Review Essay on Spying in Elizabeth I's Reign

 

Paul Dean, Head of English at Summer Fields School, Oxford, reviews two books for The New Criterion about the spy network operating in England during the reign of Elizabeth I. One is a new biography of Sir Francis Walsingham, which must be the third biography in the past five to ten years, The Queen's Agent by John Cooper; the other is a book I've mentioned before: The Watchers by Stephen Alford. A couple of excerpts:

A “loyal Catholic” was a contradiction in terms. Since the queen had been excommunicated by Pope Pius V’s bull Regnans in excelsis in 1570—which, incidentally, prompts the surprising reflection that England remained technically a Catholic country for the first twelve years of her reign—her Catholic subjects had been released from obedience to her or her laws. (John Cooper, however, remarks that the bull was not widely publicized in England and suggests that “most English Catholics never saw a copy.”) Many priests and laity worked actively to overthrow and replace her, first by Mary Queen of Scots, then, after the latter’s execution for treason in 1587—an act which was forced upon a reluctant Elizabeth by her ministers, who had effectively rigged the case against her royal cousin—by King Philip of Spain. Alford’s book tells the stories of many plotters on both sides: some, like John Somerville, minor figures, others among the great of the land. Intriguing though these stories are, they give the work an episodic feel; it lacks the narrative drive of Cooper’s biography of Walsingham (which Alford seems not to know). Where they cover the same ground, Cooper is usually clearer and more perceptive.

and

Cooper sensibly warns us of the danger of reading history written by the victors: “The myth that Catholicism is somehow alien to Englishness has had a long and corrosive effect on the national memory of the British Isles.” The first generation of Catholic missionary priests did not seek Elizabeth’s overthrow—indeed, Pope Pius IV offered to leave the Church of England undisturbed if only Catholics were granted freedom to worship. Cardinal Allen’s seminary at Douai, founded in 1568, initially encouraged its graduates to go to England to give pastoral support to Catholic families, not to make converts. (Allen himself, however, advocated the invasion of England by the powers of France and Spain.) Several priests prayed for the queen on the scaffold. Walsingham was uneasy about so many executions—not from humane motives, but because he felt that to create martyrs was to play into the enemy’s hands. It became increasingly difficult, and finally impossible, for many Catholics to take the oath of loyalty which was imposed on every citizen, requiring them “to withstand, pursue, and suppress” anyone designing to hurt the queen. Meanwhile, parliamentary legislation of the 1570s and 1580s, steered through by Walsingham, greatly extended the legal definition of treason.

Commenting on Cooper's explanation of Walsingham's involvement in the downfall of Mary, Queen of Scots, Dean notes:

Walsingham alone, the spider in the center of the web, saw the whole picture. Propelled by his extreme Protestant zeal, he was not above bypassing the law in order to gain his ends. He even recruited a Catholic priest, Gilbert Gifford, by whose means he was able to intercept correspondence between Mary, Queen of Scots and her contacts in Paris, and thereby unmask the Babington plot. (Among the plotters, by the way, was Chidiock Tichborne, whose poem written on the eve of his execution, “My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,” is a small masterpiece.) Gifford was trained by Thomas Phelippes, Walsingham’s chief cipher specialist, about whom Alford writes interestingly. Phelippes and Walsingham went so far as to add a coded postscript to one of Mary’s letters to Babington, using wording which would support a charge of treason against her. Also working on this case was Robert Poley, who was implicated in the death of Marlowe and was probably acting on government orders. (Alford’s downplaying of the evidence for Marlowe’s espionage activity as “sketchy and circumstantial” is questionable.) Babington realized too late that Poley might not be reliable, and wrote him a heartrending note: “I am the same I always pretended. I pray God you be so.” Babington’s inevitable execution in 1586 was made exceptionally brutal; on the personal orders of Elizabeth, “for more terror,” he was rent limb from limb. Mary, being royal, was beheaded, although Elizabeth would have preferred her quietly murdered in private, and even tried to persuade her jailer to do the deed himself.

Read the rest here. Remember, though, that the public reaction to Babington's horrible execution led Elizabeth to withdraw that order: the other conspirators were hung until dead, then cut up and their body parts displayed as the usual warning to plotters.

Spying in Elizabethan England

Appropriately enough after yesterday's post on the Babington Plot and Sir Francis Walsingham's spy network against Mary, Queen of Scots, here is a review from the U.K. Guardian newspaper of a book about spying in Elizabethan England:

The age of Elizabeth I, so often celebrated as a period of glorious national achievement, was one of intense insecurity. Beset by enemies at home and abroad, the Queen knew that her hold on the crown was always precarious. The Catholic powers of Europe regarded her as a heretic and a bastard. Pope Pius V tried to depose her. Philip II of Spain attempted armed invasion. The loyalty of English Catholics, unreconciled to her Protestant church settlement, was always in doubt.

