Series 3 > Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington plot

§ III. LETTERS OF GILBERT GIFFORD 111
course, onlie he hathe felte the disposition of mens mindes,
wch he hathe written to M[organ\ and ¥[aget\ the answer
wherof when he shall receue I will immediatlie informe
youre ho:
D. Gc\ifford’s] cominge is most necessarie, for M[organ]
and P[agei] with they reste will imparte all thinges to
him, wch I am to we assured I shall knowe, for he can
hide nothing from me ; wherfore the sooner he were sente
for, the better leasure we shall haue to prouide for theire
diulishe deisier; and if youre ho: thinke expediente my
selfe will goe for him. Or, if my abode heare will be
necessarie, fearinge leste ballart shoulde seeke him selfe to
occupie my place w% O [Q. Mary\ in my absence, then I
truste youre honor will provoide for his moste speedie
cominge, as a thinge wherof greate and vnspeakable good
dothe depende. Thus comittinge youre ho: to Allmightie
god this xij of Julie.—Youre ho: seruante to commande,
Endorsed, ‘ Secret Aduertisements ’ from G. G.
No. 31
NOTES FROM THREE LETTERS BY GILBERT
GIFFORD TO WALSINGHAM
[London, ? 14, ? 15, ? 16 July 1586.]
B.M. Harleian MS. 360, f. 27. The same hand appears at f. 10.
On 9 September Walsingham wrote to ask Phelippes for ‘such secret
advertisements as you have received from Ber[den], G.G[ifford] and Cat[lyn],’
Boyd, p. 704. During the critical days of July Phelippes had been at
Chartley, and so Gilbert’s notes to Walsingham may have been sent on to
the decipherer there ; perhaps they went there directly (Phelippes’s letter of
19 July, Morris, p. 235, seems to contain a report of one of the notes below).
Our paper of notes, endorsed 10 September, is clearly a consequence of
Walsingham’s letter, probably drawn up by some secretary of Walsingham’s
from the papers sent in by Phelippes. (There is also a summary of letters
from Berden, Boyd, p. 123, but they were of an earlier date, so probably
made on a different occasion.) Of the letters here summarised, the second,
called B, is preserved, and will be given at No. 33.
There seems to have been no date, signature, or address on the letters of
Gifford, only the mark If. This is characteristic of Gilbert in these anxious
moments. It will be noticed in the headlines that the scribe took ‘ A ’ as the