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Why was Mary Queen of Scots a threat to Elizabeth I? Source Scholarship A B “As soon as Walsingham read Mary’s letter, he knew it to be far more incriminating than her earlier appeal to her foreign supporters before the Northern Rising. There she had spoken generally and allusively. Here she was almost explicit. Mary’s meaning is perfectly clear. She had consented to Elizabeth’s assassination and a foreign invasion. Strictly, she had not specified what the ‘work’ of the six gentlemen was to be, but the letter from Babington to which she was replying included the graphic passage, ‘For the dispatch of the usurper, from the obedience of whom we are by the excommunication of her made free, there be six noble gentlemen, all my private friends, who for the zeal they bear to the Catholic cause and your Majesty’s service will undertake that tragical execution.’
When the two letters are read together, Mary’s complicity in the plot is undeniable. She protested at her trial that the evidence against her was purely circumstantial.”
From John Guy “Mary Queen of Scots, Film Tie in”, 2019 Story Letter sent by Anthony Babington to Mary Stuart (July, 1586)
We... will undertake the delivery of your royal persons from the hands of your enemies... For the dispatch of the usurper (Elizabeth)... six noble gentlemen, who, for the zeal they have to the Catholic cause... will undertake that tragical execution.
Letter sent by Mary Stuart to Anthony Babington (July, 1586)
When all is ready, the six gentlemen must be set to work, and.... when it is accomplished, I may be in some way got away from here... then we will await foreign assistance. An embroidery made by Mary Queen of Scots while in captivity in England. It shows a large, ginger cat playing with a small grey mouse.<br>
