Series 3 > Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington plot

INTRODUCTION xxvii
. . . and that he would reserve his reasons for so saying
for her Majesty.’
Though the inconstant philosopher was soon excusing
himself on his knees for his speech, he was committed to
the custody of the serjeant for. his offence, but was freed
next day by the Queen’s orders. This, however, was the
last time that she exerted herself in his favour. She was
perhaps scared by the ensuing events; at all events she soon
became altogether changed, as irritable and bloodthirsty
as the most intolerant Puritan. ‘ Never,’ wrote Walsing-
ham, ‘ have I seen her Majesty so much commoved.’
Parry’s strange career had in fact reached its term.
He was in money difficulties, and thought he saw a way
out of them by playing anew his old trade of informer. He
talked treason with one Edmund Neville, the titular Lord
Latimer, a returned exile, whom Elizabeth’s government
was treating harshly. Each schemer probably wanted to
betray the other, but Neville was the more successful,
laying an information on 9 February 1585, which caused
Parry’s arrest and eventually his sacrifice at Tyburn not
merely for the words spoken to Neville,1 but for the whole
intrigue with Morgan and the Cardinal of Como. There
was, of course, the difficulty that Parry had but lately been
rewarded for the very same ‘ treasons,’ for which he was
now to be executed. But this was got over by invoking
the name of the Queen, against whom no reproach could
be openly levelled. During Parry’s trial Sir Christopher
Hatton said that the Queen was so ‘ magnanimous, that,
after thou haddest opened those traitorous practices (with
Morgan) in sort as thou hast laid it down in thy confession,
she would not so much as acquaint any one of her High-
1 We shall see below that, according -to the procedure in Elizabeth’s
court, a provocateur had not only to obtain a general approval (such as
Parry might have claimed to hold), but also a specific permit for each new
treason, if he wished to keep safe. This Parry had confessedly not
obtained.