Elizabeth's Spymaster (54 page)

Nau, Claude de la Boisseliere
(d.1605). Secretary to Mary from 1575. Like Gilbert Curie, he was interrogated in 1586. Freed in September 1587 to return to France.

Norfolk, Thomas Howard, Fourth Duke of
(1538–1572). Premier peer and Earl Marshal of England. Norfolk was the favoured marriage candidate for Mary Queen of Scots and became the focus for several Catholic plots against Elizabeth. His alleged involvement in the second Ridolphi plot led to his execution on 2 June 1572.

Northumberland, Blessed Sir Thomas Percy, Seventh Earl of
(1528–72). One of the leaders of the abortive Northern Rebellion in 1569. Escaped to Scotland but handed over to the English and beheaded in 1572. Beatified by Pope Leo XIII in May 1895.

Norton, Thomas.
Walsingham’s first rackmaster.

Paget, Charles
(d.1612). Secretary to Cardinal Beaton, Mary’s ambassador in Paris, 1572. Her professed servant and agent and close associate of Thomas Morgan. Like Morgan, he may have been a double agent for Walsingham.

Paget, Thomas, Third Lord
(d.1590). English Catholic exile from 1583 after the discovery of the Throgmorton plot. Mary Queen of Scots’ agent in Spain. Attainted 1587.

Parma, Alexander Farnese, Duke of.
Spanish commander in the Low Countries.

Parry, William
(d.1585). Conspirator. Secretly became a Catholic around 1579. Accused in 1585 of conspiring to kill Elizabeth and executed.

Paulet, Sir Amyas
(?1536–88). Ambassador to France, 1576–9. Custodian of Mary Queen of Scots, April 1585 to February 1587. Appointed Chancellor of the Order of the Garter, 1587.

Pembroke, Henry Herbert, Second Earl of
(?1534–1601). Named as a commissioner for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, but took no part in the proceedings. [See also Derby, Cumberland.]

Persons, Robert
(1546–1610). Jesuit missionary. Born in Somerset, the sixth of eleven children of a blacksmith. Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, but left in 1575 to briefly study medicine at Padua. Received into the Society of Jesus in Rome on 4 July 1575 and ordained in 1578. Rector of the English College in Rome in 1588, from where he organised the Jesuit missions to England. Buried in the church of the Venerable English College, alongside Cardinal Allen, he too has a memorial.

Philip II
(1527–98). King of Spain 1556–98 and husband of Elizabeth’s half-sister Mary from 1554 until her death in 1558.

Pope Gregory XIII
(1502–85). Pontiff 1572–85. Supporter of various plans to overthrow Elizabeth and her Protestant government.

Pope Pius V
(1504–72). Pontiff 1566–72. On 25 February 1570, published the bull
Regnans in Excelsis,
thereby excommunicating Elizabeth and depriving this ‘pretended’ English queen of her throne.

Pope Sixtus V
(1521–85). Pontiff, April 1585–90. Published a bull (probably drafted by Cardinal William Allen) in 1588 in support of the Armada.

Ridolphi, Roberto
(1531–1612). Florentine banker. Came to London in 1561 and within five years had been tasked to channel the secret funds provided by Pope Pius V to the English Catholics to help overthrow Elizabeth and her government. Agent provocateur in two separate plots. Pius V gratefully made him a Papal Senator and he lived on for another four decades in Florence.

Ross, John Leslie, Bishop of
(1527–96). Mary’s ambassador to Elizabeth 1569; sent to the Tower in connection with the Ridolphi plot, 1571. Resident in Europe, mainly in France, after 1574.

Sadler, Sir Ralph.
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; custodian of the Scottish queen, August 1584 to April 1585.

Shrewsbury, George Talbot, Sixth Earl of.
Custodian of Mary Queen of Scots 1569–84; one of Elizabeth’s two commissioners at Mary’s execution.

Sidney, Sir Philip
(1554–86). Poet and soldier. Married Walsingham’s daughter Frances on 21 September 1583. Died in 1586 as a result of wounds sustained in battle in the Low Countries, leaving very substantial debts.

Silva, Diego de Guzman de.
Spanish ambassador to London June 1564–8.

Spes, Guerau de.
Spanish ambassador to London September 1568 to December 1571 when he was expelled by Elizabeth because of his involvement in the Ridolphi plot.

Stafford, Sir Edward.
English ambassador to France.

Stuart, Lady Arbella.
Possible contender for the English throne in succession to Queen Elizabeth.

