The Babington Plot

Historical Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.03: English Writing and Culture: Renaissance (Elizabethan and Jacobean periods) , 1485-1625.
Vol. editors: William M. Hamlin (Washington State University), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University), Ema Vyroubalova (Trinity College Dublin)

Domains

Attempts, Assassinations, Executions

Dates

Date of occurrence 1586-06-17

Places

England (Location)

Sir Francis Walsingham uncovers the Babington Plot to murder Elizabeth I, and discovers that Mary Queen of Scots was a collaborator in the conspiracy. It planned to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and replace her on the throne with Mary. Legend claims that the conspirators planned to build of a tunnel between the house of Anthony Babington, a Catholic devotee of the imprisoned Scottish queen, and nearby Wingfield Manor, where Mary was living under house arrest, though no evidence of such a tunnel has ever been found. Walsingham's discoveries were to lead ultimately not only to the execution of Babington but also to that of Mary herself, in a move that Elizabeth had resisted for the past two decades.

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

117 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "The Babington Plot". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 February 2011 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=15333, accessed 23 November 2024.]

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

The Babington Plot

Domains

Dates

Places

Save this article

Leave Feedback