Babington Plot - Arrests, Trials and Executions

Arrests, Trials and Executions

John Ballard was arrested on 4 August 1586, and presumably under torture he confessed and implicated Babington. Although Babington was able to receive the forged letter with the postscript, he was not able to reply with the names of the conspirators, as he was arrested while seeking a license to travel in order to see King Philip II of Spain, with the purpose of organizing a foreign expedition as well as ensuring his own safety. The identities of the six conspirators were nevertheless discovered, and they were taken prisoner by 15 August 1586.

Mary's two secretaries, Claude Nau de la Boisseliere (d. 1605) and Gilbert Curle (d. 1609), were likewise taken into custody and interrogated.

The conspirators were sentenced to death for treason and conspiracy against the crown, and were sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. This first group included Babington, Ballard, Chidiock Tichborne, Sir Thomas Salisbury, Robert Barnewell, John Savage and Henry Donn. A further group of seven men, Edward Habington, Charles Tilney, Edward Jones, John Charnock, John Travers, Jerome Bellamy, and Robert Gage, were tried and convicted shortly afterward. Ballard and Babington were executed on September 20 along with the other men who had been tried with them. Such was the horror of their execution that Queen Elizabeth ordered the second group to be allowed to hang until dead before being disemboweled.

Queen Mary herself went to trial at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire and denied her part in the plot, but her correspondence was the evidence; therefore, Mary was sentenced to death. Elizabeth signed her cousin's death warrant, and on 8 February 1587, in front of 300 witnesses, Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed by beheading.