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Narrator
Want to walk the halls of Anne Boleyn's childhood home or explore the castles that made up Henry VIII's English stronghold? With a subscription to History Hit, you can dive into our Tudor past alongside
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
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Professor Jonathan McGovern
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Professor Jonathan McGovern
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and welcome to Not Just the Tudors From History Hit the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn and the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to samurais, relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.
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Narrator
Anthony Babington was young, wealthy and burning with certainty about what would bring England's true salvation. Only one person stood in the way. Queen Elizabeth I. At night, Babington spread papers across his candlelit desk. Names. All men, all Catholic, all sworn routes, hiding places. The plan was simple. The queen traveled often progresses through countryside, appearances at court, and moments when her guard relaxed just enough for Elizabeth to be dispatched, as Babington wrote, by pistols and daggers at close range. Chaos would follow and England would be seized. But the queen could not be removed without another monarch ready to replace her. In Babington's mind, Mary, Queen of Scots was England's rightful Catholic sovereign. To free her, he needed more than faith. He needed her permission. The letter he sent her was careful, florid and fatal. Written in cipher on a tiny scrap of paper and smuggled inside the bung of a beer barrel, it laid everything bare the assassination, the rising of Catholic supporters, foreign aid, and Mary's accession to the throne. He asked whether she approved. What Babington did not know was that every letter to and from Mary was intercepted by Elizabeth's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. Every cipher was broken by his codebreaker, Thomas Phillips. When Mary's reply arrived, Phillips had even added a postscript of his own, urging Babington to provide more names. Babington swallowed it whole. He wrote back eagerly, listing the conspirators, confirming the method, sealing his own Fate in ink. For a brief moment, he allowed himself to believe history had already shifted. But then, suddenly, the arrests came. Babington was captured while trying to flee. Under interrogation, his dream collapsed. He confessed. Others were dragged from hiding places, from friends houses, from churches. The city watched as they were tried and condemned. Mary was next. Her letters were read aloud. At her trial, she protested entrapment, denied intent and claimed ignorance of the plot's mechanics. But her fate was sealed and Elizabeth, of course, survived. The Babington plot was just one of at least seven against Elizabeth I during the first three decades of her 45 year reign. Today, I'm joined by Professor Jonathan McGovern, a historian and literary scholar who specialises in the study of 16th century England. Now based at the University of Char Men in China, Jonathan is the author of the Little History of England. Together we will examine the plots against a queen who was under constant siege from both foreign and domestic enemies. Yet they also demonstrate her skill and survival and the wliness of those around her. She employed brilliant servants, cultivated loyalty among her nobles and maintained the careful fiction of religious tolerance while systematically eliminating threats. Susanna. I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and this is Not Just the Tudors from history hit.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Professor McGovern, welcome to Not Just the Tudors.
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Professor Jonathan McGovern
Well, thank you very much for having me.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
We are going to get to the Babington plot in due course, but before we do so, can we dial back and think about some of the earlier threats to Elizabeth? And let's start with the first rebellion that Elizabeth faced, the rising of the north, the Northern Rebellion.
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Narrator
11.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So this is 1569. And with all subsequent plots, the aim was to remove Elizabeth, to free Mary Queen of Scots, to restore Roman Catholicism to England. What are the origins of this plot? Who are the main protagonists and what were their grievances?
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Professor Jonathan McGovern
Well, if we want to understand the Northern rebellion or any of the other rebellions or conspiracies that we're going to be talking about today, I think we have to go back to 1567 and Scotland, because this is when a political faction in Scotland called the Confederate Lords captured Mary Queen of Scots in June 1567 and then forced to abdicate on the 24th of July. Then she escaped and then she lost another battle. And she believed then that her options were limited. Historians now say they were not. But hindsight is a wonderful thing. She believed. At that time, it seemed to her that her options were limited. So she decided to roll the dice and come to England. So she crossed the Solway Firth to Cumbria in a fishing boat on 16th May 1568. So 16th of May 1568 is really the starting point for all of this stuff. It doesn't happen very often. A deposed Scottish queen arriving in England and this put the English government in a very difficult situation because in theory, they hated rebellion. If you went to church in Elizabethan England, the preacher would tell you that rebellion is the greatest sin against God. It's the puddle and sink of all sins and this kind of stuff. But in terms of Realpolitik, Mary not being Queen of Scotland was good for Elizabeth and her government because the Confederate Lords wanted amity, everlasting amity with England, rather than being friends with France and enemies with England, as had been the case. Time out of mind. We want to be your friends and we want to have a Protestant church just like you. And so that sounds pretty good to the Elizabethan government. So Realpolitik went out and they decided to give tacit support to this government in Scotland which had started in rebellion. And Mary was effectively imprisoned in England for the rest of her life. Most of the time it was in Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire. We have to think about this as like a country house. So she was really under arrest in a country house. So it's not as bad as it could have been. But this is still a political problem