Throgmorton, Francis
(1554–84). Member of a large West-Midlands Catholic family who acted as an intermediary between Mary and her agent Thomas Morgan. Throgmorton was executed for his involvement in the plot and the Spanish Ambassador Bernardino de Mendoza sent home.

Topcliffe, Richard
(1532–1604). Walsingham’s rackmaster and chief torturer. Entered Parliament in 1572 as Member for Beverley; in 1586 he was returned by Old Sarum, a constituency he continued to represent until shortly before his death in 1604.

Walsingham, Frances
(1567–1633). Surviving daughter of Francis and Ursula Walsingham. Married Sir Philip Sidney in 1583, then Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex, in a secret marriage probably in March 1590. Her third husband was Richard de Burgh, Fourth Earl of Clanrickarde, whom she married in 1603.

Walsingham, Lady Ursula
(d.1602). Francis Walsingham’s second wife, widow of Sir Richard Worsley of Appuldurcombe on the Isle of Wight, whom she married in 1566.

Westmorland, Charles Neville, Sixth Earl of
1543–1601). One of the leaders of the abortive Northern Rebellion in 1569. Fled to Flanders. Attainted for treason in 1571. Went to Rome 1581. Died at Nieuport, Flanders.

Bibliography

PRIMARY SOURCES

Manuscript Sources

BRITISH LIBRARY

Add. MS 5, 520, fol.173 – Pedigree of the Walsingham family.

Add. MS 15, 891 – A book of letters received by Sir Christopher Hatton, Vice-Chamberlain to Elizabeth I, probably copied by his secretary Samuel Cox:

fol.37 – Letter from Walsingham, complaining of his treatment at court, 22 December 1582.

fol.101 – Letter from Walsingham regarding the queen’s opposition to the marriage of his daughter to Sir Philip Sydney, 19 March 1583.

fol.110 – Letter from Walsingham about his sickness, August 1583.

Add. MS 33, 531, fol.151 – Letter from Walsingham to James Douglas, Fourth Earl of Morton, the Regent of Scotland, mentioning his health, April 1575.

Add. MS 48, 023 (Yelverton MS 26):

fols.26–58B – Papers relating to Thomas Norton during his imprisonment in the Tower of London, December 1581 to February 1582.

fols.26B-27 – Letter from Norton to ?Lord Burghley seeking release from the Tower and the possibility of house arrest, ?5 December 1581.

fol.33B – Norton’s letter to Walsingham asking how he could serve the queen, 23 December 1581.

fols.42–43B – Norton’s letter to Sir Owen Hopton, Lieutenant of the Tower, regarding the queen’s safety and his possible house arrest, 6 January 1582.

fol.48B – Norton’s letter to Sir Owen Hopton urging that an oath of allegiance be administered to Papists to ensure the safety of the queen, 7 January 1582.

fols.110–111 – ‘Names and Dwelling Place[s] of all such Papists at whose houses I have been since my coming into England, which was at midsummer past’, a list of priests and recusants in Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Middlesex by Robert Barnard – ‘P. H.’, undated.

fol.150 – Norfolk’s letter of submission to Elizabeth ‘after his last committing to the Tower’, 10 September 1571.

fols.153–156 – Norfolk’s letter to his children, 26 January 1572.

fols.163–164B – ‘A form or plan for the ground and order of a petition to be framed to Her Majesty for executing the Duke of Norfolk’ by T[homas] N[orton], written before June 1572.

Add. MS 48, 027 (Yelverton MS 31):

fols.80–80B – List of executions of queens.

fols.83–125B – Papers relating to the imprisonment, trial and execution of Thomas Howard, Fourth Duke of Norfolk, 1570–2.

fols.222–223B – Considerations for Parliament concerning the queen’s safety, 17 November 1586. Endorsed by Walsingham’s clerk.

fols.242–247B – Documents relating to Dr William Parry, conspirator, including two accounts of his execution and speech on the scaffold (fols.244–247B), c.1584.

fols.249–251B – Bond of Association for the safety of Queen Elizabeth, 19 October 1584, and oath of adherence to Bond of Association allegedly signed by Mary Queen of Scots at Wingfield, 5 January 1585.

fols.258–262B – Copies of secret correspondence between Anthony Babington and Mary Queen of Scots, 25 June to 3 August 1586. (See also Cotton MS Caligula B v, fols.164–169.)

