Free Ancient and Medieval Traitors - Back-stabbers, turncoats and conspirators (True Crime) by Gordon Kerr Page B

agent for Walsingham. He seemed to forget all his religious convictions overnight and sought to preserve his life over his own integrity. Gifford then arranged to gain the trust of Queen Mary through taking the role of smuggling secret messages to her by concealing them in beer bottles.
    Unaware that they had a double agent behind the scenes, Babington obliviously continued to send messages to Mary detailing his plans for Elizabeth’s murder. He was, however, very aware of the risks that he was imposing upon his personal safety and was simultaneously making arrangements to gain a passport to go abroad, under the pretence of spying on refugees. During this time Babington’s ally, Ballard, had been caught and detained and finally broke down to betray his comrades when he was subjected to Walsingham’s renowned torture methods. Following the delay in the receipt of his passport and with the knowledge of Ballard’s confession becoming apparent to him, he decided to try and bargain with Walsingham. He offered to inform him of another dangerous conspiracy to murder the queen but no reply was sent to Babington. As the ports were closed no one was allowed to leave England and the plotter began to realise how serious things were getting.
    His freedom was retained and the conspirator was allowed to stay at Walsingham’s own residence. Babington’s comfort was short lived, however, when he discovered a memorandum about him in Walsingham’s house; he quickly disguised himself and fled. Shortly afterwards the man was discovered and imprisoned in the Tower of London. He was tried with all of his accomplices and, when questioned, he cowardly tried to place the entire blame upon John Ballard. Needless to say, no one believed this unlikely allegation and he was promptly sentenced to death for high treason. Ever the manipulator, he then tried to escape his fate by appealing to Queen Elizabeth that she grant him mercy in return for his offering of £1,000. This was quickly rejected and he was executed ten days later.
    All of the conspirators involved in the Babington plot were punished by death and Elizabeth was very concerned that this be the case to show that she took a very firm line against those who had betrayed her. Even Gilbert Gifford, who had served Walsingham as a double agent, was not really rewarded. Shortly after the plot he fled to France where he was arrested by the French catholics and left to die in prison. In short, neither man prospered for attacking the British monarchy and each suffered a somewhat tortuous death as a result of their involvement or treachery in the Babington plot.

Earl of Essex
     
     
     
     
    Robert Devereux was born in 1566, the son of Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, and Lettice Knollys, granddaughter of Mary Boleyn. The young boy’s childhood was marred by the death of his father when he was a mere nine years of age. As a result he was adopted as a ward of the queen’s trusted adviser and the late Devereux’s closest friend, Lord Burghley. Devereux’s fortunes were further lifted when his mother remarried Queen Elizabeth’s most trusted friend, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester. Such a strong association with the queen proved to be very useful for the young Earl of Essex and he gradually began to win the queen’s favour, as both his father and step-father had done in the years previously.

    A   N EW  G ENERATION

    After the long drawn out celebrations upon the defeat of the Spanish armada in 1588, Elizabeth began to find herself and her government floundering. Not only was the queen suffering problems with health due to old age, she was also forced to face the repercussions of the deaths of three of her closest advisors, Dudley, Walsingham and Cecil. As a result of the queen’s isolation, a window opened for a new generation to take on the role of advisors. Among these were the sons of Devereux and William Cecil, Robert Devereux and Robert Cecil. Within a very short period of