FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   >>  
tory by the name of Babington's conspiracy. Babington was a young gentleman of fortune, who lived in the heart of England. He was inspired with a strong degree of interest in Mary's fate, and wished to rescue her from her captivity. He joined himself with a large party of influential individuals of the Catholic faith. The conspirators opened negotiations with the courts of France and Spain for aid. They planned an insurrection, the assassination of Elizabeth, the rescue of Mary, and a general revolution. They maintained a correspondence with Mary. This correspondence was managed very secretly, the letters being placed by a confidential messenger in a certain hole in the castle wall where Queen Mary was confined. One day, when Mary was going out to ride, just as she was entering her carriage, officers suddenly arrived from London. They told her that the plot in which she had been engaged had been discovered; that fourteen of the principal conspirators had been hung, seven on each of two successive days, and that they had come to arrest some of her attendants and to seize her papers. They accordingly went into her apartments, opened all her desks, trunks, and cabinets, seized her papers, and took them to London. Mary sat down in the scene of desolation and disorder which they left, and wept bitterly. The papers which were seized were taken to London, and Elizabeth's government began seriously to agitate the question of bringing Mary herself to trial. One would have thought that, in her forlorn and desolate condition, she would have looked to her son for sympathy and aid. But rival claimants to a crown can have little kind feeling to each other, even if they are mother and son. James, as he gradually approached toward maturity, took sides against his mother. In fact, all Scotland was divided, and was for many years in a state of civil war: those who advocated Mary's right to the crown on one side, and James's adherents on the other. They were called king's men and queen's men. James was, of course, brought up in hostility to his mother, and he wrote to her, about a year before Babington's conspiracy, in terms so hostile and so devoid of filial love, that his ingratitude stung her to the heart. "Was it for this," she said, "that I made so many sacrifices, and endured so many trials on his account in his early years? I have made it the whole business of my life to protect and secure his rights, and to open before him a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   >>  



Top keywords:
Babington
 

papers

 

London

 
mother
 

Elizabeth

 

opened

 

correspondence

 

conspirators

 

rescue

 

conspiracy


seized

 
bringing
 

maturity

 
gradually
 
question
 

approached

 

sympathy

 

agitate

 

looked

 

feeling


forlorn

 

condition

 

claimants

 

thought

 

desolate

 
called
 

sacrifices

 

endured

 

ingratitude

 

hostile


devoid

 

filial

 
trials
 

account

 

secure

 

rights

 

protect

 

business

 

advocated

 

Scotland


divided
 
hostility
 

brought

 

adherents

 

government

 
assassination
 

general

 
revolution
 
maintained
 

insurrection