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The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
Babington Plot is in 1580-1599 Babington Plot and Execution of Mary Queen of Scots.
On 6th July 1586 Anthony Babington wrote to Mary Queen of Scots, telling her that he and a group of friends were planning to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland.
On 4th August 1586 John Ballard was arrested and, under torture, he confessd and implicated Anthony Babington.
After 4th August 1586 Christopher Wray passed sentence of death on those implicated.
On 20th September 1586 Anthony Babington, John Ballard, Henry Donn, Thomas Salusbury and Chideock Tichbourne were hanged at St Giles' Field Holborn.
On 21st September 1586 Robert Gage was executed for his involvement in the Babington Plot.
The Bardon Papers 9. Correspondence Between Mary Stuart And Anthony Babington. June-August, 1586. [Egerton MSS. 2124, ff. 57-64.]
The Bardon Papers 9. (a) Mary to Babington. June 25, 1586. This letter, reopening Mary's intercourse with Babington which had been interrupted some years before, appears to have been written at the suggestion of Thos. Morgan, Mary's agent in Paris (cf. Morgan to Mary 31 April/9 May 1586. Murdin p. 513). Claude Nau, Mary's secretary, declared that Morgan had actually dictated the terms of the letter (Labanoff, vii. p. 208). Four copies of this letter, one in French and three in English, are preserved in the Record Office (S. P. Mary Q. of S. xix. nos. 9-12). The French version contains also a copy of Babington's and Curie's attestation of the letter. There are other copies in the British Museum.
The Bardon Papers 9. (b) Babington to Mary. [6] July, 1586.
This letter is undated, but Sepp (Briefwechsel etc. p. 28 11. 9) has advanced good reasons to show that it was written about the 6th of July. There are three English copies and one French copy of it in the Record Office (S. P. Mary Q. of S. xix. nos. 9-12). The French version includes a copy of Curie's attestation. Other contemporary copies are preserved in the British Museum and elsewhere. Lingard argues (vol. vi. p. 415, n. 3) that Babington wrote this letter before he had received Mary's of June 23rd, citing as evidence the testimony of Nau. The value of Nau's testimony upon a point like this, he being a prisoner with Mary at the time Babington received the letter, is certainly very questionable. Lingard cites as further evidence the fact that Babington makes no specific mention of Mary's letter in his own. This is true, but it does not seem sufficient to outweigh the fact that some days after Mary had written to Babington, when he had had time to receive her letter, he wrote to her, not directly acknowledging her letter to be sure, but apologizing at the very outset for his long silence, of which Mary had spoken in her letter to him.
The numerals printed along the margin occur, in the same fashion, in the manuscript. Their significance is not quite clear.
The Bardon Papers 9. (d) Mary to Babington. 17 July, 1586
This is a copy of the famous letter from Mary to Babington upon which the whole question of her complicity in the plot to murder Elizabeth practically turns. Labanoff found eight contemporary copies of it, of which four are preserved in the Record Office, three in the British Museum and one in France. The French copy of the letter in the Record Office (S. P Mary Q. of S. xviii. no. 51) includes a copy of the attestations of Babington, of Nau and of Curie. Labanoff believes that this letter is partly genuine, but that certain passages have been interpolated. These passages are inclosed in square brackets. A discussion of Labanoff's views, which have been adopted by many of Mary's defenders, will be found in Appendix III.
The significance of the figures printed along the margin, which are reproduced from the manuscript, is not clear.
The Bardon Papers 9. (e) Babington to Mary. 3 August, 1586.
Four copies of this letter exist in the Record Office, three in English and one in French (S. P. Mary Q. of S. xix. nos. 9-12). It was the last letter that Babington wrote to Mary before his capture. Babington was probably quite right in accusing Maude of treachery, but it was of course not Maude, but Babington's own letters, which revealed his plans to the English Government1.
Note 1. This man Maude is an elusive fellow, and probably if more could be found out about him, more light could be thrown upon this whole matter. Camden declared that he was one of Walsingham's spies and that he accompanied Ballard on his voyage to France and wrung from him all his secrets (Annals of Eliz. (ed. 1635) p. 302). Robert Poley in his confession (S. P. Mary Q. of S. xix no. 26) said that Babington told him that Maude and Ballard went to France together. This confirms Camden's statement in part. It appears also from the confession of one Tipping, a man who was examined in connection with the Babington plot, that Maude accompanied Ballard when he went north in June 1586 (cf. Summary of Confessions. S. P. Mary Q. of S. xix no. 91 p. 28). Neither of these witnesses however confirms Camden's statement that Maude was a spy of Walsingham. Yet the presumption is that such was the case. The strange silence in regard to him is significant. Though accused by both Poley and Tipping, he was never called into question. This curious neglect of his case struck Edward Windsor, one of those who were more or less implicated in Babington's schemes but who escaped death to suffer imprisonment in the Tower. On the 30th of May 1587 he complained bitterly in a letter to Sir Christopher Hatton that though Maude had been, first to last, deeply implicated in the conspiracy, he had never been brought to trial (R.O. S.P. Dorn, cci, no. 50).
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