fols.263–271B – Account of the execution and speeches on the scaffold of Anthony Babington and other plotters, 20 and 21 September 1586.

fols.296–313 – Later copies (?c.1600) of Babington’s confession and records of his interrogations, 18 August to 8 September 1586.

fol.313B – Keys to ciphers used by Mary Queen of Scots and Babington.

fols.318–345B – Elizabeth I’s instructions to Edward Wotton during his mission to Paris carrying documents detailing the evidence against Mary Queen of Scots, 29 September 1586.

fols.352–352B – Abstract of William Stafford’s confession in the alleged plot to assassinate Elizabeth, January 1587.

fols.353–355B –
A Breviate of Babington’s Conspiracy 4 August 1586 gathered by Mr Edward Barker, Register of the Court of Delegates and present at the Examinations.

fols.374–378 – Walsingham’s letter to Robert Beale, clerk to the Privy Council, about the proceedings against Mary Queen of Scots and his reply, 21 and 26 September 1586.

fols.390–397B – Discussion paper on the legality of proceedings against Mary Queen of Scots, written by the lawyer Dr John Hammond, undated but mid-1586.

fols.398–403 – Documents regarding the downfall and trial of William Davison, Secretary of State, including a letter from Burghley and Walsingham to Sir Owen Hopton, Lieutenant of the Tower, ordering that Davison be moved ‘in a secret manner’ to private custody, 23 October 1588.

fols.448–450 –
A True Copy of the Proclamation of the sentence against Mary Queen of Scots, C.
Barker, London, 1586.

fols.451–476 – ‘A discourse touching the Just Execution of the Scottish Queen’, 1587.

fols.477–484 – ‘Notes of the proceedings of the Parliament in the cause of the Queen of Scots’, 15 October to 2 December 1586.

fols.489–490B – Letter of William Davison, Secretary of State, to Walsingham reporting conversations with Elizabeth about Mary Queen of Scots, Richmond, 29 October 1586.

fols.492–510 – ‘The Copy of the Record of the Proceedings against the Scottish Queen 1587’, Latin extracts by Robert Beale, clerk to the Privy Council, from the official record of evidence by the notaries Edward Barker and Thomas Wheeler.

fol.530 – Extract from the will of Mary Queen of Scots with notes by Robert Beale, clerk to the Privy Council, undated.

fols.540–554 – Proceedings against Mary Queen of Scots at Fotheringay and in Star Chamber, 12–15 and 25 October 1586, endorsed: ‘This collection was made by Mr Edward Barker, Principal Register of the delegates, who was appointed as a Notary to make a note of that which passed. The notes in the margin were in the Lord Treasurer’s hand.’

fols.557B-568 – Documents produced during the Star Chamber hearing against Mary Queen of Scots, 25 October 1586, apparently written by Thomas Egerton, Solicitor-General.

fol.569 – Pencil and ink drawing of the trial of Mary Queen of Scots in the great chamber at Fotheringay, 14–15 October 1586, with figures identified by key in the hand of Robert Beale, clerk to the Privy Council.

fols.570–574 – ‘Note of the proceedings at Fotheringay’, 14–15 October 1586, with memorandum by Robert Beale, clerk to the Privy Council, on Burghley’s attitude to Mary Queen of Scots at fol.574.

fols.579B-580B – ‘Matters to charge the Scottish Queen withal’, October 1586.

fols.581B-584 – ‘Declaration of the late [Babington] Conspiracy by Mr Edward Barker’, August 1586.

fols.636–650B – Papers relating to the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, 1587, including a pencil and ink drawing of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots at Fotheringay Castle, 8 February 1587, at fol.650.

fols.651–653 – Petition to Elizabeth to execute the sentence on Mary Queen of Scots by both Houses of Parliament, 12 November 1586.

fols.654–658B – ‘A Report of the manner of the execution of the Scottish Queen performed the 8th of February Anno 1586 in the great hall within the castle of Fotheringay, with relation of speeches uttered and actions happening in the said execution, from the delivery of the said Scottish Queen to Mr Thomas Andrews esq., sheriff of the county of Northampton, unto the end of the said execution’ by Richard Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough.

fols.666–690B – Accounts of Star Chamber proceedings and sentence against William Davison, Secretary of State, 28 March 1587.

Add. MS 48, 029 (Yelverton MS 33):

fols.58–72B – Thomas Norton’s
Chain of Treasons,
a collection of Catholic plots compiled after the arrest of Francis Throgmorton in October 1583 but before his execution the following February.