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The Babington Plot was a plot in 1586 to assassinate Queen Elizabeth, a Protestant, and put the rescued Mary, Queen of Scots, her Roman Catholic cousin, on the English throne. It led to the execution of Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland as a direct result of a letter sent by Mary (who had been imprisoned for 18 years since 1568 in England at the behest of Elizabeth) in which she consented directly to the assassination of Elizabeth. The long-term goal of the plot was the invasion of England by the Spanish forces of King Philip II and the Catholic League in France, leading to the restoration of the old religion. The plot was discovered by Elizabeth's "spymaster" Sir Francis Walsingham and used to entrap Mary for the purpose of removing her as a claimant to the English throne. The chief conspirators were Anthony Babington, a young recusant recruited by John Ballard, a Jesuit priest who desired to rescue the Scottish Queen; Robert Poley; Gilbert Gifford, and Thomas Phelippes, a Walsingham spy agent and cryptanalyst. The turbulent Catholic deacon Gifford had been in Walsingham's service since the end of 1585 or the beginning of 1586. Gifford obtained a letter of introduction to Queen Mary from a confidant and spy for her, Thomas Morgan. Walsingham then placed double agent Gifford and spy decipherer Phelippes inside Chartley Castle, where Queen Mary was imprisoned. Gifford organised the Walsingham plan to place Babington's and Queen Mary's encrypted communications into a beer barrel cork which were then intercepted by Phelippes, decoded and sent to Walsingham. Ballard was attempting to recruit Babington in an undeveloped scheme to rescue Mary and place her on the throne of England by killing Elizabeth. Babington sent a coded letter to the imprisoned Mary, which gave his name to the complicated multiple-sided plot. On 7 July 1586, the only Babington letter that was sent to Mary was decoded by Phelippes. Mary responded in code on 17 July ordering the would-be rescuers to assassinate Elizabeth. The response letter also included deciphered phrases indicating her desire to be rescued: "The affairs being thus prepared" and "I may suddenly be transported out of this place". At the Fotheringay trial in October 1586, Elizabeth's Secretary of State William Cecil and Walsingham used the letter against Mary who refused to admit that she was guilty. But she was betrayed by her secretaries Nau and Curle who confessed under pressure that the letter was mainly truthful. ==Mary's imprisonment== Mary, Queen of Scots, a Roman Catholic, was a legitimate heir to the throne of England. In 1568 she escaped imprisonment by Scottish rebels and sought the promised aid of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, a year after her forced abdication from the throne of Scotland. The issuance of the papal bull ''Regnans in Excelsis'' by Pope Pius V on 25 February 1570, granted English Catholics authority to overthrow the English queen. Queen Mary became the focal point of numerous plots and intrigues to restore England to its former religion, Catholicism, and to depose Elizabeth and even to take her life. Rather than the promised aid, Elizabeth imprisoned Mary for nineteen years in the charge of a succession of jailers, principally the Earl of Shrewsbury. In 1584 Elizabeth's Privy Council signed a "Bond of Association" designed by Cecil and Walsingham which stated that anyone within the line of succession to the throne ''on whose behalf'' anyone plotted against the Queen, would be excluded from the line and executed. This was agreed upon by hundreds of Englishmen, who likewise signed the Bond. Mary also agreed to sign the Bond. The following year, Parliament passed the Act of Association, which provided for the execution of anyone who would benefit from the death of the Queen if a plot against her was discovered. However due to the Bond, Mary could be executed if a plot was initiated by others that could lead to her accession to England's throne. Elizabeth ordered Mary transferred back to the ruined Tutbury Castle in the wintry weather of Christmas Eve 1584. Mary became ill due to the bad conditions of her captivity, imprisoned in a very damp cold room with closed windows and with no access to the sun. In 1585, Elizabeth ordered Queen Mary to be transferred in a coach and under heavy guard and placed under the strictest confinement at Chartley Hall in Staffordshire, under the control of Sir Amias Paulet. She was prohibited any correspondence with the outside world. Puritan Paulet was chosen by Queen Elizabeth in part because he abhorred Queen Mary's Catholic faith. Reacting to the growing threat posed by Catholics, urged on by the Pope and other Catholic monarchs in Europe, Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I's Secretary of State and spymaster, together with William Cecil, Elizabeth's chief advisor, realised that if Mary could be implicated in a plot to assassinate Elizabeth, she could be executed and the "Papist" threat diminished. As he wrote to the Earl of Leicester: "So long as that devilish woman lives, neither Her Majesty must make account to continue in quiet possession of her crown, nor her faithful servants assure themselves of safety of their lives."〔, as quoted by 〕 Walsingham used the Babington plot to ensnare Queen Mary by sending his double agent, Gilbert Gifford to Paris to obtain the confidence of Morgan, then locked in the Bastille. Morgan previously worked for George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, an earlier jailor of Queen Mary. Through Shrewsbury, Queen Mary became acquainted with Morgan. Queen Mary sent Morgan to Paris to deliver letters to the French court. While in Paris Morgan became involved in a previous plot designed by William Parry, which resulted in Morgan's incarceration in the Bastille. In 1585 Gifford was arrested returning to England through Rye in Sussex with letters of introduction from Morgan to Queen Mary. Walsingham released Gifford to work as a double agent, in the Babington Plot. Gifford was assigned the alias "No. 4" and used many others in his espionage work, such as Colerdin, Pietro and Cornelys. Walsingham assigned Gifford to function as a courier in the entrapment plot against Queen Mary. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Babington Plot」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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