Free Conspiracies: The Facts * the Theories * the Evidence by Andy Thomas

official religion of the nation, while around the same time a general Protestant movement,
    begun by Martin Luther in Germany, was beginning to take hold
    in a number of European countries.
    Given the strong conviction that had been forged in many
    hearts towards the new faith, coupled with an effective outlawing of the open practice of Catholicism, it was perhaps particularly
    unfortunate that Henry’s eldest daughter Mary I decided that
    the nation should revert to Roman rule after she acceded to the
    throne in 1553. This might have been avoided had Henry’s firmly
    Protestant son Edward VI not died aged only 15 (having been
    crowned at just 9). But, after a disastrously failed attempt to put Edward’s favoured cousin Lady Jane Grey on the throne, resulting
    in her teenage execution, aggrieved Catholic influences returned
    with a vengeance to support Mary, and it was decreed that any
    heretics refusing to recant their Protestantism would be dealt with by public burning.
    This unexpected reversal created a deep dilemma for those
    who genuinely felt that divine forces had spoken through Henry’s
    actions. Rather than face potential damnation, between 1555 and
    1557 a recorded 284 men and women went to the flame, while
    many others were tortured or died in prison. The deep resentment
    felt across the nation towards ‘Bloody Mary’ in turn resulted in
    a centuries-long persecution against Catholics when Mary died
    suddenly in 1558 and the country was converted back to the
    English Church by her half-sister Elizabeth I. In truth, Elizabeth probably had more Catholics executed during her reign than
    Mary did Protestants, but – fairly or unfairly – it is the ‘Marian persecutions’ that carved the most heartfelt memories of religious strife into the English collective memory, igniting a string of
    underhand conflicts that would ensure conspiracy theories became
    an indelible part of English life over the next two centuries.
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    conspiracies
    Elizabethan Scheming
    With much of Europe standing against Elizabeth’s England, which
    was now firmly set on Protestantism, several covert schemes
    were mounted to undermine it. Many of these centred around
    attempts to place Elizabeth’s Catholic cousin, Mary Stuart (‘Queen of Scots’), on the throne instead. Consequently, numerous
    conspiratorial plots and counter-plots erupted around Mary, both
    with and without her knowledge, although she herself spent much
    of her life under English house arrest or imprisonment.
    In 1570, Roberto di Ridolfi, an international banker (of the kind widely held to be behind much of the alleged global conspiracy
    today) who had already been involved in the ‘Northern Rebellion’
    – an earlier failed attempt to foment a Catholic uprising amongst earls in the north of England – mounted an assassination/invasion plot against Elizabeth. Despite strong Dutch and Spanish backing, loyalists made party to the conspiracy managed to expose it before it could come to full fruition. In 1584, a similar attempted coup by Sir Francis Throckmorton, this time with French support, was
    also foiled.
    Things came to a major head with the ‘Babington Plot’ of
    1586. Double agents had already managed to set up an ongoing
    entrapment scheme with the confined Mary Stuart, by which
    incitements to Catholic insurrection were directly encouraged.
    Coded messages from Mary were ‘smuggled’ out to her supporters
    – neither party realizing that every supposedly secret commu-
    nication was in fact being read by Elizabeth’s secretary of state, Sir Francis Walsingham, who bided his time, waiting for enough
    undeniable evidence to implicate the plotters and ensure a full
    justification for the execution of this dangerous would-be queen
    of England. The ploy of setting up one’s enemies, pushing them to enact the very things feared of them by active stimulation, with a view to then exposing the plots for political gain