for the government because she was a great granddaughter of Henry VII and a cousin of Queen Elizabeth. So she ended up becoming a lightning rod for all of the discontent and dissatisfaction against the government, especially Catholics, of course. So about at this time, about 1% of the country are recusants, as they're called. So people who recuse themselves from going to church, from going to Church of England services on Sundays and holy days. That might not sound like a lot, but that 1% is not scattered evenly around the country. There are hotbeds of Catholicism, so it could become more dangerous regionally. And aside from those recusants, you have a very large number of people who were called at the time and are still called church papists. So they go to Church of England services, but secretly they're grudging in the heart. They would love to have a restoration of Catholicism. So Mary Queen of Scots arriving in England, this is the reason you have all these things. So the northern rebellion was, well, it's in the name, it was a rebellion. So it's very different from the other things we're going to be talking about. It was a big, grand medieval style uprising against the government. There's something more noble and great about a rebellion than a conspiracy. So secretly planning to stab a queen as she's going to chapel doesn't sound very heroic. But having thousands of men in arms marching on London, there's something a bit more heroic about that. So despite the government propaganda against Roubella, I think there's a qualitative difference between these things. So it was a conservative uprising, as you said. They wanted to restore Catholicism and install Mary, Queen of Scots, and it involves about 6,000 rebels. So it's not a very big rebellion. If you recall the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536, which is a very similar kind of rebellion that involved about 30,000 rebels. Why is that? It might be because there aren't that many people who are willing to risk their lives for the old faith anymore, because so much time has passed. You have people who are military age men who have been born into this new system, who might be less connected to the old religion and who's sort
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Narrator
of at the head of this, who's leading it.
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Professor Jonathan McGovern
There are two main Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland, who was in his early 40s and he was based in Northumberland, and Charles Neville, Earl of Westmoreland, who was in his late 20s and he was based at Raby Castle in County Durham, which you can still go and visit, by the way. And the interior is all like sort of 18th, 19th century, I think, but a lot of the architecture still remains. So you can imagine yourself plotting a conspiracy against the state when you walk through the halls there. And they didn't just want Mary, Queen of Scots to be queen in her own right, they wanted her to marry the 4th Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk. So the Howards were one of the most powerful families in England, so this would have been sort of a plan for the rebels.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So you say that they managed to summon up about 6,000 men. Does that suggest they didn't have much popular support? Were they hoping for more, do you think?
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Professor Jonathan McGovern
There are logistical problems. So if you're an aristocrat starting a rebellion, then one of the ways of mustering troops is to muster your talentry. So a great nobleman would have a talentry, but Northumberland didn't even muster his tantry. Why is that? I think it's because the rebellion was rushed. The government got wind of what was happening and they had to start the rebellion before they were fully prepared. So just like the conspiracies we're going to be talking about later, it was really a success of government intelligence, but also there was the element of popularity. It's hard to Say, because they didn't have opinion polls. Intruder England. But I would say that it was largely a popularity issue as well. There was also the issue of payment. If you're running an army, you need to pay your soldiers regularly or they tend to go away. They tend to go absent without leave. So this happened as well.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So what exactly transpired in this rebellion, then? Rushed start, haven't got quite enough men. The government is getting wind of it, what happened?
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Professor Jonathan McGovern
So it started on the 14th of November 1569, and the earls stormed Durham Cathedral and they celebrated a Catholic mass and they made some captures. So they captured Hartlepool, which is a port town, of course, so that shows that they are planning some kind of foreign invasion to arrive in England. And they captured Barnard Castle in County Durham after a successful siege. So those are the only two main captures. And the government was very efficient in preparing counter troops, probably because they already had advanced intelligence in what was happening. So the loyalist forces in the north were commanded by the Earl of Sussex. He was very tough and ruthless guy, because he'd worked in Ireland, he'd been Lord Deputy of Ireland for six years, and Ireland is one of the roughest, toughest places you can work. So quite a scary adversary for the rebels. And a southern army on top of that was prepared by the Earl of Warwick and Lord Admiral Clinton, and that was composed of more than 10,000 men. So it was clear that this had been a misfire. The rebels didn't have enough people. They hadn't managed to make as much progress as they'd liked. I think it's because people didn't want to die just before Christmas. So many of the rebels decided to surrender in mid December.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And what were the consequences for them? Did they survive by surrendering?
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Professor Jonathan McGovern
Most of the rebels survived. About 500 people were executed on martial law, slightly fewer than one in 10 rebels, which is much, much higher than normal. So in the Pilgrimage of Grace, it was about half that ratio. And this caused a lot of criticism at the time. So people said that the government had been unduly harsh, they should have treated the rebels with more clemency, as happened with all the rebellions from the 14th century to this one. Most of the rebels managed to save their lives. There were no big set peace battles, which of course causes a lot of bloodshed.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And what about the leaders? What happened to them?
