Ridolfi plot
The Ridolfi plot was a plot in 1570 to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. The plot was hatched and planned by Roberto di Ridolfi, an international banker who was able to travel between Brussels, Rome and Madrid to gather support without attracting too much suspicion.
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[edit] Background
The Duke of Norfolk, a cousin to the Queen and the wealthiest landowner in the country, had been proposed as a possible husband for Mary since her imprisonment in 1568. This suited Norfolk, who had ambitions and felt Elizabeth persistently undervalued him.[1] In pursuit of his goals, he agreed to support the Northern Rebellion, though he quickly lost his nerve and tried to call it off. As the rebellion was not under his control, it progressed, with the Northern earls trying to foment rebellion among their Catholic subjects to prepare for a Catholic Spanish invasion by the Duke of Alba, governor of the Netherlands.[2]
After the rebellion failed, the leaders were executed and a purge of Catholic sympathisers in the priesthood carried out. Norfolk was imprisoned in the Tower of London for nine months and only freed under house arrest when he confessed all and begged for mercy.[3] Pope Pius V issued Regnans in Excelsis, a papal bull excommunicating Elizabeth, shortly afterward, which commanded all faithful Catholics to do all they could to depose her. The majority of English Catholics ignored the bull.[4] In response, Elizabeth became much harsher to Catholics and their sympathisers.[5]
[edit] Plot
Roberto Ridolfi, a Florentine banker and ardent Catholic, had been involved in the planning of the Northern rebellion, and had been plotting to overthrow Elizabeth as early as 1569.[6] With the failure of the rebellion, he concluded that foreign intervention was needed to restore Catholicism and bring Mary to the English throne, and began to contact potential conspirators. Mary's advisor, John Lesley, the Bishop of Ross, gave his assent to the plot as the way to free Mary.[7] The plan was to have the Duke of Alba invade from the Netherlands with 10,000 men, foment a rebellion of the northern English nobility, murder Elizabeth, and marry Mary to Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk. Ridolfi optimistically estimated half of all English peers were Catholic, and could muster in excess of 39,000 men.[8] Norfolk gave verbal assurances to Ridolfi that he was Catholic, though as a pupil of John Foxe, he remained a Protestant all his life.[9][10] Both Mary and Norfolk, desperate to remedy their respective situations, agreed to the plot.[11] With their blessing, Ridolfi set off to the Continent to gain Alba, Pius V and King Philip II's support.
While desiring the restoration of Catholic rule in England, the Duke of Alba feared the accession of Mary, Queen of Scots, to the throne of England. As her mother was a member of the prominent Guise family in France, he feared the alliance of England and France by Mary.
[edit] Discovery
In 1571, Elizabeth's intelligence network was sending her information about a plot against her life. By gaining the confidence of Spain's ambassador to England, John Hawkins learned the details of the conspiracy and notified the government so to arrest the plotters. She was also sent a private warning by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who had learned of the plot against her. Charles Baillie, Ridolfi's messenger, was arrested at Dover for carrying compromising letters, and under torture revealed the plot. The Duke of Norfolk was arrested on September 7, 1571 and sent to the Tower.[12] Guerau de Spes, the Spanish ambassador, was expelled from the country in January 1571.[13] Still abroad when the plot was discovered, Ridolfi never returned to England; he became a Florentine senator in 1600.
Mary, when questioned, admitted to having dealings with Ridolfi, but denied any involvement with the plot.[14] Though she was clearly implicated by the evidence, Elizabeth refused to have her executed and vetoed a bill by Parliament that condemned Mary and removed her from the succession.[15] She feared that by executing a divinely appointed monarch, she undermined her own position.[16] She proceeded with the execution of the Duke of Norfolk for treason on June 2, 1572.[17] Mary's status in England was transformed from honoured guest to treasonous pariah, and she was universally condemned by the governing elite.[18] Her continued conspiring, especially in the Babington plot, eventually led to her conviction of treason and execution on February 8, 1587.[19]
[edit] Media representations
The Ridolfi Plot was covered in Mary Queen of Scots (1971), starring Vanessa Redgrave as Mary and Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth.
An altered and fictionalised version of the Ridolfi Plot was featured in the 1998 film Elizabeth, starring Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth. The film portrayed Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, as the chief conspirator and omitted the involvement of Ridolfi. It portrayed the plot as having included Bishop Stephen Gardiner (a counter-reformer who had died in 1555 before Elizabeth's accession) and John Ballard, who was in fact a Babington Plotter.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Williams, Neville, The Life and Times of Elizabeth I, (Book Club Associates, 1972), pg 91.
- ^ Starkey, David, Elizabeth I: Apprenticeship, (Vintage, 2001), pg 322.
- ^ Williams, Life and Times, pg 101-2.
- ^ Dures, Alan, English Catholicism, 1558-1642, (Longman, 1983), pg 17.
- ^ Starkey, Elizabeth I, pg 322.
- ^ Elton G.R., England under the Tudors, (University Paperback, 1978), pg 297.
- ^ Williams, Life and Times, pg 102-3.
- ^ Williams, Life and Times, pg 102.
- ^ Dures, English Catholicism, pg 17.
- ^ Lockyer, Roger, Tudor and Stuart Britain, 1417-1714, (Longman, 1964), pg 186.
- ^ Jenkins, Elizabeth, Elizabeth the Great, (Phoenix Press, 1958), pg 176.
- ^ Weir, Mary, Queen of Scots, pg 493.
- ^ Jenkins, Elizabeth the Great, pg 179.
- ^ Weir, Mary, Queen of Scots, pg 493.
- ^ Smith, A. G. R., The Government of Elizabethan England, (Edward Arnold, 1967), pg 28.
- ^ Lockyer, Tudor and Stuart Britain, pg 190.
- ^ T.A.Morris, Europe and England in the Sixteenth Century, (Routledge 1998), p334
- ^ Morris, Europe and England, p334
- ^ Weir, Alison, Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley, (Pimlico, 2004), pg 509.
