TheCodeBreakers
indiscretions. She was a remarkable woman: beautiful, possessed of
great personal charm, commanding the loyalty of her subordinates,
courageous, unshakably devoted to her religion, but also unwise,
stubborn, and capricious. Various Catholic factions had schemed more
than once to seat her on the throne of England and so restore the realm
to the Church. The chief result had been to confine Mary to various
castles in England and to alert Walsingham to seek an opportunity to
extirpate once and for all this cancer that threatened to destroy his own
queen, Elizabeth.
The opportunity arose in 1586. A former page of Mary's, Anthony
Babington, began organizing a plot to have courtiers assassinate
Elizabeth, incite a general Catholic uprising in England, and crown Mary.
A conspiracy that involved the overthrow of the government naturally
had ramifications all over the country, and Babington also gained the
support of Philip II, who promised to send an expedition to help, once
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