A last offer and secret letters
In June 1583 Mary agreed that, if she were freed from prison, she would give up every claim to the English throne, would not write to conspirators, would live wherever Elizabeth chose and never go more than about nine miles from that place, and would let the neighboring nobles keep watch on her. But Elizabeth was advised not to trust her.
Mary had no choice but to return to plans of escape. By desperate tricks she managed to correspond in secret with the ambassadors and governments of France and Spain, with her supporters in Scotland and with the pope's agents. Letters went in and out hidden in laundry, in books, in firewood, in wigs and in shoes. But the spies of Cecil and Walsingham uncovered every plot in good time. Walsingham even had an agent among the students and priests at the Jesuit college at Reims, who passed him news.
Throckmorton, Parry and the Bond of Association
The stirring story of the captive queen touched many young Englishmen and fired the zeal of young Catholics. In 1583 Francis Throckmorton, the Catholic nephew of Elizabeth's last ambassador to France, arranged another plan to free Mary. Soon his intention was discovered, and he was pressed until he confessed. The poor man lamented that he had betrayed the secrets of the one he loved best. He was executed at the age of thirty.
The next year William Parry, one of Cecil's spies, led the pope's representative in Paris to write a letter to Gregory XIII asking for a general pardon, saying that Cecil was nursing a dangerous plan to free Mary Stuart and return England to the Catholic Church. The papal secretary of state answered (30 January 1584) that the pope had read Parry's request and was pleased with his resolve, and would soon send the pardon he wanted and reward his efforts. Parry carried this reply to Cecil. Another English spy, Edmund Neville, accused Parry of having been urged to kill Elizabeth. After his arrest Parry confessed his guilt and was put to death.
The English council, enraged by a series of plots and terrified by the murder of William of Orange (the name is garbled in the Persian text, and we give the usual form), drew up a covenant called the Bond of Association. Its signers pledged not to accept as queen any person for whose benefit an attempt on Elizabeth's life was made, and to put to death anyone involved in such an act. Members of the council, most members of parliament and prominent Englishmen signed. The next year parliament made it law.
The Babington plot
This did not stop other plots. In 1586 John Ballard, a Catholic priest, urged a rich young Catholic named Anthony Babington to plan the killing of Elizabeth, to arrange an invasion of England by Spain, France and the Netherlands, and to set Mary on the throne. Babington told Mary of the plot, saying that six Catholic gentlemen had agreed to rid themselves of the usurper of the crown, and asking for her approval. In a letter written on 17 July 1586 Mary accepted Babington's proposals. She did not explicitly agree to the killing of Elizabeth, but she promised a fitting reward to those who succeeded. The courier to whom Mary's secretary handed the reply was Walsingham's spy: he made a copy and sent it to Walsingham, then forwarded the letter itself to Babington.
On 14 August Babington and Ballard were arrested, and soon three hundred prominent Catholics were jailed. The two confessed, and Mary's secretary was forced to confirm that her letter was genuine. Thirteen of the plotters were executed. In thanks for Elizabeth's safety bells rang all over London and children sang hymns, and the whole Protestant country demanded Mary's death.
Trial and sentence
Mary's rooms were searched and all her papers seized. On 6 October she was moved to Fotheringhay Castle, where a commission of forty-three nobles tried her. Although she was not allowed to choose a lawyer, she defended herself with firm resolve and admitted her part in Babington's plot, but denied that she had approved the murder of Elizabeth. She added that having been imprisoned unjustly and unlawfully for nineteen years, she had the right to free herself by any means. The commissioners nevertheless condemned her to death by unanimous vote, and parliament asked Elizabeth to sign the sentence.
Henry III of France courteously asked that Mary's life be spared, but Elizabeth thought such a plea unacceptable from a government that had massacred thousands of Protestants without trial. Many Scots now rose to defend Mary, but her son interceded reluctantly, thinking that Mary's will had disowned him as her child because he had joined the Protestant faith. His envoy in London told Walsingham that although James VI was troubled by the possible execution of his mother, he was ready to be reconciled if the English parliament confirmed his claim to succeed Elizabeth and the queen increased the pension she sent him. This shrewd Scot haggled so greedily that the people of Edinburgh mocked him in the streets. Nothing but Elizabeth's hesitation now stood between Mary and death.
Elizabeth's hesitation
Elizabeth, worn out, spent three months in doubt before deciding anything, and then still did not decide. Though she was generous and tender-hearted, she trembled every day for fear of the followers of a woman who claimed her crown, and she was tired of her position. She also weighed the danger that France, Spain and Scotland might attack England in protest at Mary's possible execution, and she considered that if she herself died, naturally or otherwise, Mary would sit on the English throne and Catholicism would spread again. Cecil urged her to sign the death warrant and offered to take full responsibility for the result. But Elizabeth, to avoid deciding, hinted that Paulet, Mary's jailer, could carry out the sentence on the strength of the queen's or council's approval; Paulet refused to act without Elizabeth's written order.
At last the queen signed the warrant. Her secretary William Davison showed it to the council, and the council sent it to Paulet before Elizabeth could change her mind.
The last day
Mary, who had grown a little hopeful during the long delay, at first did not believe the news, but then received it bravely. She wrote Elizabeth a touching letter: let my poor and distressed servants carry my body and bury it in holy ground with the other queens of France. It is said that on the morning of her execution she composed a Latin poem with the sweetness and fervor of medieval hymns. In it she says that she has put her hope in God, asks dear Christ to free her from her chains, says that in this painful bondage and sad suffering she seeks him, and kneels before him longing and in tears, praising him and begging for release.
Mary asked to confess her sins to her own Catholic priest, but the request was refused. Her jailers sent in its place an English dean, but Mary sent him away. To meet death she put on rich clothes, arranged her wig with care, covered her face with a white veil, hung a golden cross around her neck and held an ivory crucifix. She asked why her ladies had not been allowed to watch her die. They answered that they might make a disturbance. Mary promised that they would not, and was allowed to take two ladies and four servants. About three hundred English gentlemen were present in the great hall of Fotheringhay Castle, where the execution was to take place (8 February 1587). The two masked executioners asked her forgiveness, and she forgave them. When her ladies began to weep Mary stopped them: I have given my word for you. She then knelt and prayed, and met her end with composure. At the last her wig slipped aside, showing her white hair. Mary was forty-four years old.
Judgment
Forgiveness is a word that can be said of everyone. We should forgive Mary, who bravely tried to be a just queen while also enjoying her life. It is hard to believe that Mary, who for a time nursed her husband and restored his health, consented to his murder. We should forgive the young woman who sacrificed everything to a foolish love, and have pity on the distracted woman who took refuge in England and spent nineteen years in prison in return. In this light we can understand her fierce efforts to win her freedom.
But we must forgive Elizabeth too, for it was her advisers who thought Mary's imprisonment necessary for England's safety, who saw the queen's life and policy always endangered by plots to free her rival and set her on the throne, and who made that painful captivity last longer because the queen would not sign the death warrant. Mary and Elizabeth were both noble women: one noble and ruled by feeling, the other noble and held in a reasoned doubt. Both lie side by side in Westminster Abbey, reconciled in death and peace.