Series 3 > Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington plot

lx MARY STUART AND THE BABINGTON PLOT
Gifford must have been passed in to Mary about the
28th or 29th, for on the 31st her answer was written and
passed out again. Mary was nowr quite convinced of the
safety and practicability of the channel of communication,
and, so far as she was concerned, Gifford’s plans were
already successful.
But just at this moment a cloud passed over the re¬
lationships of Sir Amias and ‘ your friend.’ Instead of
bringing the letters back to Chartley after dusk,1 Gifford
sent a note to the Knight, asking him to appoint a trusty
messenger to whom he might deliver them. The sus¬
picious Puritan at once took alarm. He answered that
he ‘ had learned not to trust two, where it sufficed to trust
one.’ So Gifford came ‘ late in the night, the 5th of this
present ’ February, and handed him all that he had re¬
ceived. Yet he did not altogether satisfy Mary’s keeper.
He let out that he knew that the letter to the French
ambassador had a cipher in it, which showed that he had
been prying to some purpose. Moreover, he ‘ doubled in
his speech once or twice.’ In short, the rigid but sharp
Sir Amias felt that he was dealing with a trickster, in whom
he felt no confidence. Still, he did not like to press hardly
on Walsingham’s ‘ friend,’ so he contented himself with
warning his chief. His diffidence melted away but slowly,
as the correspondence proceeded so successfully from his
point of view.
Mary’s letter, as we have said, contained her full assent
to the continuation of the correspondence. This assent
was conveyed in the following words, which need a slight
explanation : ‘ Send me by this bearer all the packets,
which you and Cherelles have in hand for me, but enclose
them in a small box or bag of strong leather.’ The clause
1 The secret letters seem always to have come in before dawn or after
dusk.