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Professor Jonathan McGovern
So Northumberland was. Was eventually executed and Westmoreland managed to flee abroad. He died in poverty, apparently. We don't know much about the rest of his life after that, because, for obvious reasons, he wanted to stay low key, but apparently died in poverty.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
What was the Pope's attitude towards this rebellion?
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Professor Jonathan McGovern
Well, the Pope at this time was Pius V and he supported the rebellion, but he supported it in words, but not in action. So he didn't do much practically to support them. And just after the rebellion ended, better late than never, he issued a papal bull called Regnan's in Excelsis, or Reigning Upon High, a very famous document which excommunicated Queen Elizabeth and declared her deprived of her pretended title to the kingdom. This was important because this helped to lay the bedrock for the subsequent conspiracies, because assassination is a bit of a nasty thing. And if you have a document from the Pope saying that she's not a queen, she's deprived of her pretended title, it gives you a little bit more rationale for doing what you're doing.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So let's move forward two years to 1571. And the so called Ridolfi plot. Now, this is a lot more ambitious, isn't it? It involves a planned actual invasion of Spanish forces. How did things go down?
- [15:58]
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- [15:58]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
So as you say, this was another plan to replace Elizabeth with Mary Queen of Scots. And there was going to be an invasion from the Duke of Parma, who was the Governor General of the Spanish Netherlands. It was led by Roberto di Ridolfi, or if you read old English textbooks, he's called Robert Ridolfi from a time when we were more confident about Anglicizing foreign names. He was an Italian banker in London and connected by blood to the Medici clan. And he came to London in 1562 and he had lots of financial connections with the English elites because the government always needs money. The elites, broadly defined, always need money. So bankers are always going to be well connected. So if he just stuck to making money, he would have been fine. But he became ideologically motivated and he decided that he wanted to restore Catholicism in England. It was his right, it was his duty to do that. And he started working as a secret agent for the Papacy. Apparently helped to finance the northern rebels. But I think it's one of those unanswered questions, exactly how did that happen? So somebody, maybe me, ought to look into that at some point. And that was a close shave for him. But he managed to save his life because there was no direct evidence against him. And that's worth mentioning because some people think this is the time he became a double agent for Francis Walsingham. Lots of this stuff sounds like conspiracy theories, but you have to have an open mind about it. So some people think when he was in house arrest, Walsingham said, things go really badly for you or things could go very well for you. So if you work for me, then we can release you from house arrest or you can stop working for us. So, as we will talk about with the Babington plot, it's clear that Walsingham did have a role in helping to move some of these conspiracies along. Is it too much of a stretch to think that Walsingham was the author of the Ridolfi plot? Well, most are sensible sort of English Protestant historians have said, no way, that's impossible. But, yeah, I like to keep an open mind about this. And Ridolfi ended up plotting against the government, as we mentioned, and the plot was uncovered by Francis Walsingham when Ridolfi had already left England. So it was very convenient. Ridolphi saved his life because he was not in England when it was uncovered, just at the right time. And this resulted in the execution of the Duke of Norfolk. This conspiracy had generated papers, which is also very convenient. There was a big stack of papers in Ridolfi's office which helped to incriminate all the people that the government wanted to incriminate. Normally, when you're planning a conspiracy, you don't leave a paper trail. And that's why it's hard to write histories of the Babington plot and the Ridolfi plot, because for the same reason that if you want to write a history of drug trafficking or something like that, you're going to minimize your paper trail as much as possible. But this conspiracy left quite a significant amount of paperwork. Norfolk, because he was. Don't quote me on this, but I think there was no direct evidence that he was involved in this conspiracy. But there was a very interesting comment made at his trial. So a sergeant at law called Nicholas Barham said, he that will marry a wife that layeth claim to a kingdom, he doth likewise aim at the same kingdom, which is a very tenuous reason for executing someone for sedition and treason. But in any case, that was the upshot of this conspiracy.
- [18:50]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Elizabeth I presumably agreed to sign Thomas Howard's death warrant on this occasion, was happy to dispatch him, what we can tell.
- [18:59]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
So Elizabeth often made out that she didn't want to do these things. So it's the same. When Mary Queen of Scots was eventually executed, she made a big song and dance about, like, not wanting to sign their signing and calling it back. But I think. I think she was a very shrewd politician and ruthless and she was on Board with all of this stuff.
- [19:15]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And do you have a sense that the Ridolfi plot had an impact on Elizabeth I's attitude or her government's attitude towards Mary Queen of Scots?
