The Last Days of Mary Stuart, and the journal of Bourgoyne her physician. Samuel Cowan
are in possession of only some of these, and the information they convey is that a gigantic scheme was progressing for the murder of the Scottish Queen, and that these men were the puppets of Elizabeth for accomplishing her design. What is obvious is that Paulet's letters were written with profound caution—almost terror—lest he should offend his mistress. His letters and his treatment of the Queen show that to her he was both cunning and false, alike destitute of the honour of a gentleman and of those feelings of humanity which are essential to a man intrusted with the delicate duty of custodian of a Queen. Only once did he show that he realised his responsibility, when in a letter to Walsingham of 30th August he desired to be relieved of his onerous duty. The letters were in the following terms:—
Paulet to Walsingham:
“It may please your Honour to be advised that, receiving your letters of the 26th and 28th of the month, I have, according to your direction, despatched Mr. Darell this morning towards Fotheringay for the views of the lodgings there, which no doubt will be furnished with the hangings belonging to this house, whereof there is a good store of all sorts of length and breadth. I send herewith my opinion touching your article addressed unto me, and have sent the copy as well of the articles as of my postills to Sir Walter Mildmay, so that he may supply all the defects by his better judgment and knowledge of these countries. I think myself happy for many causes to be removed out of this country, and now I should think myself twice happy if this Queen with the change of lodgings might also change her keeper; and indeed a gentleman of that country might supply this place with less expense to Her Majesty and better surety of his charge, having his servants, tenants, and good neighbours at hand.
“Although I am bold to write as I wish, yet I will never desire it, but as it may stand with Her Majesty's good pleasure as one that embraceth all Her Highness's commands with all willing obedience.
“From Chartley, 30th August 1586.”
And again, on 15th September, Paulet said:
“I find by your letter of the 12th, received last night at midnight, that you were not acquainted with my Lord Treasurer's first and second letters to me of the 8th, the contents whereof may appear unto you by my answer of the same sent to his Lordship. I find this lady very willing to remove so as to hear often from the French Ambassador, by reason that her lodging is within thirty miles of London; and now twenty carts are appointed to be laden here this next morrow, and I think we shall remove from hence about the middle of this next week, if we be not stayed by contrary news, whereof I thought good to advise you. Since my last letters to you I have found in a casket in Nau's chamber £5, 10s. in gold and £1, 7s. 3d. in white money, and among the same the silver piece enclosed, by which you may easily judge of his malicious, cankered, and traitorous heart towards Her Majesty. All this Queen's seals were in this casket, which are in great numbers, and two serve for privy packets and all other purposes.”
This letter was immediately followed by one of considerable importance from Queen Mary to the Duke of Guise, September 1586:—
“My good cousin, if God do not help you to find means of aiding your poor cousin, it is all over this time. The bearer will tell you how they treat me and my two secretaries. For God's sake help and save them if you can. We are accused of having wished to disturb the State, and of having practised against the life of the Queen or consented to it; but I have asserted what is true, that I know nothing of it. It is said that some letters have been seized in the possession of one Babington, one Charles Paget, and his brother, which testify to the conspiracy, and that Nau and Curle have confessed it. I maintain that they could not do so unless more than they know were forced out of them by means of torture.”
(This confession was the result of the rack.)
Pasquier or de Pasquier, a literary friend and follower of Mary, was apprehended along with Nau and Curle for no reason whatever, and very shortly after that event he was brought before the Lord Chancellor to see what secret information about Mary they could possibly draw out of him. As he was in reality a member of Mary's household, Elizabeth's ministers were sanguine that they would get important information. In that, however, they were disappointed, as Pasquier was able to keep his own counsel. On 2nd September 1586 he appeared before the Lord Chancellor, when the following interrogatories were put to him, but we have no answers recorded. These cunning questions were in the interest of Elizabeth, and constitute a mean attempt on the part of Bromley to drag the Scottish Queen into trouble:—
“Whether he has been at any time acquainted with the practice for the setting of the Scottish Queen at liberty?
“Whether he has not been made acquainted with some practice within the realm of disposing the hearts of Catholics to join with such foreign forces as should invade the realm?
“Whether he has not within these four or five months written letters to certain persons in foreign parts to show how the Catholics of this realm stood affected with them?
“What practice he has been made acquainted with in these three months prejudicial to Her Majesty's State or person?
“How he knoweth that the Queen of Scots has had her secret letters carried or brought to her?”
In the midst of these negotiations Walsingham appears to have had another subject on hand: this was the relations between Mary and her son.
It need not be the least surprising that Walsingham should have written the following false and calumnious letter to the Master of Gray, dated 15th September. If he could surreptitiously open, copy, and interpolate Queen Mary's letters, he was quite capable of giving the advice contained in this communication. This Master of Gray was one of Mary's enemies, and was mainly instrumental in putting discord between mother and son. No man knew better than Walsingham that Mary was innocent of Darnley's murder, but to admit this would be to jeopardise his scheme for her execution. Consequently her innocence could not be entertained. Mary losing her Crown had nothing whatever to do with the Darnley murder. She never voluntarily gave up the Crown, but it was compulsorily taken from her by Lindsay and Ruthven when she was confined in Loch Leven in 1567, in order that Moray might assume the Regency:—
“I thank you for sounding the King's disposition, how he could be content to have the Queen his mother proceeded against for the late fact, but I suppose it will be in vain to move him any further, because he may conceive it would be contra bonos mores, in respect of the bond of nature between them, that he should make himself a party against her. Nevertheless, you may with good reason persuade him that he make no mediation for her, or oppose himself against the course that is intended to be adopted with her, considering the hard treatment that his father received at her hands, for which detestable deed she was deprived of her Crown. It is meant that she shall be tried here according to the Act made in the last Parliament, and that agreeably to the contents of the said Act certain noblemen shall be appointed to charge her, who assembled for that purpose the 27th of this month, and shall be with her by the 4th of the next at Fotheringay Castle, seven miles from Stamford, whither she is appointed to be brought. But the matters whereof she is guilty are already so plain and manifest, being also confessed by her two secretaries, as it is thought they shall require no long debating. We suppose she will appeal and challenge the privilege of her sovereignty, which in this case neither by the civil law nor by the laws of this realm can be available.”
Bourgoyne's Journal exposes the cruelty of Queen Mary's enemies and their importunity about the Babington Conspiracy, and while she protested that during her captivity “Elizabeth had maintained, sustained, and aided her rebel subjects, alienated her son from her, and taken away what she possessed,” and could prove this, they would not listen to it, but wanted to squeeze out of her something that would incriminate herself.
The following paper, which is in the handwriting of Phillips, one of Walsingham's spies, is preserved in the Record Office under date September 1586. It is reproduced not because it is of any value, but rather to show the persistent and cunning efforts to entrap the Scottish Queen. It concerns the Babington Conspiracy, and is a wholly unauthenticated document. The papers Phillips refers to are from Mary's cabinets, seized on the day she was kidnapped; and in order to understand the object of the paper, we must keep in view that it assumes the accuracy of