Elizabeth's Spymaster (47 page)

33
NA PRO SP 12/175/110, December 1584. His account of his sweep of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Middlesex, exposing Papists, is in BL Add. MS 48, 023, fols.110–111.

34
He was a friend of Persons and was later condemned with Campion. He was not executed but remained in the Tower until 1585, at which point he was banished from England.

35
Campion, Persons and George Gilbert were at the synod. Gilbert was a ‘young man of good birth, ample fortune and in great favour at [the English] court, [who] dedicated himself and all his possessions to the defence of the Catholic religion’, according to a letter from Persons to Pope Gregory XIII from London, 14 June 1581. Persons added: ‘I know of nothing the queen craves so much as the capture of these brave men.’ CRS, Vol. II,
Miscellanea,
p.67. Gilbert died in Rome in October 1583 and was admitted to the Society of Jesus on his deathbed.

36
Johnson was trained at Douai and only crossed to England on 2 May 1580. He was imprisoned in the Poultry Counter, tried and executed with Campion on 28 May 1582.

37
See Allen, pp.28–75 and 83.

38
CRS, Vol. II,
Miscellanea,
p.94, London, 24 August 1581. Persons left the capital and travelled to Sussex, to the recusant stronghold of the Shelley family at Michelgrove, before leaving England.

39
Strype, Vol. III, book ii, p.611.

40
Catlyn wrote to Walsingham complaining that ‘the daily abuse of stage plays is such an offence to the godly and so great a hindrance to the gospel as the Papists do exceedingly rejoice at the blemish thereof. And not without cause. For every day of the week, the players’ bills are set up in sundry places of the city: some in the names of [the actors’ groups of] her majesty’s men, some the Earl of Leicester’s, some the Earl of Oxford’s, some the Lord Admiral’s … so that when the bells toll to the lectors, the trumpets sound to the stages, whereat the wicked faction of Rome laughs for joy while the godly weep for sorrow. Woe is me, the play houses are pestered when the churches are naked. At the one it is not possible to get a place, at the other void seats are plenty’. BL Harleian MS 286, fol.102.

41
SPD,
Elizabeth, 1581–90,
p.35.

42
BL Harleian MS 286, fol.266.

43
Ibid., fol.97 and Covington, p.68.

44
CRS, Vol. II,
Miscellanea,
p.179.

45
William Somerset, Third Earl (1526–89). Walsingham’s suspicions may have been groundless: Worcester later raised land forces to repel the Armada in 1588.

46
Lewis, Third Lord Mordaunt (1538–1601), Sheriff of Bedfordshire. His father had taken an active role in the suppression of Protestantism during the reign of Mary I.

47
A small sailing boat.

48
SPD,
Elizabeth, 1581–90,
p.370.

49
BL Harleian MS 286, fol.95.

50
Also called Sything or Sydon Lane. Stow, Vol. I, pp.131–2, describes ‘diverse fair and large houses built’ in the thoroughfare. A near neighbour was the Earl of Essex.

51
Potassium aluminium sulphate. Used today in baking powder, for water purification and in the tanning of cattle hides.

52
Reports from one of Walsingham’s spies, Nicholas Berden, alias Thomas Rogers, from Paris, were written in secret ink. The writing has turned dark brown over the passage of time and is difficult to read.

53
Hatfield House, CP Petitions 2, 424.

54
Pollen, p.liv and ‘Paulet’, p.119.

55
A mark was worth 13s 4d.

56
‘Paulet’, p.115.

57
‘Cal. Scot.’, Vol. IX, p.109. Earlier, Phelippes was vexed by accusations levelled at him by one Lawrence Smith. In 1580, he wrote to Burghley complaining of the ‘base and false informations’ made against him. See BL Lansdowne MS 31, Article 23.

58
SPD,
Elizabeth, 1581–90,
p.614.

59
Birch, Vol. I, pp.14–15.

60
See Haynes, p.48.

61
Ibid., p.48 and Read,
Mr Secretary Walsingham,
Vol. II, p.371 fn.

62
CSPF,
January-June 1583 and Addenda,
pp.119–20.

63
SPD,
Elizabeth, 1581-go,
p. 207. See also BL Cotton MS Caligula C vii, fol.106, for Bowes’ warning of 4 March about Englishmen coming to Scotland from Rome and French attempts to influence the Scottish king and nobility; see also ibid., fol.115 – Walsingham’s letter of 14 March giving directions on what to do with Holt.

