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