Series 3 > Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington plot

124 MARY STUART AND THE BABINGTON PLOT
and in such a matter he would not have knowingly exaggerated. The
f minute ’ of his note (D.E., cxcix. 96) informs Gifford that ‘ Her
Majesty has promised you 100 li. pension by the year for your service.’
This pension, continues Phelippes, together with your father’s allow¬
ance, will royally maintain you. The advice I gave you ‘ to be a good
husband grew from a friend upon complaints in a former letter that
you were bare. ’ Finally he was to become a spy and informer, and was
to write to Walsingham, to Phelippes, and also on selected topics for
the Queen’s own eye. This letter would have been written about
15 April, and when it reached Gilbert he had been in Paris since
the 21st.
On its receipt Gifford was quite carried off his legs with delight.
Being unable at first to distinguish what would please the English
Queen, he sent a ' rhapsody ’ of everything he could think of, with offers
of murder, kidnapping, and thievery. (1, 7, or 10 May, the original is
D.E., cc. 48; a selection from it by Phelippes is in Harleian MS. 290,
printed by Boyd, p. 411. See also below, p. 174.)
What Phelippes selected from this for the Queen, we do not know.
None of Gilbert’s letters at this period seem to be so clever as those
which were intended to deceive Mary, but only few are preserved.
There was a reason too for his want of news, as the execution of Mary
had robbed the English Catholics of all romance and almost all hope of
liberty, except through Spain, which was distant, slow, inactive. On
25 May Gilbert writes that the best thing to do would be to get
some spy established near the Prince of Parma, Philip n.’s commander-
in-chief, while he rather quaintly promises ‘ neither will I let anything
pass so sliberly as heretofore.’ Phelippes in his emended edition writes
the word ‘slipperly.’
If this refers to others, the sense will be disparaging, and ‘ sliberly ’
may be akin to ‘ slipshod ’: if, however, it refers to himself, the mean¬
ing will be laudatory, and the word will mean c deftly,’ as Dutch
‘slim.’
After this there are only letters to him from Phelippes in June and
September. From the last of these we learn that our spy has found a
lodging in the same house as Morgan. Phelippes suggests that, if
Morgan wants to go to Rome, Gilbert might offer to be his corre¬
spondent at Paris. But in the meantime he is to be very much indeed
upon his guard against the ruse Welshman, and he is always to keep
his cipher key sewn up in his doublet. For the present Gilbert should
employ himself in unravelling the case of Roger Walton, whom Sir
Edward Stafford, the English ambassador at Paris, had commended, but
whom Walsingham had clapped into prison on his arrival (D.E.,
cciii. 36).
This reminds one of the commissions Gilbert used to receive to test
‘ the honest man ’ and other instruments. But now the result of the
trial verified the proverb, ‘ set a thief to catch a thief, and you have
them both. ’ The rival sharper against whom Gilbert Gifford was now