Editing Babington Plot (section)

==Arrests, trials and executions==
[[File:Mary Queen of Scots About to be Executed at Fotheringay (Sir James D.Linton).jpg|thumb|The execution of Queen Mary by James Dromgole Linton]]
[[John Ballard (Jesuit)|John Ballard]] was arrested on 4 August 1586, and under torture he confessed and implicated Babington. Although Babington was able to receive the letter with the postscript, he was not able to reply with the names of the conspirators, as he was arrested. Others were taken prisoner by 15 August 1586. Mary's two secretaries, [[Claude Nau]] and [[Gilbert Curle]], and a clerk [[Jérôme Pasquier (courtier)|Jérôme Pasquier]] were likewise taken into custody and interrogated.<ref>John Morris, [https://archive.org/details/letterbooksofsir00pouluoft/page/118/mode/2up ''Letter-books of Amias Poulet'' (London, 1874), p. 118]</ref> A large chest filled with Mary's papers seized at Chartley was taken to London.<ref>William Joseph Walter, ''Mary, Queen of Scots: A journal of her twenty years' captivity'', 2 (Philadelphia, 1840), p. 228.</ref>

The conspirators were sentenced to death for [[treason]] and conspiracy against the crown, and were to be [[Hanging, drawing and quartering|hanged, drawn, and quartered]]. This first group included Babington, Ballard, [[Chidiock Tichborne]], [[Thomas Salisbury]], [[Henry Donn]], Robert Barnewell and [[John Savage (died 1586)|John Savage]]. A further group of seven men including [[Edward Habington]], Charles Tilney, Edward Jones, John Charnock, John Travers, [[Jerome Bellamy]], and Robert Gage, were tried and convicted shortly afterward. Ballard and Babington were executed on 20 September 1586 along with the other men who had been tried with them. Such was the public outcry at the horror of their execution that Elizabeth changed the order for the second group to be allowed to hang until "quite dead" before disembowelling and quartering.

In October 1586, Mary was sent to be tried at [[Fotheringhay Castle]] in [[Northamptonshire]] by 46 English lords, bishops and earls. She was not permitted legal counsel, not permitted to review the evidence against her, nor to call witnesses. Portions of Phellipes' letter translations were read at the trial. Mary denied knowing Babington and Ballard,<ref>David Templeman, ''Mary, Queen of Scots: The Captive Queen in England'' (Exeter: 2016), p. 233.</ref> but it was insisted that she had sent a reply to Babington using the same cipher code, entrusting the letter to a servant in a blue coat.<ref>[[Annie Cameron]], [https://digital.nls.uk/scottish-history-society-publications/browse/archive/126810087?mode=fullsize ''Warrender Papers'', 1 (Edinburgh: SHS, 1931), p. 233]</ref> Mary was convicted of treason against England. One English Lord voted not guilty. Elizabeth signed her cousin-once-removed's death warrant,<ref>Francis Edwards, ''Plots and plotters in the reign of Elizabeth I'' (Dublin: Four Courts, 2002), p. 164.</ref> and on 8 February 1587, in front of 300 witnesses, Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed by beheading.<ref>Fraser p. 635</ref>