- [19:24]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
It's hard to say because her situation didn't change much after the Ridolfi plot. And it wasn't until more than a decade later that things started to change. So it makes sense to think that she would have been under more scrutiny after this had happened. But I think there's no evidence that it had a very direct influence on her treatment in England.
- [19:39]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Okay, well, let's fast forward a bit then. Tell me about what happens when we get to the 1580s.
- [19:44]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
So there's a big gap here. It's like. And then nothing happens. We've got this big plot in 1571 and then nothing happens on that front until the 1580s. And I think it's because of the Jesuits. So the Jesuits were the ones that stirred the pot, as it were, because a bigger important Jesuit mission came to England in 1580, Edmund Campion and Robert Parsons. And they printed sort of seditious material against the state and they had meetings, they talked to people and this was very threatening from the government's perspective. And the Jesuit mission resulted in an act of Parliament in 1581 called the act to Retain the Queen's Majesty's Subjects in their Due Obedience. And this was a very sort of merciless law because it made it high treason to promote Catholicism carrying the death penalty, which means that any of the seminary priests or Jesuits who are coming into England are now liable to the death penalty. It also made it very expensive to be a recusant. So before this act you could be a recusant and pay one shilling. Every time you miss church you have to pay one shilling, which is, it could be a lot if you're a poor family, but if you're a well off family, you could just pay your shilling and skip church. But this new act of Parliament made it £20amonth fine, which is crippling really. You can no longer try to live your life as a Catholic reasonably in Elizabethan England. Again, this is another one of those turning points. It makes a lot of people desperate because they can no longer operate in the way that they want to operate. And this led to a series of conspiracies. The first one was John Somerville, as you mentioned. So John Somerville was a Catholic gentleman whose family seat was in Warwickshire, a place called Edstone in Warwickshire. And he was related to the Ardens, which provided the maternal line that led to William Shakespeare. So that's interesting in its own right. He was educated at Hart hall in Oxford, which was home to a lot of Catholics and had mental illness, some kind of mental illness, the historians always say, like mental illness is hard to diagnose from this distance in time what his ailment was. But he, he had some kind of mental instability and insomnia, couldn't sleep. Earlier that month, just before his conspiracy, he'd been examined in London about one of his acquaintances. So that's interesting. In all these conspiracies, just before it happens, one of the conspirators is meeting with people in the government. So that starts, for some historians, that starts to set alarm bells ringing that this might have been another false flag or conspiracy by the government. So yeah, he goes to London, he has an interview with some important people in the state and then on the 25th of October he decided, I'm going to go to London and kill the Queen. He said, I'm going to shoot her with my dagger or my gun or I'm going to. Or maybe he's going to do it with his sword. So he takes a sword and he's, you know, it's like a 100 mile journey from Edston to London. So he's going around on his 100 mile journey waving his sword around, saying, I'm telling everybody I'm going to kill the Queen. And it wasn't a serious conspiracy by any stretch of the imagination. He stopped off in the inn and everybody was listening to him and they were drinking and he's saying, I'm going to go and kill the Queen. So it's obvious that this is not going to amount to anything. So he was arrested and he was convicted of high treason on 16 December 1583. This is where things get interesting because he was in the Tower of London and on the 19th of December he was moved to Newgate Prison. And two hours after the prison move he was found strangled in his cell. And the inquest said it was suicide.
- [22:46]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
But as you've pointed out, it's quite hard to link it to any kind of organized Catholic plot.
- [22:51]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
Yeah,
- [23:04]
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So let's think then about something that we do know was more organized around the same sort of time. The Throckmorton plot. What do we know about this attempt to remove Elizabeth?
- [26:09]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
Yeah, so you're right, Suzanne. It was a more serious conspiracy. And it was another attempt to depose Queen Elizabeth. And it was going to be combined with an invasion, a foreign invasion by the Duke of Guise. The leader was Francis Throckmorton, who was a cousin of one of Elizabeth's ladies in waiting. Which is interesting to me because it's. It instantly seems more credible because if you have court connections, that suggests a way in which you might actually have access to the Queen's person. Many of the people at this time saying they're going to kill the Queen. How would they even get access to the Queen? But this seems rather credible. And Throckmorton was educated at Hart hall, just like John Somerville. Another curious coincidence. And then he was an educator at the Inner Temple, a law school in London, and he seemed to have planned this in the Netherlands. So he. He got into talks in the Netherlands with other Catholics, including a former Privy Councillor to Mary I, and he sent Mary Queen of Scots 1,500 crowns. So it's another one of those interesting monetary transactions. We don't know exactly what that 1500 crowns were for. But he was arrested in November and he destroyed a letter he was writing. So when the guards burst into the room, he destroyed a letter he was in the process of writing to Mary Queen of Scots. The source I was reading said he destroyed the letter. I don't know. I guess he threw it under the fire or something. And so we don't know exactly what he was saying. He might have been giving all the details of the conspiracy. The government seized his papers and they found plans for rebelling against the state. And it included a list of harbours, which was one of the most incriminating facts against him, because the list said, these are the harbours suitable for landing foreign forces. So this is hugely incriminating for Throckmorton. And the plot also involved the Spanish ambassador. And, like now, ambassadors had a certain kind of immunity, so it was harder to punish ambassadors for getting involved in these kind of things, as it was for punishing English subjects. The plot was uncovered by Walsingham under torture, I might add. So people sometimes say that there was no torture in England, but anyone who knows a bit about Tudor history will know that there were lots of cases of torture and torture wasn't allowed a common law, So a court wasn't allowed to use torture. But for very serious national security matters, the Privy Council could use torture. If the official sources say the Throckmorton was somewhat pinched, which sounds like they're trying to understate the extent of this torture. So he was only somewhat pinched, don't worry about it. But under torture, he confessed the plot. He said that we've been planning to depose Queen Elizabeth.
