of spies and intrigue for a significant month of two. He was placed under house arrest and thus unable to get anywhere near Mary Queen of Scots who was being quietly entrapped by Walsingham (Babbington Plot)

Elizabeth’s guard was doubled and she became much more wary of Mary Queen of Scots which was exactly what Walsingham hoped to achieve.

And Stafford, described in documents as “a lewd, discontented person?” His mother was very distressed at the thought that he might try to blow either her or the queen up so it’s unlikely that Elizabeth was aware that it was a ruse. Certainly he was in Walsingham’s pay as indeed had Moody been at various times.

The Spanish Ambassador wrote to Philip II telling the story. Apparently Lady Dorothy and her older son were not on good terms with little brother William but that William had pretended to be a Catholic and told the French that he would place a barrel of gunpowder in the bedroom and er, well – kerboom!

And whilst we’re on the subject of Dorothy Stafford her grandmother was Margaret Pole the 8th Countess of Salisbury – yes – that one. The daughter of the Duke of Clarence (the one drowned in a vat of Malmsey) married off to a member of Margaret Beaufort’s extended family and eventually executed without trial by Henry VIII in 1541 making her grand daughter Dorothy Stafford doubly related to some degree to Elizabeth I.

Whitelock, Anna. The Queen’s Bed.