Series 3 > Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington plot

INTRODUCTION
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conspirators. He accepted the leadership at the request
of others, and his idea of leading was to insist on ‘ lingering.’
In the end he showed an undignified resentment against
Ballard for having induced him to undertake the part of
a traitor.
There is no trace of his having been infatuated with
Mary Stuart. It was love of religion and of country which
inspired him. But youth, wealth, inexperience, and over-
confidence in his considerable gifts, made him the sort
of prey on whom Morgan and Walsingham, with their
respective adherents, were only too anxious to fasten
their talons.
2. Babington and Ballard.
Here is Babington’s account of Ballard’s visit to him,
some sentences of which were quoted in the last chapter:
‘ About the end of May last, as I remember, there came unto
me at London, at my lodgings in Herne’s Rents, one Ballard
a man whom I had known before his departure into France.
He told me he was returned on this occasion. Being with
Mendoza he was informed that in regard of the injuries done
by our State unto the greatest Christian Princes—by the
nourishing of sedition and division in their provinces [that is
in France and Flanders], by withholding violently the lawful
possession of some [as in Zeeland] by the invasion of the
[Western] Indies, by piracy and robbery of treasure, and
other wrongs, intolerable for so great and mighty princes
to endure—it was resolved by the Catholic League to seek
redress and satisfaction. This they had vowed to perform
this summer without further delay, having in readiness such
forces and warlike preparations, the like was never seen in
these parts of Christendom.
‘ The Pope was the chief disposer, the Most Christian King,
and the King Catholic, with all other Princes of the League,
concurred as instruments for the righting of their wrongs, and
for the reformation of religion.’
[Later on Babington says that ‘ Ballard from the mouth of