Letters from plotters had already been sent in this manner and Mary had given written replies of general encouragement. However, she had been cautious. None of the plotters were personally known to her. They needed someone whom she knew and trusted.
Enter Babington. In 1579 he had been a page to the Earl of Shrewsbury who was then Mary’s keeper. She’d been fond of the boy and five years later he’d been entrusted to deliver several packets of letters directly to the hand of the Scottish Queen. Though he’d dropped out of the dangerous game to take up a gentleman’s life in London, his views were well known among her sympathizers.
So the question put to Babington that night was this: will you join with us? Will you help the good Lady?
His response delighted the spies. How could this treason succeed, he whispered, if Elizabeth remained alive? She was popular among her misguided subjects. Wouldn’t she be able to rally her armies and effectively counter the invaders? Wouldn’t the plot go better if she were brought to, as he put it, a tragical end?
The others assured him that one of their number, a John Savage, was planning to take care of just that and in a giddy response Babington sealed his fate by clinking his mug around the table. Marlowe, who was fresh game and unknown to the likes of Walsingham, would be his go-between. The two young men smiled at each other like fine co-conspirators and there followed another clinking of drinking vessels.
There were sounds from inside the house. Babington started to rise in alarm but it was only Mrs Bull returning from her shopping. She stuck her head out the window and asked if she should bring out a tray of food.
They supped and drank until the shadow of the mulberry tree grew long and dark. Marlowe had news to report which he told Babington had been passed directly to Poley from the French Ambassador to England, Guillaume de l’Aubespine. Invasion plans were taking shape. French, Spanish and Italian armies were committed to the holy task. There were strong indications that English Catholics would also rise to arms at the first sight of foreign troops carrying the Papal colors. What was required was the final assent of Queen Mary, to be obtained by Babington.
Marlowe withdrew the implements of his trade from the portable writing case at his feet. He shaved a quill with his best knife, opened the lid of his ink pot and amused Babington no end by blotting the beer from the table with his rump before placing the case upon the dry spot and laying a few sheets of parchment on its leather pad. ‘Would you care to dictate?’ Marlowe asked. ‘I am a most excellent scribe.’
‘You, Kit, are the author. We have well discussed what must be transmitted. Perhaps you can compose.’
Marlowe agreed, saying he would refrain from flowery prose in favor of plain language. As he scratched the parchment he read aloud:
First, assuring of invasion. Sufficient strength in the invader. Ports to arrive at appointed, with a strong party at every place to join with them and warrant their landing. The deliverance of Your Majesty. The dispatch of the usurping Competitor. For the effectuating of all which it may please Your Excellency to rely upon my service.
Now forasmuch as delay is extreme dangerous, it may please Your Most Excellent Majesty by your wisdom to direct us, and by Your Princely Authority to enable such as may advance the affair; foreseeing that, where is not any of the nobility at liberty assured to Your Majesty in this desperate service and seeing it is very necessary that some there be to become heads to lead the multitude, ever disposed by nature in this land to follow nobility, considering withal it doth not only make the commons and gentry to follow without contradiction or contention but also doth add great courage to the leaders.
Myself with ten gentlemen and an hundred of our followers will undertake the delivery of Your Royal Person from the hands of your enemies.
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.
‘Are you well satisfied with this concoction?’ Marlowe asked when he was done.
Babington’s throat seemed raspy with anxiety. ‘It seems to properly convey our knowledge of the affair and our requests for the Queen’s blessings.’
‘Then I will place it into a cipher forthwith. While I undertake the task you might ask the Widow Bull to bring us more beer. I will drink only for thirst. The process of substituting letters for numbers and words for symbols is ever taxing and my head must remain as clear as Narcissus’s reflecting pool.’
Babington shuffled off with the foreboding of a man heading to the gallows. When he returned with a full jug Marlowe said, ‘I will make as much haste as I am able. Poley will need to get this letter to the brewer in Chiswick tonight for I believe tomorrow is the day the next keg goes to Mary. Then we need only await the reply of the dear lady.’
Babington drank two tankards in quick succession. He had no such desire to keep a clear head.
The Palace of Whitehall was a city unto itself. It surpassed the Vatican and Versailles in sheer size and pomp and it was no small task to navigate among 1,500 rooms. To find one’s destination required prior knowledge or the good graces of a friendly gentleman or lady to take you by the hand and lead you through the labyrinth of offices and private residences.
By now Marlowe well knew his way around the palace and eagerly presented himself at Walsingham’s privy chamber, his pulse racing, his face triumphant. Walsingham’s private secretary greeted him cordially and announced his arrival.
Walsingham was in conference with Robert Poley, severe as always with a sun-beaten face and his greasy black hair pulled into a knot. In this state one would take him for a brigand or a soldier, not a gentleman who had matriculated from Cambridge.
The first words Marlowe spoke to them were ‘I have it!’
Walsingham looked down his narrow nose. ‘Let me see.’
Marlowe opened his writing case and proudly slid the parchments across the desk. Walsingham plucked them up like a hawk swooping on a vole. While he pored over them, Marlowe stood, pinching white hairs from one of Mrs Bull’s cats off his doublet.
‘This is good, very good,’ Walsingham said. ‘I’ll have the cipher sent to the brewer immediately. Mary possesses the new code?’
‘She has it,’ Poley said. ‘It was in her last keg. She will safely believe that no others could have deciphered it.’
‘May she answer soon and reply forcefully,’ Walsingham cried. ‘Once we’ve intercepted her letter we’ll have her fucking Catholic head, by the stars!’
‘I’d like to be there when it happens,’ Marlowe said, imagining the bloody denouement.
‘I’ll see to it that you are. And you’ll be there to see Babington with his insides out, howling to his God. And the other plotters too. Then the serious game will begin. The Pope’s lot will want their revenge for Mary’s downfall. You know what that will mean?’
‘A war, I should think,’ Marlowe said.
‘Not one war, many. Europe ablaze, and in due course the world. And ourselves as the only clear winners. Taking pleasure in the growing piles of Catholic corpses. Seizing land and commerce from all parties. Swelling our coffers.’
Marlowe nodded, still standing.
‘Sit,’ Walsingham said. ‘Have some wine. You’ve done well. You always do well. Whatever task we’ve given him, be it in Rheims or London, Paris or Cambridge, he’s handled it with dispatch, wouldn’t you say, Poley?’