- [28:23]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So, I mean, one's struck by the speed of the government action. As you mentioned earlier, you know, Walsingham is really moving fast on this one. And the somewhat pinched, I imagine, from other accounts of torture might be with red hot pincers and things like that. You know, there's terrible accounts of like the death of the regicide Damien, who has pinched on his way to his execution, and it removes bits of flesh. So actually, I'm not sure that pinched is quite as mild as it sounds. But again, what is coming out here is the government are on this. These things don't get a chance to amass before they're revealed. And that's really striking, isn't it?
- [29:03]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
For some historians, this suggests that the government had a role in organizing all of these things. So the historian most famous for making this case is Francis Edwards, a Jesuit historian. And he, he doesn't try to moderate his views, he just says point blank, all of these conspiracies were planned by Walsingham. But at the very least, they indicate excellent government intelligence. As you say, there was no delay in quashing any of these conspiracies. The man that deserves the credit, as it were, for uncovering these conspiracies is Francis Walsingen. So people call him Elizabeth's spymaster. Not a word they would have used at the time, of course, but they would have used a word like intelligencer. So it was his job to uncover plots and conspiracies against Queen Elizabeth. His official title was secretary, a royal secretary. It doesn't sound very fancy, but the secretaryship had been really important since the 1530s with Thomas Cromwell. So, yeah, being secretary gave him access to a secretariat, which was a staff of men who had been based at his own house. He had a huge network of people around him. He had scribes, he had code breakers, and these people were responsible for uncovering conspiracies. That was good for the government because you can't have the Privy Council involved in this kind of thing because, well, it's the same reason spy agencies today are not part of the central government apparatus, because they have to be a little bit separate. There's a Roald Dahl story that says if you want to catch a rat, you have to be a bit like a rat. And I think this is the case with these Elizabethan spies. It's a very sordid, dirty underground world, and you can't have great ministers of state getting involved in this kind of thing. So having a secretariat which is partially separate from the council and from the other organs of state works very well in order to operate successful spying, but it also causes problems because then you don't have oversight. In fact, it's the same problem that we have with spies in the modern world. Where is the oversight and where is the accountability? And the spies tend to lose their identities as well, which is another interesting parallel with modern spies. So if you actually have people who are Protestants and they go over to spy on the Catholics and become Catholic, and then the government doesn't know if they're Catholics or Protestants, maybe they don't know themselves. Because if you inject yourself into a network, you might end up having sympathy for that network. So it raises lots of interesting questions
- [30:54]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
in the aftermath of the Throckmorton plot, Walsingham and William Cecil, or Burleigh, as he is by this point, draft the bond of association. It's quite an important part of the story. What is it?
- [31:08]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
The bond of association is like a league of loyalty and protection for Queen Elizabeth. I have a quotation from this bond, actually. We and every of us first calling to witness the name of Almighty God, do voluntarily and most willingly bind ourselves, every one of us, to the other, jointly and severally in the band of one firm and loyal society, and do hereby vow and promise by the majesty of Almighty God that with our whole powers, bodies, lives and goods, and. And with our children and servants, we and every of us will faithfully serve and humbly obey our said sovereign Lady, Queen Elizabeth. And then it goes on to say that if, God forbid, this is never going to happen. But if it did ever happen, somebody assassinated Queen Elizabeth and we all vow to take vengeance on the people that did it, we would, like, hunt them down into the furthest corners of the earth to destroy anyone involved in it. This is designed to scare people away from having conspiracies, because you might think if you managed to assassinate the Queen and you managed to set up a government under Mary, Queen of Scots, then most of the very shrewd politicians would just be on board with it because now they see that the power has changed. But if they've actually taken a bond saying that they will oppose you until the end of time, it might be a scaring factor away. It turns out that it didn't have much of a disincentive effect for potential traitors and potential conspirators. But that was the aim.
