Series 3 > Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington plot

lii MARY STUART AND THE BABINGTON PLOT
It has often been said, and that by writers who profess
to be favourable to Walsingham, that Queen Mary was
brought from Tutbury to Chartley at this time on purpose
that her correspondence might be watched, according to
the plan afterwards carried out. This may be so, though
her removal was in appearance due to her own representa¬
tions during the earlier part of the year. Elizabeth pro¬
fessed that in such indifferent things she was ‘ very careful
to yield that lady any reasonable contentment.’ Chartley
had been selected as early as September, and the remove
would have been made then, but for the protests of the
Earl of Essex, to whom the house belonged. So other
plans had to be made tentatively, until the final order to
move there could be given on the 23rd of November.
The packing up necessarily took some time, and Queen
Mary made the journey on Christmas Eve 1585.1
Thus there was plenty of time for Gilbert to look about
him before going down to Chartley, and we should for many
reasons have expected that the first place at which he
would present himself vrould be the French embassy, for
Berden in his letter of 18/28 December says that Gifford
was ‘ made acquainted with the French convoy for letters.’
This phrase signified that Morgan was secretly allowed to
send his letters in the ambassador’s bag as far as London,
thereby escaping the danger of their being captured at the
ports, the place where they were in the greatest danger.
In London, one of the subordinates in the ambassador’s
house might get into communication with some friend of
Mary’s, and by their means Morgan’s letters might eventu¬
ally find their way in. The French ambassador at that
time was Guillaume de 1’Aubespine, baron de Chateau-
neuf, who wrote a memoir on the plot. A large part
of this paper is preserved to us, and it is frequently cited
1 Morris, Sir Atnias Poulet, pp. 94 and 112.