“In this service he preserved his fidelity to Elizabeth unshaken; but he was so perpetually teized (sic) by her suspicions and those of her ministers, that his office, which might otherwise have been desirable to so great a nobleman, as a distinguished mark of honour and confidence, appears to have inflicted upon him a severity of punishment little inferior to that of his unfortunate captive. The fear of Elizabeth’s displeasure induced him, at times, to a moroseness in his behaviour to Mary, which implanted in her bosom sentiments of distaste and resentment, that her high spirit could not be subdued, by her sufferings, to dissemble; whilst at other times by real or colourable marks of kindness and attention to Mary, he drew upon himself the malevolence of a wife, ever alive to jealousy and prepared to empoison his comforts, and the suspicions and rebukes of his Queen, who had no trifling satisfaction in mortifying and humiliating the greatest of her subjects.”
He was, in other words, “between the devil and the deep sea.” The custody of the prisoner Queen was first placed in Lord Shrewsbury’s hands during January, 1569, while he was in residence at Tutbury Castle; her removal to Wingfield took place on April 20th of the same year.
Three weeks later she was suddenly and mysteriously seized with a violent attack of some malady, which caused grave anxiety to her custodian. Two physicians were promptly dispatched by the Privy Council to undertake her cure, and these worthies gave but a bad account of the sanitary conditions of her prison quarters. Their report seems to have considerably nettled the Earl of Shrewsbury, who retorted that “the very unpleasant and fulsome savour, in the next chamber, hurtful to her health” was directly owing to the “continual festering and uncleanly order of her own folke.” Since the cause was known to him, it seems strange that he did not try to do something to better it. The unfortunate Queen was removed with all speed to Chatsworth—where her moated bower still remains—for this princely residence was brought to the Earl by his second matrimonial venture, Elizabeth, better known as “Bess of Hardwick.”
June 1st once more saw her installed in her old apartments at Wingfield, they having been cleaned and sweetened. In the following August she once more fell ill of the same malady, and requested the Earl to find her another prison-house. She was therefore removed to Tutbury, between which place and Sheffield she alternated for the next fifteen years. Once more her custodian had to complain that his mansion and her rooms, “in consequence of the long abode here and the number of people, waxes unsavoury.” This is hardly to be wondered at when it is remembered that at her second period of captivity at Wingfield, after fifteen years’ absence, the poor Queen’s personal attendants numbered 47 persons in all: 5 gentlemen, 14 servitors, 3 cooks, 4 boys, 3 gentlemen’s men, 6 gentlewomen, 2 wives, and 10 wenches and children.
The year 1584 again saw the captive Queen at Wingfield, and the Privy Council proposed that she should be incarcerated in the castle of Melbourne, also in Derbyshire; but, owing to the fact that there were structural alterations of an extensive nature required there, it was decided to saddle the poor Earl of Shrewsbury with his weighty responsibility once more. Orders to this effect were dispatched to him on March 20th, 1584, till such time as Melbourne Castle was prepared—which never came to pass. These orders to the Earl commanded the removal of the Queen from Sheffield to Wingfield, and “that for the more safety in conveying the said Queene, in case you shall find it necessary, for your assistance you may use the ayde of the sheriffs of our countys of Derby and Leicester.” Whilst the Earl’s duties to his sovereign kept him at Court, the Queen’s custody was in the hands of Sir Ralph Sadleir, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and a distinguished soldier. Sir Ralph wrote, on August 25th, 1584, to Sir Francis Walsyngham, and informed him that he had begged the Earl of Shrewsbury not to transport the Queen to Wingfield till further instructions from the Sovereign were received. He continues by saying that he would rather “keep her here (Sheffield Castle) with 60 men than at Wingfield with 300.” In a paper read before the members of the Royal Archæological Institute, then visiting the manor house, by the Rev. J. Charles Cox, the author stated that:
“having carefully gone through the whole of the documents in the Public Record Office pertaining to Mary Queen of Scots, as well as the little known Talbot papers at the College of Arms, and the Shrewsbury papers at the Lambeth Palace Library, I have come to the conclusion, for reasons that would be far too long to now explain, that the Earl of Shrewsbury, worn out by the jealousy, meanness, and cruelty of his wife, as well as by the suspicions and displeasure of Queen Elizabeth and her Council, and filled with a growing sympathy for his prisoner, did his best to bring about this second sojourn at Wingfield in the hopes of her escape.”
An excellent guard was placed over the Queen, for Sir Ralph Sadleir set a watch of eight soldiers at night time, taking turns in watches of four, to patrol the immediate vicinity of the Queen’s apartments in the inner courtyard. Two other soldiers kept a day and night watch in the house itself, at the entrance to her rooms.
The captive Queen arrived in September, 1584, for this second enforced visit, with a huge retinue, which must have seriously taxed the accommodation of the manor house. The Earl of Shrewsbury had 120 gentlemen, yeomen, and servants; Sir Ralph Sadleir followed suit with 50, whilst there were 40 trained men at arms. Including the prisoner’s personal retinue, there were 257 persons herded together within these walls, the Queen and her suite occupying fifteen rooms; yet, despite guards and precautions, one man alone was able to plot with the Queen herself for her release.
The daring plot was the child of the fertile brain of one Anthony Babington, whose family seat was at Dethick, about five miles to the west. Babington was in a way a fanatic, and the pity for, and desire to liberate, his beloved Queen was the mania which brought him to the scaffold. Stained with walnut juice, and disguised in gipsy garb, he is said to have constantly visited the captive, and a curious tale is told of his visits. Just outside the Queen’s rooms grows a huge walnut tree, and tradition hath it that this tree is sprung from a walnut dropped by Babington himself when on one of his surreptitious visits.
