A Hidden History of the Tower of London by Davis John Paul;

Author:Davis, John Paul;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History / Europe / Great Britain / General
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books Limited
Published: 2020-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

1580–1603: Popish Plots, Pirate Poets and Protestant Politics

The discovery of the Babington Plot was of great significance to the government at the time. Curious about their ultimate intentions, Elizabeth, rather than stamping out the conspiracy immediately, appears to have allowed proceedings to take their natural course and followed them with great interest all the way to the irrelevant trial. Just as would be the case with the infamous gunpowder plotters in years to come, the conspirators were sentenced to be executed in two groups and spared little in the way of mercy. Bound to wooden barrels, they were dragged all the way to Holborn to be hanged, drawn and quartered. A noteworthy piece of literature to survive the period was a three-stanza poem by conspirator Chidiock Tichborne, whose tender writings to his wife give a clear insight into the realities of his plight:

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 fall’n 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.

Babington’s failure effectively signed Mary’s own death warrant, yet it was a clear illustration of Walsingham’s power that the execution came without Elizabeth’s knowledge. Furious on learning of her cousin’s death, she even had one of the officials, Sir William Davison, brought to the Tower for acting on the warrant without royal consent. As punishment for sending the warrant behind the queen’s back, Davison would endure twenty months in the Tower in addition to a hefty fine. Before returning to his original post, he joined the large number of prisoners whose legacy involved writing, his works penned during his incarceration including a justification of his actions and a description of Ireland.

Among those penalised for Babington’s failure was the Jesuit John Ballard, later racked in the basement of the White Tower. Interrogated after his ‘marriage to the Duke of Exeter’s Daughter’, Ballard admitted to knowledge of the conspiracy without giving away further details. He would join Babington in being dragged to Holborn, along with six of their accomplices.

The Jesuit priest John Hart saw his time run out in 1586. Arrested on arrival in Dover from Douai in 1580, Hart experienced the inside of the Tower for

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