Series 3 > Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington plot

xiv MARY STUART AND THE BABINGTON PLOT
Nor was this repressive policy confined to discussions
of the succession. 'Who was ignorant of the many sus¬
picions that attached to Elizabeth ? Had she not been
proclaimed a bastard by Cranmer, and by several acts of
Parliament ? Though no Pope had done this, still one
of them had pronounced against her a never-to-be-for-
gotten sentence. No ‘ Statute of Silence ’ could make such
things as though they were not. Every attempt to enforce
silence proved that the tyranny of Elizabeth’s govern¬
ment must needs cause, even among conservative minds,
a vehement temptation to grasp at violent remedies.1
On the other hand, the hostility of Elizabeth’s ministers
will be found throughout this volume to dominate the
situation. Unsatisfied with all they had done to weaken,
humiliate and hold prisoner the second person in the
realm, they were keen to deny her queenship altogether,
and they were watching for the occasion to kill her.
More than once had they offered to hand her over to her
Scottish enemies for slaughter, and this ‘ great object ’
was only foiled by Elizabeth’s refusal to pay the blood-
money which the Scots required for putting away their
Queen. Walsingham, with tell-tale frankness, familiarly
called her ‘the bosom serpent,’ and the guardians he put
over her repeatedly assured him that they would slay
her, rather than let her escape.2
every offender shall suffer the payns of death and forfeyte . . . without
benefit of Cleargie.’ The priest Thomas Alfield suffered death, 6 July
1585, under this act, though not for this clause. See his indictment,
Catholic Record Society, v. 114.
1 We shall find even her ministers in revolt against her capricious yet
peremptory orders, p. 149. But Lord Burghley dexterously leads her to
acquiesce in the ministerial plans, p. 151.
* In March 1585 one of Mary’s custodians reported ‘ if any danger had
been offered, or doubt suspected, the Queen’s body should first have tasted
of the gall.’ In July following another wrote, ‘ I will never ask pardon,
if she depart out of my hands. ... If I be assaulted by force, I will be
assured by the grace of God that she shall die before me.' Chalmers, Mary
Stuart, ii. 142 ; J. Morris, Sir Amias Poulet, p. 49.