Series 3 > Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington plot

§ II. CONFESSIONS OF BABINGTON
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some conference and speach tegether touching the taking
of Plymouth haven and that was moved by Tichborne as
being thought by him to be a port of verie great import¬
ance if it could be taken, but he said that ther was neuer
any course resolved upon for the taking of it saving a
pourpose to have drawn Sir John Arundell and Sir William
Curtney 1 to have dealt therein, if they could have ben
persuaded therunto, wherin it was meant that Tych-
bome should have ben used.
(2) He saith that he understood by Pooley, and also by
Savadge, that Yardeley was come over, but he hath had
no talk with Yardeley since his coming over. He saith he
willed Savadge to enquire the cause of his coming, but this
examinate never understood what it was, and as he
thinketh, Savadge never spoke with him of it.
(3) He saith also and protests earnestly upon salvation
of his soule, that to his remembrance he never moved nor
dealt with any touching the act against her Majesties
person, or the invasion of the realme, or the deliuery of
the Scottish Queene, but with such and in such manner as
he hath before declared. Yet he saith he must nedes
confesse that his letters to the Scottish Queene do import
great probabiltie to the contrary.
1 Sir John Arundell of Lanheme, a zealous Catholic {D.N.B., ii. p. 141)
and Cath. Rec. Soc., xiii. 90 n., which also quotes the corrections in Notes
and Queries, nth Series, iii. 415,. 491. Sir William Courtenay, ancestor
of the present Earls of Devon, and then High Sheriff of Devon, was to all
appearances a zealous protestant. But the sanguine Ballard represented
him as ready to join the invaders (Boyd, p. 612). (See § 8 of the previous
examination.)