Elizabeth's Spymaster (48 page)

37
That year Pooley had arrived at the Bastille, bringing letters to Morgan from Christopher Blount, a gentleman member of the Earl of Leicester’s retinue who seemed to be a Catholic sympathiser. In fact, he was another double agent working for the English government.

38
‘Paulet’, p.218.

39
Labanoff-Rostovsky, Vol. VII, p.205.

40
‘Paulet’, p.224.

41
BL Cotton MS Caligula C ix, fol.326. A copy of the postscript is in NA PRO SP 12/193/54. Copies of the ciphers used by Mary and Babington are in BL Add. MS 48, 027, fol.313B and their correspondence in fols.258–262B. See also ‘Cal. Scot’, Vol. VIII, pp.525–38.

42
Camden, p.438.

43
‘Paulet’, pp.234–5.

44
Ibid., p.245.

45
Ibid., pp.46–7.

46
Morris, p.184.

47
Ibid., p.381.

48
The Fleet Prison is omitted from the list as the June returns of Catholic prisoners contain only two as being held there by the warden, John Calton. In his report to Walsingham: ‘Stephen Vallenger, committed from the Star Chamber [Court] by her majesty’s Privy Council for publishing certain libels of [the executed priest] Edmund Campion and has here continued these four years. Likewise one Mr Francis Trudgeon committed by [the] Privy Council upon a praemunire.’ Another priest or recusant, a Mr Travis, died in the Fleet the previous April. See CRS, Vol. II,
Miscellanea,
p.250.

49
SPD,
Elizabeth, 1581–90,
pp.373 and 342. See also CRS, Vol. II,
Miscellanea,
p.253.

50
The debtors’ prison, long notorious for its poor conditions and nicknamed ‘Hell in Epitome’ or, as John Wesley wrote nearly two centuries later, ‘a nursery of all manners of wickedness’. Rendle, p.13.

51
Arrested at Lydd, Kent. Committed to prison November 1585.

52
Detained at Battle, Sussex, with John Smith in March 1586.

53
Taken at Chichester in June 1585.

54
Arrested in Chichester. Jailed in November 1585.

55
Detained at Prescot, Lancashire, and imprisoned since June 1585. He had been examined by the Bishop of Chester and then interrogated twice by Walsingham.

56
In prison since June 1585.

57
Taken at Lowestoft, Suffolk, in June 1585.

58
Knight was detained with Bolton and Clareregent at Chichester and sent to prison in November 1585.

59
Bramston and Crockett were arrested with George Potter at Arundel in Sussex probably in April 1586.

60
Small ships propelled by prisoners working oars.

61
Williamson, Blunt, Webster, Green, Lawson, Holland, Edes and Tucker were listed as recusants in the June prison certificates – Green having been in jail since 1572. Webley and Crabb, listed amongst the ‘poor fools’ in the Marshalsea, were in a group of five detained in Chichester Harbour as they tried to flee to France that April.

62
This prison, called a ‘Counter’ or more probably ‘Comptor’, was in the City of London’s Cheap Ward and belonged to one of the sheriffs of the city. See Stow, Vol. I, p.263.

63
Arrested for importing ‘slanderous’ Catholic books in 1584.

64
One of the entrances to the Palace of Westminster or Whitehall, near College Court. See Stow, Vol. II, p.122.

65
Bawdwin is described as a ‘seminary priest’, arrested in a boat on ‘Yarmouth roads, coming over from beyond the seas’.

66
Inserted later. Berden was expecting £50 in bribes for their liberation. Their omission suggests Berden had fixed their release. See CRS, Vol. II,
Miscellanea,
p.252 fn.254.

67
Described as a boy who had been apprehended by Richard Topcliffe ‘in the company of a priest, his uncle’.

68
Another of the sheriffs’ prisons for the City of London, specially built and completed in 1555, on the east side of Wood Street near Lad or Ladle Lane. See Stow, Vol. I, pp.296 and 350.

69
Bavant and Sherwood are listed as ‘released’ in a later hand on the document. Bavant was made a doctor in Rome.

70
These are listed as recusants in the June prison lists.

71
The White Lion was an inn near St George’s Church, Southwark, which was turned into a criminal prison for the county of Surrey in the 1560s. ‘Newington’ is a corruption of ‘New Town’, part of the Borough of Southwark. See Stow, Vol. II, pp.52 and 60. It was later converted into a Bridewell house of correction and was demolished in the late eighteenth century. See Rendle, p.92.

