[The Queen signed this by compulsion. The text of the document is a fabrication.]
The Following were some of the Schemes for Queen Mary's liberation from the grasp of Elizabeth, with a portion of the Correspondence which followed thereon
In May, June, and July 1586, no less than three plots for Mary's liberation were proposed by the Catholics—one by John Savage for the assassination of Elizabeth and release of Mary; one by Ballard for an invasion of England and release of Mary; and one by Babington for her release by force of arms. These plots eventually culminated in one scheme, and Walsingham, by the aid of his spies, was able to intercept letters, decipher and copy them, introduce matter of his own into the copies, and by this means brought about the ruin of all concerned, including Mary herself. The Babington plot [20] we have fully recited, but we now reproduce the following letters translated from the French, not hitherto published by us, excepting Nos. 3 and 4. They throw a very curious light over the startling events of these three months. The letters are No. 1, Queen Mary to Charles Paget; No. 2, Charles Paget to Queen Mary; No. 3, Babington to Queen Mary; No. 4, Mary to Babington; No. 5, Mary to Paget; No. 6, Mary to Mendoza, the Spanish Ambassador.
These letters are preserved in the State Paper Office in the handwriting of Phillips, one of the spies, and this throws suspicion on the whole. We cannot guarantee that any one of them is genuine, and it will be well for the reader to attach little importance to them; but as an illustration of the voluminous literature of that period, they will be read with interest. It was very probably these interpolated letters that gave rise to the kidnapping plot of 16th August. A writer in our own day (Strickland) says: “The tone in which Queen Mary writes on 13th July to Archbishop Beton shows that she was perfectly unconscious that any projects against Elizabeth's life were in contemplation; in the mass of papers seized at Chartley it is a striking fact that not one was produced in evidence against her.”
MARY BETON,
One of the Queen's Maries.
From the Collection of Major Bethune, of Balfour