- [32:21]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
It's so interesting, isn't it? It reminds us of what a different age it is that swearing something like that could be considered to be sufficiently binding. It was the power of one's word. You've given your word and therefore that should hold you.
- [32:36]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
Yeah, well, if you really believe that if you commit perjury then you might go to hell, then it's a lot more serious. Of course there are many cases of oath breaking even by very important people in English history. But yeah, this seemed very solid and important to most people at the time. I would say it seems that people wore miniatures to signal they wore miniatures of Queen Elizabeth to signal that they were part of the bond of association. Which is interesting because we know a lot about miniatures of the Queen but not many people know that some of them were related to the bond of association.
- [33:01]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Now we come to the Babington plot. So tell us about Anthony Babington.
- [33:05]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
He was from Derbyshire, I'm from Derby, so this is a very nice detail for me. It didn't have a very, very nice end, but it's always nice to see Derby and Derbyshire people in the record. So he was born at Dethic Manor in Derbyshire, which is a very beautiful place, a nice village surrounded by rolling Derbyshire hills. And his great grandfather was Lord Darcy. So anyone who knows anything about the Pilgrimage of Grace will know that Darcy was one of the most important rebels in the 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace, although he had a slightly ambiguous role. But the family were well established Derbyshire Catholics. Babington was brought up as a Catholic. We don't know much about his early life. We know that he went to Lincoln's Inn, another one of those law schools in London. So he had some legal knowledge, although some gentlemen went there as a kind of sort of finishing school to get some social polish. He was about 24 when he was executed, so he's very young. It seems to me that he's a kind of sort of decadent and artistic type. He's not the usual conspirator against the state. One of the interesting details of this conspiracy is that he commissioned paintings of the rebels, which suggests some kind of artistic streak and self memorialization streak. I would add as well that although it's called the Babington Plot, I don't think he can be considered the leader of the Babington plot. It's the same as Guy Fawkes. We remember Guy Fawkes as the most important, but actually he wasn't and it's the same with the Babington plot. So Babington wasn't even involved in the early stages of planning this conspiracy which happened in France and he wasn't really the effective leader in England either. So why was he chosen as the leader? I think it's because Michael Bush, the historian of the Pilgrimage of Grace, has described the same phenomenon in the Pilgrimage of Grace. He says that England was a society of orders. Even when you're organizing a rebellion, you try to recreate the society of orders in which you operate. So Babington was a gentleman. John Ballard, who was, I would say John Ballard is the real leader of the Babington plot. I don't think he can be considered a gentleman. So Babington is of unambiguously higher birth. I think that was the reason he was selected as the leader. There's a reason for that as well because if your leaders are low born then the government ends up mocking you about that. So in the Lincolnshire rebellion there was one of the leaders was a cobbler and the government always says he should be going to cobble shoes rather than starting rebellions against the state. So it was important for credibility to have a gentleman leader.
- [35:17]
Narrator
What was the plan then?
- [35:18]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
I'm now hesitating to call it Babington's plan. But what was Ballard's plan?
- [35:23]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
The Ballard plot or the Babington plot had about 14 members. 14 known members. Well, this, this number is very fluid. So depending on how you count them it could actually rise to about 30 people. If you count the people at the peripheries, they openly planned to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and seat Mary Queen of Scots on the throne. If you go back to the northern rebellion, they had said we are loyal servants of Queen Elizabeth. We just want to rid the realm of evil counselors. This is the normal thing you say when you're rebelling against the state. But now these people are very open about their objective of killing Queen Elizabeth. There's an interesting detail because most of the sources say that they wanted to seat Mary Queen of Scots on the throne. But a document I found, a transcript of the proceedings of the trial of Babington and the other conspirators said that they wanted to seat James VI of Scotland on the throne. Mary Queen of Scots son. So that's curious. I think it can't be given much weight because it's outweighed by all the other sources that say that they wanted Mary Queen of Scots on the throne. But I still think it's curious. I think it might be about the sexism of Elizabethan Englands which we know much about. So John Knox and the blast against the monstrous regiment of women. So having a. It might seem more politic for them to suggest a male monarch to replace Queen Elizabeth. So this started in France, as I said in Reims and Babington wasn't there, as I mentioned before it started in a conversation between three people. Dr. William Gifford, Gilbert Gifford, they were cousins, and John Savage. This was in the summer of 1585 and they were walking in the garden in the English seminary at Reims and they decided it might be a good idea to assassinate Queen Elizabeth because there was no other way of remedying things other than killing her. Those names might not ring any bells for some listeners, but Gilbert Gifford, the fact that Gilbert Gifford is there right at the start is interesting because he was later a known agent of Francis Walsingham. So this is a really key point. The traditional orthodox interpretation is that he wasn't a spy at this time. He was planning the conspiracy before he entered Walsingham's service. Then he came to England. He was captured at Rye. He had a meeting with Walsingham. Walsingham turned him, but we are not sure about that. It's possible that he was already an agent for Walsingham right from the start. And although this is a key point, I think we reached the same conclusion either way. So either Walsingham planned the conspiracy right from the start with the aid of these agents, or he helped to collaborate on the conspiracy starting at a later date. And I think it's immaterial, really. What is clear is that Walsingham and his agents are helping to push this along, are helping to orchestrate the Babington plot. I'm sure you don't watch many sort of conspiracy theory videos, Susanna, but I know that people call this kind of thing a false flow flag nowadays. So this is a textbook example of a false flag. So the government is actually helping to run a conspiracy along in order to meet the objectives that they want. And one of those objectives is having Mary Queen of Scots executed.