64
Almond was constantly in and out of prison. He was arrested in France in
July 1583, accused of betraying English Catholics in Paris. He had in his possession a letter from Walsingham ‘mentioning some money’ and had gone to Artois with four Jesuits in order to accompany them to England. A note on a French document adds: ‘This young man has shown himself sufficiently imprudent in many ways to put himself into danger to arrive at a good end. To reconcile himself, he chose a bad means, worthy [more] of pity than of rigour of justice’ (CSPF,
July 1583-July 1584,
pp.47–8). Almond was tortured in jail in Arras in France and in September Walsingham had to seek help to gain his release (ibid., p.79). In October the following year, Roger Manners, Fourth Earl of Rutland, detained Almond at Newark, Nottinghamshire. The agent ‘called himself Walsingham’s servant, showed a warrant surreptitiously obtained and pretended to have been robbed of his horse’. The warrant, dated 26 September 1584, was addressed to Sir John Spencer, High Sheriff, directing him to assist William Vavasour in arresting the Jesuit William Persons and any other papists – see SPD,
Elizabeth, 1581–90,
p.207. He last appears in 1612 in Newgate Prison, London, after being convicted of praemunire, and offering a composition [a payment in lieu of a larger sum] of
£100
to James I as a ‘get out of jail card’, but one that was hardly free.

65
Bowes wrote to Walsingham on 18 March warning him of the conspiracy ‘between the Pope and the kings of France and Spain to invade this island’ – see BL Cotton MS Caligula C vii, fol.119B.

66
Bossy,
Giordano Bruno,
pp.75–7.

67
Ibid., p.191.

68
BL Cotton MS Caligula C vii, fol.155.

69
CSPF,
January-June 1583 and Addenda,
p.292.

70
BL Cotton MS Caligula C vii, fol.153. On the reverse is a notation ‘April/Fagot’, which is clearly a wrong date.

71
Howard (1540–1614) was the younger brother of the executed Duke of Norfolk. Sir Anthony Weldon thought little of his ‘venomous and cankered disposition’ and described him as a ‘great clerk, yet not a wise man, but the grossest flatterer of the world’. See Williams, pp.84–5.

72
His confession is in BL Add. MS 48, 029, fols.64–65B.

73
Paget (d.1612) was the son of William, First Baron Paget. He went to Paris in 1572 and became secretary to James Beaton, Mary’s ambassador to the Valois court.

74
‘Heads of the causes of the dismissal of the ambassador of Spain’, CSPF,
January-June 1583 and Addenda,
pp.333–4. A letter from Walsingham to Stafford, the English ambassador in Paris, also claimed that Mendoza allowed
English Catholics ‘to repair to the Mass at his house contrary to the privileges of an ambassador’ – ibid., p.301.

75
‘Cal. Spanish’, Vol. III, pp.516–17.

76
At Calais, one of the agents, John Jernegan, spoke to Mendoza and was told of ‘the malicious designs’ of Spain against England. See SPD,
Elizabeth,
2581–90, p.158.

77
CSPF,
July 1583-July 1584,
p.594. Gilpin, the English agent in the Low Countries, informed Walsingham the same day that the assassin had been quickly executed. ‘His right hand [was] pressed and burnt off with a hot iron engine made to that end. Afterwards the flesh pulled from his legs, arms and other parts with fired pincers and then his body cut open and quartered alive; during which torments he continued resolute and so little moved as was wonderful and incredible’ – ibid., p.596.

78
Howard later received an annual salary of 1, 000 crowns for supplying Mendoza in Paris with ‘confidential and minute accounts twice a week’ of events at court. See Robinson, p.85.

79
The list of his possessions in the Tower is given in BL Egerton MS 2, 074, fol.108. Sir Owen Hopton, Lieutenant of the Tower, testified later that the door to Percy’s room was barred from the inside and had to be broken down by his guards using their halberds. His body was on the bed, wounded in the chest, with the dagg, or pistol, lying on the floor about three feet away. See Howells, Vol. I, p.1, 123.

80
SPD,
Elizabeth, 1581–90,
p.148. Endorsed by Phelippes: ‘From “B”‘.

81
CRS, Vol. XXI,
Wen. Philip Howard,
p.70.

82
Pierrepoint was described as ‘a very obstinate recusant and a maintainer of all seminary priests and papists’. He was in the Marshalsea before being transferred to the Tower, and in June 1586 was sent on to Wisbech Castle.

83
Roscarrock, from St Endellion, Cornwall, was in prison ‘for religion only… and for intelligence with Jesuits and priests’. He was reported in May 1585 to be ‘a dangerous man and apt for any practice’ and as such, was ‘fit to be banished’. See CRS, Vol. II,
Miscellanea,
p.238.

