Queen Elizabeth to Paulet, 9th August 1586. Final orders to kidnap:—
“We having of late discovered some dangerous practices, tending not only to the troubling of our estate but to the peril of our own person, whereof we have just cause to judge the Queen, your charge, and her two secretaries, Nau and Curle, to have been parties and assenting in a most unprincely and unnatural sense, contrary to our expectations, considering the great and earnest protestations she hath made of the sincerity of her love and goodwill to us. Our pleasure therefore is that you cause the two secretaries to be apprehended and to be sent up to us under good and sure guard, and that you take the said Queen to some such place as you shall think meet, and there to see her straitly kept with so many of her train to attend on her as you shall think necessary until you understand our further pleasure.
“Elizabeth R.”
The interpolations on Mary's letter to Babington of 17th July 1586 were at that date three weeks old, so that this letter is apparently founded on them.
CHAPTER II
Outline of the kidnapping scheme, and how it was carried out—Paulet requires instructions as to Nau and Curle—Queen Mary's return to Chartley—Forcible seizure of her money and cabinets by Paulet and Walsingham—Letter from Yetsweirt about Nau and Curle—Private letter of Nau to Elizabeth exonerating himself and Mary—Elizabeth's fulsome gratitude to Paulet—Letter Walsingham to Paulet—Burghley and Walsingham instruct Paulet about Fotheringay—Paulet writes Walsingham (kidnapping plot)—He writes Burghley and Walsingham—Desires to resign office—Mary complains of her cruel treatment to the Duke of Guise, the Lord Chancellor, and Pasquier—Elizabeth's second order to seize Queen Mary's money—Relations between James and his mother—Letter Walsingham to Master of Gray—Mary's intercepted letters.