22. The Association. 1584-1585.—Those who had planned the murder of the Prince of Orange were planning the murder of Elizabeth. In their eyes she was a usurper, who by main force held her subjects from all hope of salvation by keeping them in ignorance of the teaching of the true Church, and they accordingly drew the inference that it was lawful to murder her and to place Mary on her throne. They did not see that they had to do with a nation and not with a queen alone, and that, whether the nation was as yet Protestant or not, it was heart and soul with Elizabeth against assassins and invaders. In November 1584, at the instigation of the Council, the mass of Englishmen—irrespective of creed—bound themselves in an association not only to defend the Queen, but, in case of her murder, to put to death the person for whose sake the crime had been committed—or, in other words, to send Mary to the grave instead of to the throne. In 1585 this association, with considerable modifications, was confirmed by Parliament. At the same time an act was passed banishing all Jesuits and seminary priests, and directing that they should be put to death if they returned.
23. Growth of Philip's Power. 1584-1585.—In the meantime Philip's power was still growing. The wretched Alençon died in 1584, and a far distant cousin of the childless Henry III., Henry king of Navarre, who was a Huguenot, became heir to the French throne. Guise and the ardent Catholics formed themselves into a league to exclude Huguenots from the succession, and placed themselves under the direction of the king of Spain. A civil war broke out once more in 1585, and if the league should win (as at first seemed likely) Philip would be able to dispose of the resources of France in addition to his own. As Guise had now enough to do at home, Philip took the invasion of England into his own hands. He had first to extend his power in the Netherlands. In August the great port of Antwerp surrendered to Parma. The Dutch had offered to make Elizabeth their sovereign, and, though she had prudently refused, she sent an army to their aid, but neutralised the gift by placing the wretched Leicester at its head, and by giving him not a penny wherewith to pay his men. In 1586, after an attempt (after Alençon's fashion) to seize the government for himself, Leicester returned to England, having accomplished nothing. What Elizabeth did not do was done by a crowd of young Englishmen who pressed over to the Netherlands to fight as volunteers for Dutch freedom. The best known of these was Sir Philip Sidney, whose head and heart alike seemed to qualify him for a foremost place amongst the new generation of Englishmen. Unhappily he was slain in battle near Zutphen. As he lay dying he handed a cup of water untasted to another wounded man. 'Thy necessity,' he said to him, 'is greater than mine.' Parma took Zutphen, and the territory of the Dutch Republic—the bulwark of England—was the smaller by its loss. By sea England more than held her own, and in 1586 Drake returned from a voyage to the West Indies laden with spoils.
24. Babington's Plot, and the Trial of Mary Stuart. 1586.—The Spanish invasion being still delayed, a new plot for murdering Elizabeth was formed. A number of young Catholics (of whom Anthony Babington was the most prominent) had been allowed to remain at Court by Elizabeth, who was perfectly fearless. Acting under the instructions of a priest named Ballard, they now sought basely to take advantage of their easy access to her person to assassinate her. They were detected and executed, and Walsingham, the Secretary of State who conducted the detective department of the government, discovered, or said that he had discovered, evidence of Mary Stuart's approving knowledge of the conspiracy. Elizabeth's servants felt that there was but one way of saving the life of the queen, and that was by taking the life of her whose existence made it worth while to assassinate Elizabeth. Mary was brought to trial and condemned to death on a charge of complicity in Babington's plot. When Parliament met it petitioned Elizabeth to execute the sentence. Elizabeth could not make up her mind. She knew that Mary's execution would save herself and the country from enormous danger, but she shrank from ordering the deed to be done. She signed the warrant for Mary's death, and then asked Mary's gaoler Paulet to save her from responsibility by murdering his prisoner. On Paulet's refusal she continued her vacillations, till the Council authorised Davison, Walsingham's colleague in the Secretaryship, to send off the warrant without further orders.
25. Execution of Mary Stuart. 1587.—On February 8, 1587, Mary Stuart was beheaded at Fotheringhay. Elizabeth carried out to the last the part which she had assumed, threw the blame on Davison, dismissed him from her service, and fined him heavily. After Mary's death the attack on England would have to be conducted in open day. It would be no advantage to Philip and the Pope that Elizabeth should be murdered if her place was to be taken, not by Mary, but by Mary's Protestant son, James of Scotland.