Series 3 > Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington plot

INTRODUCTION
Ixi
about giving Gifford all the packets is clear enough. It
is what he had been aiming at from the beginning, and
enabled him now to pick and choose what he liked or
thought most convenient for his purpose, or as Phelippes
might instruct. We even find him using this order, as a
warrant for opening thick packets and making them lighter,
and, vice versa, for putting more into thin packets. The
object of this move was, of course, to have a free hand in
breaking seals without going to the trouble of closing them,
and pretending that they had not been opened.
Even more significant was the little phrase about the
box, or leather bag. It may be remembered that Sir Amias
had managed so well at Chartley, that the imprisoned
Queen had practically no chance of sending out letters even
by the laundry-maids.1 Yet there was still one, and only
one, uncontrolled outlet.
The brewery was small, and it was necessary to employ
a brewer who lived at Burton, and brought in his beer in
barrels, which he fetched away again when empty. Sir
Amias’s guards watched the casks closely, both going and
coming, but never thought of looking inside them. Gilbert
or Phelippes had the idea of bringing the letters within
the barrels; fitting them, it would seem, into a corked
tube which would slip through the bung-hole.2
In the! curious cant adopted by Poulet, this brewer is
called ‘ the honest man,’ his dishonesty to both sides being
such that it is positively amusing, and gives a slight inter¬
lude of comedy in a tragedy otherwise sufficiently sad and
sordid. ‘ The honest man ’ (we do not know his real name)
had previously supplied Tutbury with beer, so that he was
1 ‘ I cannot imagine how it may be possible for them to convey a piece
of paper as big as my finger.’ (Poulet to Walsingham, Morris, p. 126.)
2 This is Chateauneuf’s contemporary account, Labanoff, vi. 284. But
Camden (1607) writes as though the letters were left behind a brick in
the wall. Annales (ed. 1625), p. 438. English Translation, p. 305.