Series 3 > Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington plot

60 MARY STUART AND THE BABINGTON PLOT
brought: the which no doubt I had don, if [I] might haue
bene in assured hope of pardone for the rest, whome I
loved so muche that I could not indure to discouer it to
there overthrowe.
This lingeringe, as no man of resolved malice could haue
don in a case so extreame daungerous, we debated obiter
(to entertayne the tyme and their expectations) of many
fowle practices, as What if the shippes wfere burned ?
which I liked not, beinge the strengthe of the realme.
Ballard said the gunnes might be poysoned they could
never be discharged. Pooly saide it was convenient for to
take awaye my L. of Leycester by poyson or violence. I
thought there were men, and he meanes, to doe it.
He named likewise my L. Threasurer and Mr Secretarye,
who mighte easely be taken away.
These three thinges beinge onlie spoken of, rested so ;
and was not resolued by whome nor when, neyther in what
exprese manner, nor assuredly to be put in execution at all.1
They still cryed out of my delaye 2 as a thinge tendinge
to the discouerye therof. I excused it with the expecta¬
tion of Gilbert Gifford’s retorne,3 uppon which I did affirme
somewhat to be don.
[§ 9, f. 221. Gilbert Gifford revives the plot,
June 26 to July 11.]
Gilbert Gifford before this was come over to Savadge,
muche discontented that he left of to execute what he
had vowed, and that he could not be discharged in con¬
science, vppon the pretences which I made,'of his dis-
continvance from prosecutinge the same ; all which he
harde as meare delayes.
1 See Interrogation 7. 2 See Interrogation 8.
3 Gilbert made two journeys abroad, and two returns. The plot was
only started after the first return, in early June. So the only return which
could have been expected, was the second, at the end of June. As to this
he said in his confession, ‘ Revera autem ex parte mea totum hoc ideo erat
factum ut negotium illud de interficienda Regina Angliae conficeretur,
quod tunc agebatur.' This is said in regard of ‘ ultimi mei reditus in
Angliam.’—Hatfield Calendar, iii. 348, 14 August 1588.