Series 3 > Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington plot

INTRODUCTION
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need not reject everything that he says. He will be rational
enough when not afraid. We can also assist ourselves
by comparing his charges and his recantations, though
we must remember that the latter also may be subject to
some exaggeration.
Though Tyrrell’s libels are sometimes gross, as those
against the Pope, Dr. Allen, and the Earl of Arundel
(evidently because they occupied high positions), his more
usual fault is that of adopting a bitter, exaggerated, or
melodramatic tone, while recounting the experiences of a
catholic missionary of those days. Even when he is not
lying, he is a bad witness, making minor misrepresentations
in order to curry favour with his protestant masters.1
With these cautions for and against Tyrrell’s evidence,
we may now go over his story.
3. A Pilgrimage to Rome, March 1584 to January 1585.
Tyrrell’s story2 then informs us that Foscue, as he
always calls Ballard, with the rest of their party landed at
Dives, Normandy, and went on to Rouen, where Tyrrell
had a sister, Gertrude, a Bridgettine nun. Thence to Eu,
and they meant to have spent some time in the neighbour¬
hood, when they were summoned by Dr. Allen to the
Seminary of Rheims, where they arrived during the Easter
holidays. In his Confessions he says that they here heard
rtiany heinous treasons against the Queen, of which he gives
1 Examples of this may be found by comparing his account of Mr. Bold
(Boyd, p. 653) with Bold’s own account (Ibid., pp. 697, 698). See also
below, Babington, Examinations, viii. §§ 12 to 16, and the parallel passages
there noted. Also Catholic Record Society, v. 107, some tests for his
account of the martyr priest, Thomas Alfield. The retraction of nine
charges against the Earl and Countess of Arundel in Hatfield Calendar, iii.
2 This he told several times : in his Confessions of 30 and 31 August
(Boyd, pp. 641, 643), also in a memoir, printed in the Fall of A. Tyrell,
in Morris, Troubles, ii. 325, etc.