- [38:11]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
That's so fascinating. So we think of these things, as we have been sort of trained to do by the language around them, as plots against Elizabeth. But in every case there's some sort of involvement in order to try and achieve these goals. So, I mean, the central point about the Babington plot is that Babington writes in cipher to Mary Queen of Scots and she gives her consent. I mean, can we be sure that she does consent to the plot? Is her answer more ambiguous than that?
- [38:43]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
This is another interesting point. So she definitely voiced approval of invasion, so you might say that is treason in itself. Whether she endorsed assassination is more complicated. She made an ambiguous comment which may have been forged, may have not been forged. She said something like, by what means to the two gentlemen plan to proceed. This was taken as knowledge at Least of the conspiracy. But what is clear is that she endorsed the plan of foreign invasion.
- [39:18]
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- [40:28]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
There's always that question about Mary, Queen of Scots and whether she could have been found guilty of treason, given that she wasn't an English subject in the first place. But, okay, let's work with the idea that she could have been and that invasion counted. So if Walsingham is in from an earlier moment than we have understood, then the key sort of turning point that has been part of the story up until now, which is that it's that letter and cipher smuggled out on the beer barrel perhaps isn't quite so pivotal as we have always thought.
- [41:02]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
So it's clear that the government had infiltrated the conspiracy at every level. So there were multiple spies. There was Gilbert Gifford, Robert Poley, who was trusted so much that Babington called him Sweet Robin. He was a Walsingham agent. There was also Maulevery Catlin. He was involved in pushing the conspiracy along in England. And he was so happy with his work. They went to see the trial and created a record of what happened at the trial of Babington and the other conspirators. And Walsingham did such a good job, actually, that sometimes when the conspirators were. They thought, maybe there's a mole here, so they would have smaller meetings. But even at those small, select, trusted meetings, there was a spy present. So Walsingham was good at his job. But, yeah, I think the traditional narrative probably does need some revision.
- [41:43]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
That's so interesting. I mean, you know, obviously, Mary's reply that Thomas Phillips receives and the fact that he drew that little gallows on it, that moment of triumph of Walsingham, in the end, he's Got everything he needed. I'm completely fascinated by the fact that this has been prepared so much in advance. Walsingham's better than I thought.
- [42:05]
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- [42:06]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
I watched your podcast with the spycraft authors. I thought that was brilliant. I was embarrassed because I'd made the same mistake that they exposed. So the gallows was not actually. They talked about the gallows being a sign of execution for other conspirators, not for Mary, Queen of Scots, who of course would not have faced the gallows, which I've said myself, repeating what other people have said. That's a lesson for anyone listening this. Don't just repeat things because other people have said it.
- [42:29]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
That's a lesson for us, always historians. So who was found guilty in the end with Babington? Did they stand any chance at all?
- [42:37]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
When people say there were 14 known members, that's because 14 were executed. But of course, the spies got away with their lives and I don't think they had any chance unless something really drastic happened, like news that the government had been planning this conspiracy got out and there was an overthrow of the state or something. So something really extreme would have had to happen. If you're tried for treason and there are multiple witnesses saying that you were involved in a conspiracy to stab or shoot Queen Elizabeth, there's no possible way they could have saved their lives.
- [43:03]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And the execution of at least seven of them was particularly brutal, wasn't it? Did Elizabeth herself have something to say about the brutality?
