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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
These are copies, in a contemporary clerkly hand, of all the letters which are recorded to have passed between Mary and Babington during the summer of 1586, together with a copy of one letter which Babington wrote to Nau. The text of the Mary-Babington letters corresponds exactly, except for a few insignificant verbal exceptions, to that printed by B. Sepp in “Maria Stuart's Briefwechsel mit Antony Babington,” (Munich 1886).
page 28 note 1 The bearer of these letters went by the name of Barnaby. He has usually been identified with one Thomas Barnes, who offered himself anonymously to Mary as a conveyer of her letters in a letter which he wrote to her on the 10th of June, 1586 (Morris, , p. 375Google Scholar). It is clear however that Barnaby and Barnes cannot have been the same person because Barnaby had entered into communication with Mary through Curie, her secretary, at least as early as April 29th, 1586 (cf. Curle to Barnaby 
June, 1586, in Morris, p. 376). Moreover we find Curie inquiring of Barnaby who this anonymous correspondent was that was offering his services (cf. Curie's letter, just cited). Barnaby was, of course, one of Walsingham's agents, but Barnes seems to have been introduced into the affair by Gilbert Gifford without Walsingham's knowledge, for reasons which are not quite clear but which were probably not those that Gifford set forth later (cf. Gifford to Phelippes, printed in Morris, p. 380). Morris takes the view that Barnaby and Barnes were one and the same, but he has himself, quite unconsciously, printed sufficient evidence to prove the contrary.
page 29 note 1 This is probably a mistake of the contemporary copyist. The word is “our” in the copies at the Record Office.
page 30 note 1 This word is “safety” in the Record Office copies.
page 35 note 1 The Record Office copies read, for “land,” “hold.”
page 38 note 1 The Record Office copies read “come.”
page 39 note 1 The Record Office copies read “sued.”
page 40 note 1 This man Maude is an elusive fellow, and probably if more could be found out about him, more light could be thrown upon this whole matter. Camden declared that he was one of Walsingham's spies and that he accompanied Ballard on his voyage to France and wrung from him all his secrets (Annals of Eliz. (ed. 1635) p. 302). Robert Poley in his confession (S. P. Mary Q. of S. xix no. 26) said that Babington told him that Maude and Ballard went to France together. This confirms Camden's statement in part. It appears also from the confession of one Tipping, a man who was examined in connection with the Babington plot, that Maude accompanied Ballard when he went north in June 1586 (cf. Summary of Confessions. S. P. Mary Q. of S. xix no. 91 p. 28). Neither of these witnesses however confirms Camden's statement that Maude was a spy of Walsingham. Yet the presumption is that such was the case. The strange silence in regard to him is significant. Though accused by both Poley and Tipping, he was never called into question. This curious neglect of his case struck Edward Windsor, one of those who were more or less implicated in Babington's schemes but who escaped death to suffer imprisonment in the Tower. On the 30th of May 1587 he complained bitterly in a letter to Sir Christopher Hation that though Maude had been, first to last, deeply implicated in the conspiracy, he had never been brought to trial (R.O. S.P. Dorn, cci, no. 50).