Chidiock Tichborne: The Poet Who Fell in With a Regicidal Crowd

Maria Tremarqui, and I'm Holly Fry. He was born on August sixty two, although possibly that birth year is fifty eight in Southampton, England, but not a lot is known about Chittick Titchborne before his involvement in what's known as the Babington Plot. He was we do know raised in a Roman Catholic family, and though Catholicism was tolerated in England during Titchbourne's childhood, that ended when the Pope Pope Pious the Fifth clared Queen Elizabeth the First, who was

a Protestant, a heretic. On February seventy, the Pope issued a papal bull called the regnans in excelsis, which means reigning on high or ruling from on high, so in

the Catholic Church. A papal bull is an official document issued by a pope, and this bull stated quote Elizabeth, the pretended Queen of England and the servant of Crime, was excommunicated from the Church, stripped of her right to rule, and also released her subjects from any loyalty or allegiance to her pious The fifth bull called upon Catholics to remove her from the throne or be excommunicated as well. It's kind of a declaration for and in retaliation, Elizabeth

reinstated a series of anti Catholic measures. So in fifteen any one, Parliament passed a series of acts intended to protect Elizabeth from any consequences of that papal bull. Included was an act that made it treasonous for anyone to deny that Elizabeth was not a true Queen of England and Wales. Another made it illegal for anyone to bring any papal bull into England and Wales and carry out

its orders. As Queen, Elizabeth restored England to Protestantism. The Act of Supremacy, approved by Parliament in fifteen fifty nine, which was not long after she took the throne, revived the anti papal laws from the time of King Henry the eight and declared the queen to be the supreme

governor of the Church, the Protestant Church. Immediately before Elizabeth's rule, Queen Mary the First, also known as Mary Tudor or Bloody Mary by her Protestant opponents, was intent on restoring the Catholic Church's pre eminence in England, but she only ruled for five years before her death, after which Elizabeth ascended to the throne. Mary and Elizabeth were sisters. Elizabeth supported the Protestant religion and had little tolerance for the

Catholic Church. Catholicism under her rule was made illegal and Roman Catholics were banned by law from practicing their religion, so that Babington Plot. The Babington Plot was a plan to assassinate Queen Elizabeth the First and install Mary, Queen of Scots, who was elizabeth Catholic cousin, on the English throne. It failed, and in its wake it left more than one person executed for treason, including Mary, Queen of Scots.

Queen Elizabeth the First of England and Mary, Queen of Scots are two legendary rivals here their decades long verbal feud over the right to the English crown and yeah, okay, so that's right. They didn't actually ever meet in person. This was a verbal feud ended with Mary's beheading with Elizabeth's blessing on that order, but we'll get to that. Many Catholics under Elizabeth's rule believe that Mary, Queen of Scots, was the rightful Queen of England. Mary was a threat

to Elizabeth in a few ways. Mary had some pretty solid claims to the English throne. She was heir to the English throne through her tutor grandmother Margaret, who was King Henry the eighth older sister. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was believed by many, especially among Catholics, to be the illegitimate daughter of an unlawful marriage between Henry the eighth

and Anne Boleyn that was Henry's second wife. Too many people, that meant that she was not a rightful heir to the throne because Henry broke with the Catholic Church when the Pope refused to validate his second marriage to Catholics. Elizabeth was quote the bastard child of a whore. There's a bit of a twist here that gives the Babington plot some actual potential. Everyone ends up in the right

place at the right time. Mary, Queen of Scott's, ended up as a visitor slash prisoner in England under Elizabeth's rule. She fled to England after Scottish nobility, enraged by the murder of her husband, Lord Darnley, became suspicious of her and her new husband. That's actually just the quick version of a really interesting story. She was forced to abdicate the throne to her infant son James. Escaping political unrest and possible imprisonment, she sought the protection of her cousin,

Queen Elizabeth the First. Elizabeth, though was not welcoming. She imprisoned Mary and kept her locked away for nineteen years. Nineteen years is a long time, but it didn't stop the plots to get married Queen of Scott's the English crown until the Babington plot happened. That is, this is what ended at all. So we're going to take a break here for a word from our sponsor, and when we return we will talk about who Anthony Babington was and what his role was in the plot to assassinate