72
The June prison lists describe him as a ‘poor simple man’.

73
The Clink was on the banks of the Thames in Southwark, west of London Bridge. Its name gave rise to a slang expression for prison.

74
Berden’s little joke. An intercepted letter to Mary Queen of Scots written by Charles Paget in January 1584 says of Dolman: ‘When attired like a gentleman of good calling, as commonly he goes, one would esteem him a justice of the peace’. See CRS, Vol. II,
Miscellanea,
p.256 fn. Dolman was ordained priest during the reign of Mary I, in 1557 (ibid., p.249).

75
Pollen, p.131.

76
Of Denham, Hall, Buckinghamshire. George Peckham had already been in trouble with the Privy Council in 1580 for harbouring the Jesuit Campion. His son was Edmund, patron of the ‘exorcist movement’ amongst the Catholic missionaries, led by Father Weston SJ, which reached its peak at Lent 1586. See Revd. R. H. Lathbury,
History of Denham,
privately printed, Uxbridge, 1904, pp.265–6.

77
Neither Peckham nor Gerard was involved in the Babington conspiracy. Peckham died almost immediately after this but Gerard remained a prisoner in the Tower until he was persuaded to give evidence against Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel.

78
Pollen, pp.132–3.

79
Henry Dunne, gentleman, late of London, one of the Babington conspirators.

80
The warrant for his detention should only describe Ballard as a priest.

81
Pollen, p.134.

82
Ibid., pp.135–6.

83
Charles, Second Baron Howard of Effingham.

84
BL Lansdowne MS 49 no.25.

85
Stow, Vol. II, p.349.

86
Howells, Vol. I, p.1, 132.

87
Probably John Scudamore, clerk to the Privy Council.

88
The moated house at Uxendon. For the travails of the Bellamy family at the hands of the torturer Richard Topcliffe, see Chapter Two of this book.

89
Howells, p.1, 136.

90
‘Bardon Papers’, pp.45, 47. Burghley wrote to Sir Christopher Hatton: ‘I told her majesty that if the fashion of the execution shall be duly and orderly executed, by the protracting of the same both to the extremity of the pains in the action and to the sight of the people to behold it, the manner of the death would be as terrible as any new device could be, but therewith, her majesty was not satisfied.’

91
Ibid., p.47.

92
Their last speeches on the scaffold are in BL Add. MS 48, 027, fols.263–271B.

Chapter Five

1
Scot, p.28.

2
‘Cal Spanish’, Vol. II, p.581.

3
Camden, p.323.

4
BL Harleian MS 290, fol.131.

5
Guy, pp.66 and 445–6. See also Antonia Fraser,
Mary Queen of Scots,
London, 1969, pp.443–6. In 1573, she had been allowed to take the spa waters at Buxton, Derbyshire.

6
Smith, p.18.

7
He was the son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, executed for treason early in Mary I’s reign.

8
His severity and enthusiasm nettled the Venetian Government, who obtained his recall to Rome in 1560.

9
BL Lansdowne MS 50, Items 19–21.

10
Labanoff-Rostovsky, Vol. IV, pp.236 and 314, and Lodge, Vol. II, pp.2 and 42.

11
Hatfield House, CP 164/114.

12
‘Cal. Scot.’, Vol. IX, pp.112–16. ‘Reasons out of the Civil Law to prove that it Stands with Justice to proceed criminally against the Queen of Scots’, October 1586. Another legal opinion written by Dr John Hammond at the request of Sir Philip Sidney – ‘A Defence of the Roman Civil Law and the General Law of the World, untruly surmised to favour the Impunity of Mary late Queen of Scots notwithstanding her notorious and horrible treason against the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty’ – is in BL Add. MS 48, 027, fols.390–397B.

13
BL Cotton MS Caligula C ix, fol.606.

14
‘Paulet’, pp.286–7. The royal castle at Fotheringay is now gone, with just the high mound or motte marking the site of its eleventh-century keep over-
looking the River Nene and an earth bank, the remnant of the original inner bailey. A memorial on the site, commemorating both Mary and Richard II, was erected in 1913.

15
BL Cotton MS Caligula C ix, fol.378.

16
Mary had a notional income of around £7,500 a year from her French estates, paid via the French ambassador in London, but by the 1580s, this sum may have been reduced by more than a third. Out of this, she paid the wages of her household, but the running costs had to be found by her keepers. Food alone cost £3,000 a year under Paulet, and repayments from Elizabeth’s parsimonious exchequer were often grossly inadequate. See Smith, p.12, ‘Paulet’, pp.172–3 and 183–4, and Leader, pp.442–3 and 609ff.

