Anthony Babington

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Anthony Babington's coat of arms

Anthony Babington (October 24, 1561 – September 20, 1586) was convicted of plotting the assassination of Elizabeth I of England and conspiring with the imprisoned Mary I of Scotland. The "Babington Plot" and Mary's alleged involvement in it were the basis of the treason charges against her which led to her execution.

Born into a wealthy Catholic family to Henry Babington and Mary Darcy in Dethick, Derbyshire, England, he was their third son. His father died in 1571 when he was nine years old, and his mother remarried to Henry Foljambe.

While publicly Protestant, the family remained Catholic. Babington apparently remained in Dethick until about 1577, when he was briefly employed as a page boy in the Earl of Shrewsbury's household. The Earl was at this time the jailer of Mary Queen of Scots and it is likely that it was during this time that Babington became a supporter of Mary's cause to ascend the throne of England. In 1579 he was married to Margery Draycot.

In about 1580, while travelling on the continent, he had met the arch-conspirator Thomas Morgan, and he was persuaded to courier letters to Mary while she was still being held by his former master, the Earl of Shrewsbury. He also assisted the movement of priests in the Catholic Midlands. But by 1586, with Mary removed to the harsher regime of Tutbury and the consequent closing down of communications with her, Babington's role as a courier came to an end. Twice in early 1586 he received letters from France, destined for Mary, but in each case he declined to 'deal further in those affairs'. Indeed, at this time he was considering leaving England for good and was trying to secure a passport along with his Welsh friend Thomas Salisbury but to no avail. As Babington later put it, 'by God's just judgement of our sins' they remained in London.

Babington was not considered the shrewdest of conspirators. In fact the plot bears his name not so much because he was its prime mover, but because he was its weak link. His supposedly secret group of conspirators (or crew as he preferred to call them) frequently dined and received mass together and the plot was in many ways little more than youthful posturing on their part with most of the serious intent being provided by the many government 'projectors' who had infiltrated their ranks. Indeed, to give an example of the arrogance and foolhardiness of Babington, he actually had a group portrait painted of all the main conspirators as a memento of their heroic enterprise. This same portrait was later used by the government to identify and capture the conspirators. Some historians have commented on this 'foolish vanity' of Anthony Babington, and his desire more for Mary's recognition and reward, than for whatever true cause they were hoping to achieve.

During Elizabeth's reign, her court was particularly concerned about the prospect of Mary Stuart coming to the throne. It was a time of great religious tension. The reign of the Catholic monarch Bloody Mary still haunted people and the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre had concentrated the collective mind as to the threat a return to Catholicism could present. Babington was no match for the Queen's security forces, led by Sir Francis Walsingham with its ruthless and cunning spies like Robert Poley. During one of Walsingham's investigations, a suspected subversive named Gilbert Gifford was arrested and interrogated. To avoid punishment, Gifford agreed to act as a double agent. He made contact with the French Embassy in London and arranged the smuggling of letters from Mary Stuart to her followers. This was to be achieved through the use of beer barrels. Gifford ensured that Walsingham was given access to these communications which revealed Mary's requests to the French and Spanish that they intervene on her behalf.

On 6 July 1586 Babington made the fatal step of writing to Mary telling her that he and a group of friends were planning to murder Elizabeth and replace her with Mary. Babington's (and Mary Stuart's) defenders claim that in the sixteenth century it was believed that the killing of tyrants was morally acceptable. However, Babington was troubled by the ethics of assassination so decided to write to Mary to seek her authorization, which he believed she could provide as the legitimate Queen of England. (It was believed by militant Catholics that Elizabeth's claim to the throne was void due to her being the daughter of Anne Boleyn whose marriage to Henry VIII they considered had been illegal in that Henry VIII had still being married to Catherine of Aragon.) Mary made the equally fatal step of replying to Babington, in which she stressed the necessity of foreign aid if the rescue attempt was to succeed. However, she left the matter of the assassination to Babington's conscience. When Walsingham and his officials had gathered sufficient evidence (some of which it is believed they forged), Babington and his crew were rounded up.

On 18 September 1586, Babington and his thirteen co-conspirators were convicted of high treason and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. His offer to Elizabeth of £1000 for his pardon was rejected, and the execution of the first seven (including Babington, John Ballard, and Chidiock Tichborne) took place on the 20th. The condemned men, who were being kept in the Tower of London, were marched down from the death cells, strapped to sledges and pulled by horses through the streets of London. On reaching a specially erected scaffold in St Giles Field near Holborn (close to where Foyles bookshop now stands) they were hanged for a short time before being cut down. Babington and the other men who suffered with him that day were therefore fully conscious whilst being drawn which involved the removal of the genitals and intestines. After this the executioner quartered their bodies and distributed the parts to prominent locations around the city to warn all of the consequences of disloyalty to the monarch. Even by the towering cruelty of the day, the executions were regarded as being especially horrific. Indeed, Queen Elizabeth was so disturbed by reports of the executions that she ordered that the remaining seven conspirators should be left to hang until quite dead prior to their disembowelment.

[edit] Popular fiction

A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley is set at Thackers, the Babington manor house. Narrator Penelope Taberner witnesses young Anthony Babington's growing involvment with Mary I of Scotland as she finds herself passing between her world of the 1940s and the year 1582.