84
Orton himself was a prisoner in the Tower.

85
CRS, Vol. XXI,
Wen. Philip Howard,
pp.70–1, 6 April 1585.

86
On the River Thames in Essex.

87
Probably the mouth of the River Arun at Littlehampton in Sussex.

88
CRS, Vol. XXI,
Wen. Philip Howard,
p.88.

89
Ibid., p.89.

90
Haynes, p.86.

91
Marlowe was murdered in a brawl over payment of a bill in an eating house in Deptford, east of London, on 30 May 1593. His death was witnessed by that habitual spy Robert Pooley.

92
‘Cal. Scot.’, Vol. IX, pp.306–7.

93
His grandfather was Peter Conway, Archdeacon of St Asaph. His father, Harry ap David, had thirty children by two wives. He apparently lived to the remarkable age of 108.

94
Firstly [?], daughter of Sir William Thomas of Carmarthan, widow of [?] Powell and secondly, Catherine, widow of Richard Heywood of London, an official of the Court of King’s Bench.

95
On 17 December 1580, writing from the jail, Parry complained that he deserved better of his queen and country than having been ‘tormented by a cunning and shameful usurer’. See SPD,
Elizabeth,
1581–90, p.33.

96
Hasler, p.181.

97
Howells, Vol. I, p.1, 103.

98
Strype, Vol. III, book i, p.336.

99
CRS, Vol. XXI,
Ven. Philip Howard,
pp.114–15.

Chapter four

1
BL Harleian MS 290, fol.117.

2
BL Cotton MS Caligula B v, fol.159. A brief on the issues contained in the Bond, for debate in Parliament and drawn up by Walsingham’s clerk, is in fols.222–223B.

3
BL Add. MS 48, 027, fols.249–251B.

4
‘State Trials’, Vol. I, p.143.

5
BL Cotton MS Titus C vii, fol.80.

6
Translated from the Welsh, the song began: ‘Thou Orange, fat and tedious. Everyone is glad when you are enclosed in your grave …’ Hardly a catchy lyric. See CRS, Vol. V,
Unpublished Documents,
pp.98–9.

7
‘Sadler Papers’, Vol. II, p.36.

8
Hatfield House, CP 13/77 and BL Add. MS 48, 027, fol.251B.

9
27 Elizabeth I cap. 1. Notes for Sir Christopher Hatton’s speech promoting the legislation are in BL Egerton MS 2, 124, fol.10. These stress the queen’s subjects’ ‘duty to seek to preserve her with the service of our bodies, lives and
goods’ and to resist ‘all perils and dangers towards her person so far as the wit of men and force can reach’.

10
Tanner, p.419.

11
NA PRO SP 12/176/22. See Graves, p.94. Burghley had drawn up a similar plan in October 1562 when Elizabeth was laid low by an attack of smallpox and had lost the power of speech.

12
Lord St John of Bletso had been offered the job but, concerned at the costs involved in guarding Mary and Elizabeth’s notorious tardiness in repaying them, he wisely declined the honour.

13
At Sheffield, Mary had already complained to Walsingham about the delays in receiving her letters. See BL Cotton MS Caligula C v, fol.129, 5 September 1579-

14
‘Paulet’, p.6.

15
Ibid., p.51.

16
Pollen, p.xxxi.

17
He was released in August 1587 by the efforts of the Papal Nuncio.

18
Pollen, p.xxxi.

19
Ibid., p.92.

20
Cited by Guy, p.480.

21
Labanoff-Rostovsky, Vol. VI, p.254.

22
‘Paulet’, p.153.

23
SPD,
Elizabeth, 1581-go,
p.307.

24
NA PRO SP 53/22 and SP 53/23.

25
NA PRO SP 53/22/6.

26
NA PRO SP 53/22/1.

27
Deacon, pp.27–8. See also Fell Smith, p.674.

28
‘Paulet’, p.191.

29
Ibid.

30
He married his guardian’s daughter, Margaret Draycot. Their daughter Mary died aged eight.

31
Pollen, p.cvi.

32
Ibid., p.lxxxv.

33
Ibid., p.xcv.

34
Ibid., p.xciv.

35
A reference to Pope Pius V’s papal bull of 25 February 1570, excommunicating Elizabeth.

36
Pollen, pp.19–22. Nau told him on 13 July that Pooley had written to Mary only once and she had not yet replied, not knowing his address. ‘Her majesty’s experience of him is not so great as I dare embolden you to trust him much.’ Ibid, p.24.