ies, had found means to insinuate himself among the conspirators in
England; and, though not entirely trusted, had obtained some insight
into their dangerous secrets. But the bottom of the conspiracy was
never fully known, till Gifford, a seminary priest, came over and made a
tender of his services to Walsingham. By his means, the discovery became
of the utmost importance, and involved the fate of Mary, as well as of
those zealous partisans of that princess.

Babington and his associates, having laid such a plan as, they thought,
promised infallible success, were impatient to communicate the design to
the queen of Scots, and to obtain her approbation and concurrence.
For this service they employed Gifford, who immediately applied to
Walsingham, that the interest of that minister might forward his secret
correspondence with Mary. Walsingham proposed the matter to Paulet, and
desired him to connive at Gifford's corrupting one of his servants; but
Paulet, averse to the introducing of such a pernicious precedent
into his family, desired that they would rather think of some other
expedient. Gifford found a brewer, who supplied the family with ale;
and bribed him to convey letters to the captive queen. The letters,
by Paulet's connivance, were thrust through a chink in the wall; and
answers were returned by the same conveyance.

Ballard and Babington were at first diffident of Gifford's fidelity;
and to make trial of him, they gave him only blank papers made up like
letters; but finding by the answers that these had been faithfully
delivered, they laid aside all further scruple, and conveyed by his
hands the most criminal and dangerous parts of their conspiracy.
Babington informed Mary of the design laid for a foreign invasion, the
plan of an insurrection at home, the scheme for her deliverance, and the
conspiracy for assassinating the usurper, by six noble gentlemen, as he
termed them, all of them his private friends; who, from the zeal
which they bore to the Catholic cause and her majesty's service, would
undertake the "tragical execution." Mary replied, that she approved
highly of the design; that the gentlemen might expect all the rewards
which it should ever be in her power to confer; and that the death of
Elizabeth was a necessary circumstance, before any attempts were made,
either for her own deliverance or an insurrection.[*]

* State Trials, vol. i. p 135. Camden, p. 515.

These letters, with others to Mendoz