Most mighty, most excellent, my dread sovereign Lady and Queen, unto whom only I owe all fidelity and obedience. It may please your gracious Majesty to admit the excuse of my long silence and discontinuance from the dutiful offices incepted. Upon the remove of your royal person from the ancient place of your abode to the custody of a wicked puritan and mere Leicestrian, a mortal enemy both by faith and faction to your Majesty and the State Catholic, I held the hope of our country's weal depending next under God upon the life and health of your Majesty to be desperate, and thereupon resolved to depart the land, determining to spend the remainder of my life in such solitary sort as the wretched and miserable state of my country did require, daily expecting (according to the just judgement of God) the deserved confusion thereof, which Our Lord for His mercy's sake prevent.
The which my purpose being in execution, and standing upon my departure, there was addressed to me from the parts beyond the seas one Ballard, a man of virtue and learning and of singular zeal to the Catholic cause and your Majesty's service. This man informed me of great preparation by the Christian princes (your Majesty's allies) for the deliverance of our country from the extreme and miserable state wherein it hath too long remained:
Which when I understood, my special desire was to advise by what means, with the hazard of my life and friends in general, I might do your sacred Majesty one good day's service. Whereupon, most dear Sovereign, according to the great care which those princes have of the preservation and safe delivery of your Majesty's sacred person, I advised of means and considered of the circumstances according to the weight of the affair: and after long consideration and conference had with so many the wisest and most trusty as with safety I might commend the secrecy thereof unto, I do find (by the assistance of Our Lord Jesus) assurance of good effect and desired fruit of our travails.
These things are first to be advised in this great and honorable action, upon the issue of which depend not only the life of your most excellent Majesty (which God long preserve to our inestimable comfort and to the salvation of English souls) and the life of all us actors herein, but also the honour and weal of our country, far than our lives more dear to us, and the last hope ever to recover the faith of our forefathers and to redeem ourselves from the servitude and bondage which heresy hath imposed upon us with the loss of thousands of souls:
First, assuring of invasion: Sufficient strength in the invader: Ports to arrive at appointed, with a strong party at every place to join with them and warrant their landing. The deliverance of your Majesty. The dispatch of the usurping Competitor. For the effectuating of all which it may please your Excellency to rely upon my service.
I vow and protest before the face of Almighty God (Who miraculously hath long preserved your sacred person, no doubt to some universal good end) that what I have said shall be performed, or all our lives happily lost in the execution thereof; which vow all the chief actors herein have taken solemnly and are, upon assurance by your Majesty's letters unto me, to receive the Blessed Sacrament thereupon, either to prevail in the Church's behalf and your Majesty's, or fortunately to die for that honorable cause.
Now forasmuch as delay is extreme dangerous, it may please your most excellent Majesty by your wisdom to direct us, and by your princely authority to enable such as may advance the affair; foreseeing that, where is not any of the nobility at liberty assured to your Majesty in this desperate service (except unknown to us) and seeing it is very necessary that some there be to become heads to lead the multitude, ever disposed by nature in this land to follow nobility, considering withal it doth not only make the commons and gentry to follow without contradiction or contention (which is ever found in equality) but also doth add great courage to the leaders. For which necessary regard I recommend some unto your Majesty as fittest in my knowledge for to be your Lieutenants in the West parts, in the North parts, South Wales, North Wales and the Counties of Lancaster, Derby and Stafford: all which countries, by parties already made and fidelities taken in your Majesty's name, I hold as most assured and of most undoubted fidelity.
Myself with ten gentlemen and a hundred of our followers will undertake the delivery of your royal person from the hands of your enemies.
For the dispatch of the usurper, from the obedience of whom we are by the excommunication of her made free, there be six noble gentlemen, all my private friends, who for the zeal they bear to the Catholic cause and your Majesty's service will undertake that tragical execution.
It resteth that, according to their infinite good deserts and your Majesty's bounty, their heroical attempt may be honourable rewarded in them, if they escape with life, or in their posterity, and that so much I may be able by your Majesty's authority to assure them.
Now it remaineth only that by your Majesty's wisdom it may be reduced into method: that your happy deliverance be first, for that thereupon dependeth our only good; and that all the other circumstances so concur that the untimely beginning of one end do not overthrow the rest. All which your Majesty's wonderful experience and wisdom will dispose of in so good manner as I doubt not, through God's good assistance, all shall come to desired effect; for the obtaining of which every one of us shall think his life most happily spent.
Upon the xijth of this month I will be at Lichfield, expecting your Majesty's answer and letters, in readiness to execute what by them shall be commanded.
Your Majesty's most faithful subject and sworn servant,
Anthony Babington
To Mr. Nau, Secretary to her Majesty.
Mr. Nau, I would gladly understand what opinion you hold of one
Robert Poley, whom I find to have intelligence of her Majesty's occasions.
I am private with the man, and by means thereof know somewhat, but suspect
more. I pray you deliver your opinion of him.