In May 1586 Mary sent two letters, one to the Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, giving her support to an invasion of England. The other was to a supporter, Charles Paget, asking him to remind Phillip of Spain of the urgency for invasion. Both passed through Walsingham’s hands. The following month Sir Anthony Babington and a Catholic priest, John Ballard, were heard discussing the proposed Spanish invasion and the plot to murder Elizabeth.

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All this evidence still did not implicate Mary directly in a plot against Elizabeth. On 17th July Walsingham received what he had been waiting for–a letter, in reply to one from Babington, written by Mary and giving her approval to the plot to murder the Queen. Walsingham moved quickly. Ballard and Babington were arrested and placed in the Tower of London. Others implicated in the plot were rapidly placed under lock and key. On 13th September the conspirators were tried and condemned and a week later Babington, Ballard, and five others were dragged on hurdles to St. Giles Field, Holborn, where, in front of a large crowd, they were hanged, drawn, and quartered.

Despite Walsingham’s proof, Elizabeth was still reluctant to take action against Mary. In October both Houses of Parliament demanded Mary’s head but Elizabeth would not sign. She even pleaded that some way be found to deal with Mary without the need for execution. Both Cecil, by now Lord Burghley, and Walsingham were determined that this should not happen. Together, with the support of the Council of State, they brought constant pressure on the Queen until she eventually signed the warrant on 1st February 1587. Her intention seems to have been to hold the signed warrant as a threat against Mary, but Walsingham would have none of it. At 8 o’clock on the morning of Wednesday, 8th February 1587 Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed in the Great Hall of Fotheringhay Castle. On Walsingham’s orders the body was stripped of all clothing–which was burned so that no relic survived–and encased in lead.

When told of the execution, Elizabeth was furious. Both Walsingham and Cecil were in extreme danger from their monarch’s temper. She refused to see them and, for a while, Cecil dared not go to Court.

Walsingham, meanwhile, was hard at work preparing for the inevitable invasion by Spain; an invasion that through the skill of English seamen and the luck of the weather, never came. Cecil acknowledged the debt England owed this worker behind the scenes when he said, ‘you have fought more with your pen than many here in our English navy with their enemies.’

Elizabeth was notoriously sparing with honours for her public servants. Only one, William Cecil, received a peerage. Francis Walsingham was knighted in 1577 and he received the honourary appointments of Chancellor of the Order of the Garter and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

When he died on 6th April 1590, the news was carried to Philip II of Spain via a letter from one of his agents in England. The agent wrote: ‘Secretary Walsingham has just expired, at which there is much sorrow.’ Philip commented in the margin of the letter, ‘There, yes. But it is good news here.’

This article was written by Alan Freer for British Heritage magazine.

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