Series 3 > Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington plot

SECTION III
LETTERS OF GILBERT GIFFORD
Gilbert Gifford’s Correspondence. —As Gilbert Gilford was a prime-
mover in the plot, and as his movements, operations, and methods are
still imperfectly known, all his letters at this period are naturally of
great importance. Only nine written during the plot survive, about
twenty-eight letters from him, and seventeen to or about him remain
for the subsequent years. All the plot letters are printed here in full.
The subsequent correspondence is treated briefly in an Appendix, in
which all the correspondence is indicated, and the confessions about the
plot are described more fully.
Gilbert Gifford, it will be remembered, had been educated abroad,
and his English shows evident traces of this. That he was clever and
intelligent in no ordinary degree will not escape the notice of the
student; but the signs of instability and want of discipline are also
but too clear. His signatures differ widely. In later letters such
irregularities show themselves more than ever. ‘The profanity of
this letter is singular,’ wrote .Father Morris, p, 380, about one of
them.
The first letter was written to Curll when Gilbert was about to start
on his first journey {above, pp. 1, 5) to bring back his cousin. Doctor
William, in order to make him a stalking-horse for the ruin of Mary’s
friends. He is going, we may say, on a mission for blood, but nothing
of the sort appears on the surface. Thomas Barnes (here called ‘ my
kinsman,’ possibly a deceit) has been, engaged to carry letters in his
stead ; and Gilbert is using all his arts—he is mild, unctuous, chatty, in
order to flatter Mary into feeling that all is well. The student should
be especially critical! Where the writer uses strong but vague terms—
like ‘ for very necessity,’ ‘ I fear too true,’ ‘ Doubt not any default in
my substitutes’—he will do well to think more than once. The assump¬
tion now of a pro-Spanish tone, now of one against Elizabeth, is
sufficiently notable. Mary’s love of news is known, and repeatedly
played upon.