Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
Elizabeth tried to have Mary murdered
The secret letter
On 1 February 1587 Elizabeth signed the warrant for Mary's execution, but she did not want it used. She still hoped someone would remove Mary without her own name attached. So she ordered Sir Francis Walsingham, who was sick in bed, to write to Sir Amias Paulet, Mary's jailer, who had moved with her to Fotheringay. Walsingham did not want to, but he had no choice. His letter conveyed Elizabeth's disappointment that Paulet had not kept the vow he made when he signed the bond of association, and asked why he had not yet found some way to shorten the life of that queen.
The bond
The bond dated from 1584. Privy councillors, members of Parliament, and loyal members of the public had signed it, pledging that if Mary was ever found guilty of plotting against Elizabeth, they would kill her. It was bundled into an Act of Parliament, which let Elizabeth point to it as the law of the land and ask why nobody was acting on it.
Paulet's answer
Paulet was appalled. He replied that God forbid he should make so foul a shipwreck of his conscience, or leave so great a blot on his descendants, by shedding blood without law or warrant. Elizabeth dismissed him as dainty.
Why was the Bond of Association created?
The bond was drawn up in 1584, soon after the Dutch Protestant leader William of Orange was assassinated at Delft. Elizabeth's councillors feared that a similar murder could happen to her. The Act for the Queen's Safety of 1585 turned the bond into law and set up a commission of peers and privy councillors to try anyone who benefited from a plot against her.
Why did Elizabeth punish her own secretary?
After Mary's death Elizabeth professed outrage that the warrant had been carried out. Her secretary William Davison, who had handled it, was sent to the Tower and fined heavily. She also wrote to Mary's son James VI of Scotland, calling the execution a miserable accident. Davison was released in 1588.
Why did Elizabeth fear for her own life?
In 1570 Pope Pius V issued the bull Regnans in Excelsis, which declared Elizabeth a heretic and released her Catholic subjects from obedience to her. Many English Catholics now faced a conflict between loyalty to the queen and loyalty to their church. Several plots against her in the following years were tied to the bull.
More from The Rest Is History
