The conspirators met in taverns around St. Giles’ and in Babington’s house in Barbican and there worked out their conspiracy. Elizabeth was to be assassinated, Mary set free and set on the throne. Catholics throughout the country would rally to her help. The Pope gave his sanction and Philip of Spain would help—with his fast-growing Armada if necessary.
Letters had been smuggled into the prison of the Queen of Scots by a most ingenious method. Corked tubes had been fabricated in which letters could be concealed and these were inserted into the beer barrels which were carried into the Queen’s apartments. When the Queen had read the letters she could insert her answers into the tube and put them back into the empty barrels which would be returned to the brewer. It seemed foolproof and would have been if the brewer had not been in the pay of Walsingham as well as the Queen. Thus the letters which were inserted in the full barrels and the replies that went into the empty ones were all conveyed to Amyas Paulet—the Queen’s jailor at that time—and passed on to Walsingham. In this way Elizabeth’s Secretary of State knew every twist and turn of the Babington Plot as it was worked out.
He had not hastened to make an arrest as he wished to draw as many into the net as possible and his great desire was to incriminate the Queen of Scots so thoroughly that Elizabeth would have no alternative but to send her to the scaffold.
Now the arrests were being made and an excitement was running through the country because it was said that so deeply was the Queen of Scots implicated that this would be the plot to end all plots.
I was in a state of great tension as I always was when stories of plots came to light. My first thought was: Is Roberto involved in this?
We heard the names of men arrested. Roberto’s was not among them, but each day I expected to hear that he was taken.
Jake had come back. He was full of excitement because he said at any time now the Spaniard would strike.
He had heard of Manuela’s attack on my life and I was gratified to see that he was disturbed by it.
“Spaniards!” he cried. “I should never have taken them into my house.” Then he took me by the shoulders and looked at me intently.
I said: “Are you thinking that you might have rid yourself of me?”
He laughed. “’Tis true, I might. But I’ve a feeling not many would get the better of you.”
“Except you perhaps.”
“Of a certainty. Me of course!”
He laughed and held me against him.
I said: “At one time I thought you were planning to rid yourself of me and take a younger woman to wife.”
He nodded, pretending to consider the idea.
“Romilly, for instance. She has borne you one son. She is young enough to bear others.”
“Now you are putting temptation in my way.”
“That does not have to put it in your way. And men such as you do not give themselves time to be tempted. What is there they take and to the devil with the consequences.”
“It’s the way to live, Cat.”
“Is it? To bring your bastards to your lawful wife?”
“I brought none to you. You brought two to me and Penn was born here. Did I not allow you to bring yours?”
The thought of Roberto weakened me.
Jake put his hands about my throat and laughed at me.
“All I would have to do is press a little.”
“Well, why don’t you?”
“Because shrew that you are, mother of daughters, I have decided I’ll not replace you yet.”
Then he kissed me with a rare tenderness which moved me somewhat. He pulled my hair as he did the boys’ now and then. I knew it to be a gesture of affection.
“I’m impatient, Cat,” he said. “Here I am kicking my heels … waiting … waiting for the Spaniard! We’ve got to be ready for him when he comes. God’s Death! It could be today. It could be tomorrow. Why does he delay? And now this traitor Babington. By God! He’ll suffer the traitor’s death and I hope they linger over it. He would have killed our Queen; he would have set the Scottish whore on the throne. It is time her head parted company with her shoulders. I would hang, draw and quarter any man who gave his sanction to such treachery.”
Oh, Roberto, I thought. Where are you, Roberto?
I said: “They have caught all the conspirators?”
“Who knows? There may be others. Walsingham’s sly. He knows when to pounce. He gives them a little license … the better to bring in more. We have to stamp them out, Cat. Every one of them … traitors to England, friends of our enemy Spain! I’d like to blow that country off the Earth.”
How fierce he was—his eyes blazing blue fire.
Oh, Roberto, I thought, where are you?
I knew he would come. It was a premonition perhaps. He would come at night and he would come to me as he had before. I was tense, waiting. Some maternal instinct was preparing me, so I must have slept lightly and I was ready when I heard the clod of earth thrown at the window.
I crept silently out of bed, terrified that I might awaken Jake.
I knew it of course, Roberto had come. How could he stay near London and the Court at such a time when Babington was captured and but for the ingenuity of Walsingham’s spy system, the Queen might have been assassinated and a Catholic Queen set up on the throne?
If Roberto’s name had been on the list found in Throckmorton’s house, Walsingham would have his spies watching him. Even if he had not been involved in the Babington Plot, and it seemed he had not, he might be formulating others.
I slipped out of bed and looked down. I saw him clearly in the moonlight. He was looking up at my window.
I looked back at the bed. Jake, I thanked God, was a heavy sleeper and he was fast asleep now. I signed to Roberto. He understood and pointed in the direction of the hut. I nodded and went back to bed. He would understand that Jake was with me.
I went back to bed, shivering.
The hut was not the safe place it had been. My adventure there had called attention to it. Jake had even said he might have some building done to it and make it into a dwelling place for some of the servants.
Bushes still grew around it, obscuring it from view to some extent, and I must make my way to it as soon as possible.
I was distraught.
Carlos, who had, like Jake, not gone far from Plymouth since the threats from the Armada had grown, came over to see Jake. I was waiting for a moment to slip away to the hut with food. But I must make certain that no one was aware of this. Linnet could have helped, but I was not going to allow my daughter to be involved.
Carlos was saying that he had heard Babington and Ballard had been executed. He described the agonies of those men—hanged in a field at the upper end of Holborn near the road to St. Giles’s where a scaffold had been set up. Ballard, the other main conspirator, had suffered first. He had been hung, cut down and disemboweled while he was still alive. Babington watched, then suffered like treatment.
“So perish all traitors,” cried Jake.
I felt sick.
Jake was looking at me strangely.
As soon as I could do so I took some food from the kitchens and went to the hut.
I took my son into my arms and held him against me.
“Oh, Roberto, tell me what has happened.”
“When they took Babington I knew it was unsafe for me to stay near London. I had to get away.”
“You were with the conspirators?”
“Not … not with Babington. If I had been…”