Mary Queen of Scots

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The double agent was Gilbert Gifford. At stage A the letters were secretly handed to Walsingham's agents, and his codebreaker Thomas Phelippes decoded and copied them before they were resealed and sent on, so Walsingham read everything Mary wrote and received.

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When Mary landed at Workington on 16 May 1568 she expected Elizabeth to help her win back her throne. Instead she was taken to Carlisle Castle and guarded by Sir Francis Knollys. Elizabeth refused to meet her until she had been cleared of any part in Darnley's murder, and in July Mary was moved to Bolton Castle in Yorkshire, further from the Scottish border.

Elizabeth's reasons came from the choices shown in Figure 1. Helping Mary back to her throne would mean war with the Protestant government of the Earl of Moray, England's ally. Handing her over to the Scottish lords might lead to her death, setting an example that subjects could kill their queen. Letting her go to France or Spain might bring her back with a Catholic army. Keeping her under guard in England seemed the least dangerous choice.

To justify this, Elizabeth held an inquiry, which opened at York in October 1568 and moved to Westminster later that year. Moray's commissioners produced the Casket Letters, which they said proved Mary had helped plan Darnley's murder. Mary refused to accept that a queen could be judged and was not allowed to appear in person. In January 1569 the inquiry ended with nothing proved against either side. This suited Elizabeth: Moray stayed in power in Scotland, and Mary stayed in custody without being condemned.

In early 1569 Mary was moved to Tutbury under the Earl of Shrewsbury. During the year some nobles planned for her to marry the Duke of Norfolk, England's leading noble; Elizabeth forbade it and sent Norfolk to the Tower in October. In November the Northern Earls rebelled, hoping to free Mary, so she was hurried south to Coventry. The rising collapsed by December and about 450 rebels were executed. By the end of 1569 Elizabeth's temporary solution had become a long imprisonment.

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In December 1585 Mary was moved to Chartley under the strict guard of Sir Amyas Paulet, who had stopped all her secret letters. In January 1586 Gilbert Gifford, a Catholic double agent working for Walsingham, offered Mary a secret post: letters were hidden in beer barrels delivered to the house. Every letter was secretly copied and decoded by Walsingham's codebreaker, Thomas Phelippes, so Walsingham could read all her correspondence.

Meanwhile a Catholic priest, John Ballard, and a young gentleman, Anthony Babington, planned a foreign invasion, a Catholic rising, Mary's rescue and the murder of Elizabeth by six gentlemen. In July 1586 Babington wrote to Mary explaining the plan, and on 17 July she replied, approving it. Phelippes is believed to have added a forged postscript asking for the names of the six gentlemen. Walsingham now had written proof of Mary's support for a plot to kill the queen.

In August Ballard and Babington were arrested, Mary's papers at Chartley were seized, and in September Babington and thirteen others were executed. Because of the Act for the Queen's Safety of 1585, Mary could now be tried for a plot made in her favour. She was moved to Fotheringhay and tried there on 14-15 October 1586 by a commission of more than thirty peers, councillors and judges. She argued that a queen could not be tried under English law and denied plotting Elizabeth's death, but she was found guilty at Westminster on 25 October.

Elizabeth still hesitated. Parliament petitioned her to execute Mary, but she gave what she called an 'answer answerless'. Under pressure, she had the sentence proclaimed in December, and on 1 February 1587 she signed the death warrant and gave it to her secretary, William Davison. The Privy Council sent it to Fotheringhay without telling her, and Mary was executed on 8 February 1587.

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Walsingham's spy network was the main reason why the later plots involving Mary failed, and it was the network that finally ended the threat by trapping Mary herself. However, the earlier plots failed for other reasons, and a deeper reason for failure throughout was the lack of real support from foreign powers and English Catholics.

The case for the statement is strongest for the 1580s. Sir Francis Walsingham, Principal Secretary from 1573, built up a network of agents in England and abroad, with codebreakers such as Thomas Phelippes and double agents such as Gilbert Gifford. In 1583 his agents watched Francis Throckmorton and the French embassy for months before arresting him with lists of Catholic supporters and of harbours where a French army under the Duke of Guise could land. In 1586 Walsingham went further: Gifford set up the beer-barrel post at Chartley, every letter was copied and decoded, and the Babington plotters were arrested before they could act. Mary's letter of 17 July 1586 gave the evidence for her trial, and her execution in 1587 ended the plots for good.

However, the earlier threats were defeated in other ways. The Northern Rebellion of 1569 failed because few Catholics joined it and the royal army under the Earl of Sussex drove the rebels back to Scotland. The Ridolfi Plot of 1571 was uncovered before Walsingham became Secretary, by William Cecil's investigation and a good deal of luck: Mary's messenger Charles Bailly was arrested at Dover with letters, and money Norfolk sent to Scotland was handed to the authorities.

A more fundamental reason was that the foreign help the plotters relied on never came. The Duke of Alba doubted Ridolfi's plan, the Duke of Guise was taken up with France's religious wars, and Philip II was cautious until the mid-1580s. Every plot depended on an invasion, so without one they were unlikely to succeed even if they had not been discovered.

Most English Catholics also stayed loyal. Few rose in 1569, and most did not want a foreign army to put Mary on the throne. The plotters themselves were often young and careless, like Babington and his friends.

Finally, the government's own strength mattered. Mary was a closely guarded prisoner, moved often and placed under the strict Sir Amyas Paulet in 1585. Laws such as the Treason Act of 1571, the Bond of Association of 1584 and the Act for the Queen's Safety of 1585 deterred plotters, and the Spanish ambassadors de Spes and Mendoza were expelled for their part in plots.

Overall, I agree only partly. Walsingham's network was the main reason why the Throckmorton and Babington Plots failed, and it alone made it possible to end the danger by convicting Mary. But earlier plots were defeated by Cecil, luck and the royal army, and all the plots suffered from the lack of foreign and English Catholic support, which meant they were unlikely to succeed whatever Walsingham did.