Plots and Counterplots : Execution of Mary Stuart

The activities of the seminary priests and the Catholic conspirators, on one side, and the raids of Hawkins and Drake, on the other, were making it evident that Elizabeth must stop her shifting diplomacy and come out definitely on one side or the other.

A Spanish and Jesuit plot had been formed in Scotland for the purpose of securing that government for Roman Catholicism, and D'Aubigny, who was the centre of the plot, was supported by Philip and the Guises. But the Protestant nobles of Scotland seized the person of King James VI in the raid of Ruthven, banished D'Aubigny, and checked all danger from that quarter (August, 1582). In the same year an attempt was made to kill William of Orange, stadtholder of the Dutch republic, but without success. In the council, Walsingham was tracing with marvellous ingenuity the plots formed against Elizabeth, and was using his information for the purpose of bringing about war with Spain. Of him it was said that he heard in England what was whispered in Rome.

And, finally, in 1584, the death of the duke of Alencon, the last of the suitors whom Elizabeth had considered seriously, removed the need of an alliance with France. The heir to the French throne was Henry of Navarre, leader of the Huguenots, and to prevent, if possible, his accession to the throne was now the great object of the Guises and the Catholic party, who for that purpose organized the Catholic league. Now that bitter civil war was about to break out in France, Elizabeth knew that the French would be useless as allies and harmless as foes.

Thus with 1584 the war party had obtained the upper hand in Elizabeth's council and had determined to meet the Catholic intrigues by forming a Protestant league. In 1583, when a plot to assassinate Elizabeth was discovered, an association of loyal Englishmen was formed for the purpose of revenging to the uttermost all malicious actions and attempts " against the queen. This association was legalized by parliament in 1585. In the same year a new act was passed against the Jesuits and the seminarians, and there is little doubt that had not the queen and Burghley been inclined to leniency, the measures taken would have been much more severe.

Already Walsingham had in his possession the details of the greatest of the plots against the queen. After 1584 Mendoza had been dismissed and Mary placed under the guardianship of the rigid Puritan, Sir Amyas Paulet, at Tutbury, where continued her treasonable activity. Through her letters she betrayed the existence of well-formed plans laid by Philip for the conquest of England. Philip had been especially angered by a new expedition led by Drake to the Spanish West Indies in 1585, by the despatch of five thousand Englishmen to Holland to aid the Dutch, and by Leicester's assumption of the title of governor-general of the Dutch Republic after the death of William of Orange, who had been murdered by a Roman Catholic fanatic in 1584. He now determined on an invasion of England. In June, 1586, Mary disinherited her son James in favor of Philip, whose plans now became more definite. To his desire to conquer England for the sake of the Catholic cause, was added a further wish to win the new inheritance for himself and his family.

Before the great expedition could be undertaken, spies and traitors had betrayed to Walsingham the plot that Babington, the priest Ballard, and Mendoza, in Paris, had been gradually working out against Elizabeth. In August, 1586, Babington and five others were arrested and on ample evidence were executed a month later. With all the proofs in his hands Walsingham then charged Mary Stuart with conspiracy. Under the act of 1585 she was brought to trial before a special commission sitting in the great hall of Fotheringay Castle, and during ten days conducted her defence with consummate ability. On October 25 she was condemned to death. Elizabeth was determined that Mary should die, but was unwilling to bear the blame of having executed a sovereign. After long delay she signed the warrant, and on February 8, 1587, Mary Stuart was beheaded. Thereupon Elizabeth became angry, asserting that she had wished to pardon the Scottish queen; and Davison, the secretary, who had carried out the sentence, was deprived of his office, thrown into the Tower, and compelled to pay a fine that ruined him. His treatment by Elizabeth, Burghley, and the council is not a pleasant episode in English history.