17
Reports from Spanish spies in London suggested that Mary was to be imprisoned in the Tower of London ‘and no person was allowed to speak to her, except through two gratings like a nun and at so great a distance from her that it was necessary to speak very loudly, so that every word should be heard by others. She is treated with severity in all things. She was allowed to choose two women to cook her food to ensure her against being poisoned’. ‘Cal. Spanish’, Vol. IV, p.6.

18
Scottish ambassador to London 1584–5.

19
Hatfield House, CP 164/109.

20
Hatfield House, CP 164/105.

21
The room measured sixty-nine feet in length and twenty-one in width. An ink and pencil drawing of the courtroom at Fotheringay with the figures identified on the verso by a numbered key in the hand of Robert Beale, clerk to the Privy Council, is in BL Add. MS 48, 027, fol.569. Burghley’s sketch of his plan for the courtroom is in BL Cotton MS Caligula C ix, fol.635.

22
SPD,
Elizabeth, 1581–90,
p.360.

23
Poulet had written to Walsingham on 5 October about the arrangements for his accommodation. ‘I was very willing to have provided a chamber for you and had taken order for it, but Sir Walter Mildmay hearing [of it] has given me to understand that the chamber appointed for him near adjoining the council chamber shall serve for you and him and that he knows [that] you would have it so. He has also made provision for your diet [meals] in that chamber… You will not be here so soon as I wish for you and indeed I think every day three until you come.’ See ‘Paulet’, pp.294.

24
He was also registrar of the Court of Delegates and had been present at Babington’s interrogation. He wrote a summary of the government’s case against the conspirators that, no doubt, was to come in handy during Mary’s trial. See BL Add. MS 48, 027, fols.353–355B.

25
‘Cal. Scot.’, Vol. IX, p.82.

26
Steuart, p.38.

27
Guy, p.488.

28
Scot, p.30.

29
Pollen, p.cxciv.

30
Scot, p.32.

31
Ibid., p.42.

32
Forty-two had been named in the commission.

33
The judges included: Sir Christopher Wray, Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench; Sir Edward Anderson, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; and Sir Roger Manwood, Chief Baron of the exchequer.

34
Valentine Dale (d.1589). Ambassador to Flanders in 1563 and to France, 1573–6 (succeeding Walsingham in that diplomatic post); MP for Chichester four times between 1572 and 1589. Dean of Wells Cathedral, 1575, and ambassador to the Prince of Parma, 1588–9.

35
Sir John Popham (?1531–1607), former Speaker of the House of Commons and later Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench. Knighted 1592 and nominated as Lord Chief Justice the same year.

36
Sir Thomas Egerton (?1540–1617), Baron Ellesmere and Viscount Brackley. Appointed Attorney General in 1593 and Master of the Rolls, 1594–1603. Knighted 1593. Later Lord Chancellor.

37
Barker’s notes of the proceedings at Fotheringay and later, when the trial reconvened in the Star Chamber at Westminster, are in BL Add. MS 48, 027 fols.540–554. The marginal notes on this document are in Burghley’s hand. A version in Latin, drawn up by Robert Beale, clerk to the Privy Council, is in fols.492–510.

38
Scot, p.46.

39
Steaurt, p.43.

40
Scot, p.48.

41
Ibid., pp.50–1.

42
Steuart, p.47.

43
Scot pp.53–4.

44
‘Cal. Scot.’, Vol. IX, p.311.

45
Scot, p.60.

46
Ibid., p.61.

47
Steaurt, p.54.

48
‘Cal. Scot.’, Vol. IX, p.313.

49
A note in the hand of Thomas Egerton, Solicitor-General, of the documents produced in the Star Chamber hearing is in BL Add. MS 48, 027, fols. 557B-568.

50
BL Cotton MS Caligula C ix, fol.2.

51
Notes of the Parliamentary proceedings ‘in the cause of the Queen of Scots’, BL Add. MS 48, 027, fols.477–484.

52
The copy of the proclamation is in BL Add. MS 48, 027, fols.448–50, with notes in the hand of Robert Beale, clerk to the Privy Council: ‘Look ye [and] note how solemnly this was proclaimed in the presence of the Lord Mayor and his brethren.’