Queen Elizabeth the First. Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's meet Anthony Babington, So the whole affair was named after Anthony Babington, a Derby Sherman who had been raised in the Catholic Church. During his childhood, he served as a page in the household of the Earl of Shrewsbury, who was acting as jailer to Mary, Queen of Scots during her imprisonment in England. Think of Mary's imprisonment more like a house arrest and

less like her Majesty's prison service. Babington became devoted to the Scottish Queen over the years, and it is Babbington who conspired to deliver Mary, Queen of Scot's, out of custody and to the throne. The Babington plot was actually the third significant plot against the life of Queen Elizabeth. The first others included the Ridolphie plot in one and the Throckmorton plot of fifteen three, but since we're talking

about her in six, clearly those two failed. It was in May of six when the Babington plot began to solidify finally. Babington then aged. He actually didn't come up with this idea himself, but he was a major player. His visit with a Catholic priest named John Ballard was the beginning. Ballard had met with the Spanish ambassador Bernardino de Mendoza in Paris and shared with Babington he'd heard that the Pope had ordered an invasion of England to

depose Queen Elizabeth the First. Ballard declared that quote, an army of the Pope and the King of Spain would invade the realm. Babington didn't just jump right in at this time. In fact, he pointed out that the Pope's men were unlikely to be successful in such a thing. Ballard, though, he assured Babington it would work, and he also shared that a man named John Savage had been chosen as

the person to assassinate the queen. It was that Ballard and Savage's request that Babington organized and rallied fellow young Catholics to this cause. And those men included a long list of names that I'm going to share with you Edward Abington, Robert Barnwell, Jerome Bellamy, John Charnap, Henry Dunne, Robert Gage, Edward Jones, Thomas Salisbury, Charles Tilney, John Travers,

and Edward Windsor. There were three additional men, Robert Poley, Gilbert Gifford and Thomas Phillips, who acted as agents and double agents working for a man named Sir Francis Walsingham. Walsingham was secretary to Queen Elizabeth the First and was considered her quote spy master, among other intelligence duties. So now back to Titchbourne. In fifties three, Titchborne and his father were arrested and interrogated by authorities about quote Popish

relics that they had returned with from travels abroad. They were both released without being charged, but historical records suggests that this was not the only time that they were questioned by the authorities over their religion, and it was June of six when Titchborne agreed to take part in the Babington plot. Writing in Cipher, Babington exchanged letters with Mary,

Queen of Scott's, explaining the plans to rescue her. In one, he outlined the steps that needed to be taken in order to free her and re established Catholicism in England, and that it would have to happen through the assassination of Elizabeth the First. He wrote that his quote private friends would be in charge of quote, that tragical execution, and he basically asked for her permission to execute. That plot did not go off without a hitch, and it

was Walsingham's agents who foiled the plan. Robert Poley had his hands in well everything, and we've seen him described as quote the very genius of the Elizabethan underworld. Gifford received the letters exchanged between Babington and Mary, and he passed them to Phillips, who was Walsingham's codebreaker. There was also Peter Bales. Bales was a highly skilled copyist, and his claim to fame was that he produced a bible

that was about the size of a walnut. He inscribed a number of texts within a circumference of a penny, one of which he mounted on a ring and presented to the Queen, who greatly admired his work. He was also skilled at imitating handwriting, and that skill was put to use for secret purposes by Phillips and Walsingham. It was Peter's skills with these letters that ultimately helped uncover

the Baddington plot to assassinate Elizabeth. Walsingham believed it was only a matter of time before Mary would expose her true nature, and he was right kind of. Eventually she replied to Babington with the words that triggered the treasonous act quote let the great plot commence, intercepted and decoded. Walsingham felt that he had the evidence in hand needed as proof that Mary, Queen of Scott's, was plotting to overthrow Elizabeth the First. While she hadn't condoned the assassination

that was detailed in Babington's letter, she hadn't condemned it either. Actually, most accounts suggested the greater letter she had asked for more detail about the plan. When she was put on trial for treason against Queen Elizabeth the First in October of fifteen eighty six. Mary pointed out that there were no letters in her handwriting talking about the assassination of Elizabeth, and she denied having any correspondence from Anthony Babington, but

her secretary had talked. He confessed to penning correspondence. At Mary's dictation, she was convicted of treason on October and was executed by beheading on February a seven at Bothering hay Castle, one week after Elizabeth signed the execut you should order. Walsingham, having wanted to expose Mary for years was pleased with the outcome of her execution, believing that