Elizabeth created further anxiety by persistently refusing to nominate her successor. The stability of the regime thus depended entirely on her own personal survival. As one MP put it in 1567: "If God should take her Majestie, the succession being not established, I know not what shall become of myself, my wife, my children, lands, goods, friends or country."

Feelings of anxiety and distrust were intensified by an unending series of conspiracies and assassination plots. The Rising of the Northern Earls in 1569, the Ridolfi Plot of 1569-71, the Throckmorton Plot of 1583 and the Babington Plot of 1585-6 were only the best publicised of repeated attempts to dethrone the Queen by insurrection, foreign invasion or simple assassination. There were three such plots in 1596 alone. Many of these conspiracies sought to replace Elizabeth with the Catholic Mary Stuart, the ex-Queen of the Scots who had taken refuge in England after her forced abdication in 1568, and whose strong hereditary claim to the succession was terminated only by her execution in 1587. . . .

Confronted by these threats, the Elizabethan government embarked on a draconian policy of counter-terrorism. The laws of treason were extended to catch not just those who questioned Elizabeth's right to rule, but all missionary priests and those who sheltered them. Torture was not permitted by the common law, but special powers were invoked to justify its regular use to extract information from Catholic suspects. The procedure in treason trials gave the accused no chance of offering an adequate defence, and unsafe convictions were common. The standard penalty for traitors was to be hanged, cut down when still alive, castrated, disembowelled and dismembered. Over 100 Catholic priests suffered this fate. This was not enough for Elizabeth, who wanted her Privy Councillors to devise an even more terrible death for the Babington conspirators, who had planned to murder her.

In my book collection I have this interesting title, Tudor Underground, by Denis Meadows. Kirkus Reviews wasn't that thrilled in 1950, but perhaps I'll read it again some day:

Personalities, hangings and quarterings, spies and Elizabethan religious turmoil provide a tempestuous background for a relatively pallid story of religious conversion. Hugh Rampling, young Catholic heir of an aquiline-nosed (and therefore, of course, loyal) English family attempts to align his hereditary Catholicism with a neutralized religious position which his career with the Protestant Principal Secretary, of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Francis Walsingham, demands. Aiding in the Secretary's spy ring formed to root out Catholic infiltration into England, Hugh, in successful adventures with a female demon aiding the purge, pursuers in Rome and in other narrow squeaks, is on the way up. However, in the midst of this uneasy neutrality, Hugh meets one of the most coveted prizes of the State -- Father Persons, a Jesuit priest. Not only does the priest induce Hugh to allow him and other followers to escape, but brings Hugh back into the fold, and positive action for the Catholic mission. Some elements of a good story here, but Hugh as the hero is the usual blank cartridge bright boy not peculiarly adaptive to heavenly meditation. A sprawling, uneven historical.

Anthony Babington and His Eponymous Plot

Anthony Babington was executed at St. Gile's Field on September 20, 1586, along with a Jesuit priest, John Ballard and several other conspirators--Chidiock Tichborne, Thomas Salisbury, Henry Donn among them. As traitors, of course, they were hung, drawn and quartered, but their executions and sufferings were so extreme--especially considering their relative youth--that the onlookers began to have sympathy for them. Queen Elizabeth ordered that the rest of the traitors to be executed were to be hung until dead (then cut up per the standard operating procedure).

Babington involved the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots in his plot to assassinate Elizabeth and bring Mary to the throne of England and this led to her execution within months. Beyond the plot's murderous intent, the disturbing aspect of this conspiracy is that Elizabeth's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, knew about the plot because he had a double agent in place who also served as an agent provocateur. There is an element of entrapment--especially regarding Mary's replies to correspondence--in Walsingham's handling of the matter.

Young Chidiock Tichborne wrote an elegy while in the Tower which gained some fame with its haunting contrasts (note that all but one of the words is but one syllable):

Tichborne’s Elegy
Written with His Own Hand in the Tower Before His Execution

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain;
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

My tale was heard and yet it was not told,
My fruit is fallen and yet my leaves are green,
My youth is spent and yet I am not old,
I saw the world and yet I was not seen;
My thread is cut and yet it is not spun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

I sought my death and found it in my womb,
I looked for life and saw it was a shade,
I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb,
And now I die, and now I was but made;
My glass is full, and now my glass is run,
And now I live, and now my life is done.