TheCodeBreakers
Mary not
infrequently ordered changes in her nomenclators, which were much
smaller and flimsier than the diplomatic ones.
What neither Mary nor Babington knew was that, despite
their elaborate precautions, their correspondence was being delivered
to Walsingham and Phelippes as quickly as they wrote it. Gilbert Gifford
was a double-agent, a ne'er-do-well who had offered his services to
Walsingham. Walsingham, seeing an unparalleled opportunity to
insinuate his antennae into Mary's circles, employed Gifford to turn over
to him all Mary's letters, which he copied and then passed on. It included
the two-year backlog entrusted to Gifford by the French ambassador,
and the rapidly growing volume of traffic generated by Babington's
festering plot. These enciphered missives were being solved by Phelippes
almost as quickly as he got his hands on them. As the conspiracy
reached a crescendo of preparation in the middle of July, he was
annaabi.ee 