he had thwarted an existential threat to England. Walsingham had long tried to convince Elizabeth that not only was the throne at risk, but that her life was in danger, and he insisted on multiple occasions that Mary, Queen of Scott's, be executed, but for years Elizabeth had always refused the idea. He was convinced, though, that if he could provide enough evidence that Mary was plotting Elizabeth's assassination, the Queen would surely order that execution, and he saw his opportunity with

the Babington plot. We're going to take a break for a word from our sponsor, and when we return, we will talk about how treason was determined in the sixteenth century in England. Welcome back to Criminalia. There's treason and there's execution to be talked about. But first, let's talk about what it meant to be charged with high treason if you lived during the sixteenth century. With Mary, Queen

of Scott's beheaded. Let's talk about these treason executions. We've been pretty biased toward the American law of treason during the first several episodes of this season. So let's talk English law this time for a change. In the sixteenth century, when the story we're telling takes place, English law of treason was entirely statutory law, and it had been that way since the Treason Act of thirteen fifty one was put in place. The Treason Act distinguished two types of treason,

high treason and petty treason. The distinction is this a charge of high treason, and this is, of course the charge we're talking about in this episode covered acts that constituted any serious threat to the stability of the state, which would have included such things as attempts to kill the reigning sovereign or to wage war against the kingdom.

Petty treason was defined as the murder of one's lawful superior or, as it stated in the Act, a person to whom one quote oe with faith and obedience, So it was petty treason. For example, if a wife killed her husband, or if a peasant killed a lord, that's right. The relationships are what made it treason rather than homicide.

The consequences also differed between these two types. A conviction for high treason meant death by hanging, drawing and quartering for men, or drawing and burning for women, and the trader's property would transfer to the crown. In the case of petty treason, the penalty was drawing and hanging without quartering, or burning without drawing, and the trader's property in these instances transferred not to the Crown but to the trader's immedia,

lord or other superior. Again, in the Babington case, we are, of course talking about high treason. The Babington plot resulted in the execution of Mary, Queen of Scott's, as we talked about, but also Anthony Babington and his co conspirators. The first arrest among the men was made on August four, six, when John Ballard was apprehended and taken into custody. Arrests continued.

At John Savage's trial on September, evidence was given describing the events leading up to the planned assassination, specifically what happened upon Ballard's arrest. We quote then came Babbington to Savage, saying Ballard has taken all will be betrayed. What remedy now, to which Savage, it said, replied, quote, no remedy now, but to kill her presently. Babbington replied, quote very well, then go you unto the court tomorrow and there execute

the fact of it. Responded quote, nay, I cannot go tomorrow, for my apparel is not ready, and in this apparel I shall never come near the Queen. Not to be stopped, Babbington replied, quote, go to here is my ring and all the money I have, Get the apparel and dispatch it. On August fourteen, Titchborne was apprehended and held in the

Tower of London. He was, depending on which of his potential birth years is correct in his twenties, we know that he was either twenty three or twenty seven years old when he was sentenced to death for high treason. While in custody in the Tower on September nineteen, which was the eve of his execution, Titchborne wrote to his

wife Agnes. Few of his poems survive, including one titled When I Was Fair and Young and another The house stuff of those few writings is this final letter to Agnes, and it's considered among literary experts to be his most notable work. Called the Titchborne's Elegy, it contains three stanzas concerning his impending execution. It's also known by its first line, my prime of youth is but a frost of cares,

a verse that was popularized after his execution. Depending on your point of view here, this final poem could have been written either by a martyr or a subversive right. It's an interesting way to look at things, because if you're a fellow Catholic at the time, you see he suffered persecution and death for his religious beliefs. If you were a Protestant, you see he was a threat to your country. One person's patriot is another's traitor, if we

learned anything at all this season. Titchborne's authorship of the elegy has been disputed in the past, with some claiming it was another Tower of London inmate, the famous Sir Walter Rawleigh, who actually pended he didn't The poem that mourns a life cut short is Titchborne's work. Baddington, on the other hand, was not writing poetry while facing potential execution. First, he hit at the home of the Bellamy family until he realized that Jeremy Bellamy was working for the Queen,

specifically for Walsingham's spy network. Babington, at this point tried to buy his way out of it all. He offered a one thousand pound bribe for his pardon that was rejected. He was arrested and he and his co conspirators also arrested, were interrogated. We do not have a record of the types of interrogation techniques that were used, but we do know that each man confessed. It is recorded that John Ballard was tortured for information. Babbington, Ballard, Barnwell, Done, Salsbury, Savage,

