TheCodeBreakers
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
sometimes reading two or more in a day: two letters from the queen bear
notations "decifred 18 July 1586," two others are marked as deciphered
July 21, and there are still other cipher letters in the same packet in the
records that bear no notations.
During these three months, Walsingham cannily made no arrests, but
annaabi.ee 
