Series 3 > Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington plot

INTRODUCTION
XXV
master in a remote country town, we can surmise how hot
was the ferment everywhere, when news arrived that the
protestant hero was no more. Inspired with enthusiasm
White’s carol bursts out with as much fierce joy as if the
poet had been a soldier in the Spanish ranks. In words
he was almost as ferocious as his persecutors were with
knife and rope.
In this same excited mood the Band was everywhere
taken in the protestant church, and it was soon supple¬
mented by the bloody code called ‘ the laws of 27 Eliza¬
beth ’ under which catholic priests could be and would be
put to death amid atrocious tortures, merely for their
sacred character.1 The gist of the Band of Association
was this, that all who took it should persecute to the death
that person in whose favour any plot should be formed
against Elizabeth’s life.
Any one can see what a threat this was to Mary. Accord¬
ing to the letter of the Band, the plot might be unknown
to Mary, or even a fictitious charge, and yet might have
consequences fatal to her. For when the oath was taken,
nothing had been said as to previous legal inquiries. Any
of Mary’s enemies might therefore, by concocting a plot,
give occasion for her slaughter, especially as she was
surrounded with guards, who yearned for her murder.
Alas, what little difference there was, morally speaking,
between the Ban and the Band. One barbarity of the
latter, however, was to some extent remedied by Parlia¬
ment, when it was redrafted in the form of an Act. It was
then provided that legal proceedings should be taken before
execution, and Mary eventually suffered under this law.
Thus was the Puritan party familiarised with the project
1 The order of priesthood was supposed to make priests •' the Pope’s
men,’ and therefore ipso facto traitors. This law was potent for mischief
during a century ; then lapsed into desuetude, and was tardily repealed
in 1844.