- [43:14]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
Most executions were brutal, but they could be modified by royal clemency. So often the Queen would give them permission to make the executions less extreme, but she didn't do it in those cases that you alluded to. So whether by omission or commission, she had some kind of say. And how those executions were. I think there's something unfair about the executions, right, because many of these men were very young and naive and you might say you shouldn't be planning to shoot your Queen, but if you go to a coffee shop in a nice area of London and you hear some people saying they're going to overthrow the state, are you going to tell the police about it? It seems to me that the government helped them to think that this was a credible plan and helped to encourage them, help to incite them, but it was never a credible plan. Because I talked before about royal access. It's not very easy to access the Queen. If you look at the list of members, one of the. Edward Abingdon is the son of Elizabeth's under Treasurer. So there's a possible chord Connection in some of these cases. But can you imagine, six of these slightly ridiculous gentlemen show up at the court and they demand to see the Queen. They're not going to be given an opportunity to even come through the gate. Most people don't even have access to the main gate. And once you're inside, whenever the Queen moved from one chamber to another chamber, all of the way between the two entrances would be lined with sergeants at arms. So they would be protecting her. Some evidence suggests that Elizabeth might have been very confident and might have sometimes relaxed that. But I can't see how this was ever a credible plot. I can't see how they could ever have carried it out.
- [44:40]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Ah, so you think they were fabulists, really?
- [44:43]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
Yeah. Right, yeah. That's an excellent word for. I think they were fabulous. Yeah.
- [44:47]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Mary Queen of Scots herself was then tried and she vigorously defended herself. But do you think the case against her was a done deal as well?
- [44:56]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
Yeah, I think so. Because why was Walsingham getting involved in this conspiracy so closely? As soon as he heard about it, he could have just arrested the main people. So why do you wait for it to go on for so long? It's because he's fishing for something. And what he was fishing for was evidence against Mary Queen of Scots. Mary Queen of Scots has many friends among modern historians, and I can see why. So you might say that the evidence against her is. Is unsubstantial. But thinking about it, not in modern terms, but in terms of what is doable before the political community of that time, the evidence which Walsingham had collected on his fishing expedition was substantial enough to be defensible before the political community of that time. So once he has that, then the fate was sealed.
- [45:36]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And you mentioned that we often talk about the fact that Elizabeth I hesitates to have Mary executed. Do you think that's the case? And if so, why?
- [45:46]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
I think Elizabeth pretended to hesitate about a lot of things, which I wrote a book about sheriffs, and she'd always pretend to hesitate about who she wanted to choose for sheriff, which is a very small decision, but it's because she wanted to keep people on the hook, she wanted to annoy people, she was playing games with people. And if someone asked her for a grant of a manor house or something, she would hesitate for weeks before she signed it. So I think this was a game that she played with people. And I think she was perfectly happy that Mary had been incriminated. And although she made the show of trying to call back the warrant, I think it Was. I can't say it was because historians need evidence for these things, but my instinct tells me that she was perfectly happy about him.
- [46:22]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Do you think there was an impact of Mary's execution on future attempts and plots? I mean, getting rid of Mary surely removes much of the sort of opportunity for replacement.
- [46:35]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
Once the Babington plot is quashed and Mary Queen of Scots is executed, then there is a lull in this kind of activity. Of course, you have the Lopez plot, which I think you did an episode on recently, so you have this very strange Lopez plot in 1594. But certainly Mary Queen of Scots was the lightning rod, because she had royal blood, she was a credible queen of England, and once she is gone, then that removes this from the picture.
- [47:01]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Absolutely, yes. So if you haven't heard about the Lopez plot, do go back and have a listen to that. But let's conclude then, by thinking about what you think all these plots do or should do for Elizabeth I's reputation. How should we be thinking of her reign and her rule?
- [47:18]
Professor Jonathan McGovern
It shows that she was an excellent politician herself, and ruthless, because if nothing else, this stuff is ruthless. It also shows that she was good at talent spotting. So she surrounded herself with very capable, very competent people. Something I think about Queen Elizabeth is why she was such a competent ruler, is that she was. She was manifestly a queen, but she was also manifestly a king, and she knew how to play at both of those things. She liked all her young courtiers to fall in love with her and she liked being a queen in this sense. But she also had an iron will. She had all the grandeur and majesty of Henry VIII and more. So combining those functions together is why she was such a. Such an amazing and special queen. I've just finished writing a biography of Henry viii and it's hard to judge him from the point of moral. If you judge them from the point of ethics or moral philosophy, then I don't think either of them would come out very well. But if you judge them in terms of statecraft and majesty and early modern kingship, then they're both amazing rulers.
- [48:13]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Well, I can't wait to read that, Jonathan. That would be very exciting. Thank you so much for taking us through all these plots. It's been a really clear and absolutely revelatory exposition. Thank you so very much.
- [48:31]
Narrator
Thank you for listening to this episode of Not Just the Tudors From History Hit.
- [48:35]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Thanks also to my researcher, Max Wintool and my producer, Rob Weinberg. We are always eager to hear from you, including receiving your brilliant ideas for
- [48:44]
Narrator
subjects we can cover. So do drop us a line at
- [48:47]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
not just the tudorsistoryhit.com and I look forward to joining you again for another episode. Next time on Not Just the Tutors From History. Hit.
- [49:05]
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Professor Jonathan McGovern
Are you alright?
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