and Titchborne were the first group that was tried. It was on September four Abington, Bellamy, Charna, Gage, Jones, Tilney and Travers were tried on the fifteen. Each man was found guilty of high treason. So as Holly just said, Badminton, Ballard, Barnwell, Done, Salisbury, Savage and titch Point were the first group tried. They were also the first of the co conspirators to be

executed on September twenty. The men were marched from their cells in the Tower of London, were strapped to large sleds and were pulled by horses through the streets of London until they reached the execution site. At St Giles, in the fields where a scaffold had been erected. They were each first disemboweled while still alive, on the gallows at Tower Hill, a horrendous act intended as a warning

to other would be conspirators against the throne. After the proceedings, the executioner distributed the parts of their bodies to prominent locations around the city as a show of consequences of disloyalty to the throne. English historian William Camden, who gave us the first detailed historical account of the reign of Elizabeth the First of England, recorded the executions of the prisoners, writing week Boat the same month, a gallows and a scaffold being set up for the purpose in St Giles

his fields, where they were wont to meet. The first seven were hanged there on, cut down, their privoties, cut off, bowled alive and seeing, and quartered not without some note of cruelty. Ballard, the arch plotter of this treason, craved pardon of God and of the Queen, with a condition if he had sinned against her. Babington, who undauntedly beheld Ballard's execution while the rest turned away their faces fell

to prayers upon their knees, ingenuously acknowledged his offenses. Being taken down from the gallows and ready to be cut up, he cried aloud in Latin sundry times, partomihi domine Jesu, that is, spare me, Lord Jesus savage break the rope, and fell down from the gallows, and was presently seized on by the executioner. His privoties cut off, and he bowled alive. Barnwell extenuated his crime under color of religion

and conscience. Titchburne, with all humility, acknowledged his fault, and moved great pity among the multitude towards him, as in like manner did Tilney, a man of a modest spirit and goodly personage, Abington, being a man of a turbulent spirit, cast for threats and terrors of blood to be spilt

ere along in England. The next day the other seven were drawn to the same place and suffered the same kind of death, but more favorably by the Queen's commandment, who detested the former cruelty, for they all hung till they were quite dead before they were cut down and boweled. There are a few more Salisbury was the first, who, being very penitent, warned the Catholics not to attempt to restore religion by force and arms, in like manner did

done who followed him. Jones protested that he had dis aided Salisbury from the attempt, and had utterly condemned Baddington's proud and headstrong mind and the purpose of invasion. Char Knockin travers, having their minds wholly fixed on prayer, commended themselves to God and the Saints. Gauge, extolling the queen's great bounty to his father, detested his own perfidious ingratitude

towards his princess, to whom he was so deeply bound. Mary, Queen of Scots was not included in this list because she was not there that day. She was executed by beheading a few months later, on February eight. The plot and the resulting executions caused a general increase in anti Catholic acts by the monarchy. Hundreds of people were arrested, dozens of Catholic priests were executed. To be a Catholic priest in England was itself treasonous at this point. In

the second half of Elizabeth's reign. In the late sixteenth century, more than three hundred Catholics were tortured to death. The penalty for treason changed over the years, and the death penalty as punishment was abolished in the United Kingdom with the passing of the Crime and Disorder Act of that's more than four hundred years after these executions. So what do you think should we read the elegy before we

pour out a drink? I shall begin with the first of three stanzas my prime of youth is but a frost of cares, my feast of joy is but a dish of pain. My crop of corn is but a field of terrors, and all my good is but vain hope of gain. The day is passed, and yet I saw no sun. And now I live, and now my life is done. My tale was heard, and yet it was not told. My fruit is fall, and yet my leaves are green. My youth is spent, and yet I am not old. I saw the world, and yet I

was not seen. My threat is cut, and yet it is not spun. And now I live, and now my life is done. I saw it, my death, and found it in my womb. I looked for life and saw it was a shade. I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb. And now I die, and now I was but made my glass is full, and now my glasses run, and now I live, and now my life is done, and now Holly for me on Sam Rhyman, fool dis account, It's time for a perfecty poor Okay, listen,

I hear you've got something for us today. Okay. Obviously, the obvious choice here is a bloody Mary, which is why we're not doing a bloody Mary. And I don't like bloody Mary is all that much to begin with, and I really don't like obvious choices. So this is a lot of heavy stuff. In particularly the executions are so grizzly that I wanted to do something a little hearted here and also talk about something that merits a little bit of explanation because it sounds funny when we

read it, but really it makes logical sense. Okay, so I'm calling this one unready apparel. It sounds very funny when Savage replies to that whole request to go to the court right now and just kill her to go, I cannot. My clothes are not ready. But the thing is, if you didn't have the right clothes on, you wouldn't be permitted entry at court. He would not have gotten close enough to the Queen to be able to actually

carry out that directive. So he wasn't being a fancy pants unicorn or vain it sound it does read like it like, oh my own psomb is not prepared. The other reason that I wanted to call this unready apparel is that I would suggest not wearing light colors when you prepare, because you might stay in them. Then you'll never be allowed into Queen Elizabeth's court. Whether you're doing it for good or or evil, you won't get in whatever your purpose. Like I said, I'm not going to

go the obvious root and do a bloody Mary. So no, this is not a tomato juice situation. I also thought for a minute about doing a poset. Do you know what that is? That's like a warm milk drink that was popular at the time that all of these things were playing out. If you're familiar with your Shakespeare, opposet shows up in the Scottish play. That's the thing that

Lady m is poisoning Duncan's guards with. She poisons their posset, and I noodled around with that idea of doing a milk drink, but then I just was not feeling inspired, and so in the midst of my struggle, I decided to do what I often do, which is just go to the store and look around and see what jumps out. And then like, this is one of those great moments where there was an item with like a halo of light shining around it and it was like, filing, this

is your ingredient. I was like, Ah, it was the obvious solution to my themed drink dilemma. I might lose some of you with this because it is a thinging that some people have very strong feelings about. I also do in that I love it. So here we go. This is gonna start with your shaker. Put ice in there. You're going to toss in two ounces of vodka, one ounce of simple syrup, and one ounce of lemon juice. Oh. I know what you might be thinking, Holly, this is

a vodka Collins. Well it is so far, but it's not gonna stay that way because then you're gonna add two ounces of beat juice. I know not everyone loves beats. I love that. I was just about to ask you did I ever tell you what I love beat? I love Beat. Everybody says it tastes like dirt. I'm like delicious dirt, dirt take beautiful and if you use them in cooking, they make everything pink and they turn it

all into princess food. And so you're gonna do your two ounces of Beat juice and then you're gonna shake all of that together, and you're gonna strain it over ice and top it with club soda. You're gonna want to give it a stir. It's probably not gonna mix immediately. The club soda won't naturally mix in because for me, I at first tried it without any soda in it,

and it was just a little too thick. I wanted something that was a little more sippable and like a softer beverage, and the club soda just perfectly balanced all of that out and made the Beat juice a little

thinner and it was quite delicious. I will say this is also one of those ones that's a little misleading, because the beat flavor and the syrup make it taste very sweet and yummy, and you cannot taste those two ounces of vodka, which is a significant amount for like a standard drink, usually an ounce and a half of spirit is what most things have. They'll go up to two depending on your your bartender's choice too, is considered

a lot by most standards. And you can drink it very quickly and be like, oh, how is yummy and refreshing, and then go oh, I just drink two ounces of vodka very quickly. To do the mock tail is really easy. You're just gonna leave out the vodka. But I would also do the following. I would increase your lemon juice a little bit, so I would do more like an ounce and a half of the lemon juice, and I would d crease the simple syrup by about a half out so you still end up with two ounces of

those two things together. But if you don't and you don't have the vodka to thin out that beat juice, that original recipe of an ounce of simple syrup is way too much. It tastes almost like a beat milkshake. It's too much so the lemon juice. If you add a little more lemon juice, you will help mitigate that problem. But I gotta tell you I don't want to beat milk. Actually,

I think that could be really delicious. Listen, you and I are going to make beat soft serrup at some point in the future, and it's going to be amazing, and then we'll pour a vok on top. It will be so um. That is the unready apparel. It's such a beautiful color because you still get that like deep red, but it's more of a magenta red. So it harkens to all of the gruesome torture and bloody things that happen. But it is delicious and not painful at all to

imbibe unless you hate. I'm sorry. I promised there will be no beats next week and probably not for a long time, because I that's a unique thing I wouldn't do over right, Like next you can be like Holly, I love turnip, so what can we do with more root vegetables. I feel like this one is beat juice and rum and you'll be like, no, I'm not sure about that. No, I promise I would never do that.

But I do hope that you come back and hang with us next week, when we will have another story of treason, another cocktail with no beats in it whatsoever, and hopefully a little more fun on Criminalia Criminalia is a production of Shawonda land Audio in partnership with I heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, please visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.