A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE 



afterwards we read that the statute was daily put in execution in all parts of 

 the realm. 839 



We have now to narrate the part which Staffordshire played in the 

 captivity of Mary Queen of Scots, the most romantic figure in English 

 history. 



In February, 1568-9, Mary arrived at Tutbury from Bolton, 289 having 

 been transferred thither because of her many intrigues, in order that she 

 might be in closer custody. Tutbury was at that time one of the seven 

 mansions of George Talbot, the sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, who held it 

 on a lease from the crown, and was used by him as a hunting box. His 

 wife, the famous ' Bess of Hardwick,' owned two more in her own right, 

 so that Shrewsbury was almost a king in that neighbourhood. As he was 

 ' half a Catholic ' and a nobleman of high rank and character, he seemed 

 peculiarly fitted to be Mary's guardian. 



It cannot be said, reading the provision made for Mary, that she was so 

 badly treated, in spite of the house being poor. She was allowed two 

 physicians who slept in the house, a large suite of more than fifty persons 

 attended her, ten horses were provided, 230 and 52 a week was allowed for her 

 maintenance. 



She was not destined to stay at Tutbury long, for in the middle of 

 March Shrewsbury received orders to remove her to Wingfield Manor, 

 another of his mansions, and a great change for the better for the captive. 

 In September Mary was taken back to Tutbury in order to be again in 

 more strict custody, as Elizabeth had awakened to the danger of Norfolk's 

 plot to marry Mary, who probably was all the time only using Norfolk as a 

 tool whereby she might obtain her freedom. 



Her second visit to Tutbury marked an epoch in her captivity, for 

 hitherto she had been treated leniently ; now her retinue was diminished and her 

 actions more closely watched. She was at this time, indeed, the centre of plots 

 against Elizabeth and her government which were backed up by Spain, and it 

 was now that the conspiracy of the northern earls, Westmorland and Northum- 

 berland, came to a head, and they resolved to march and deliver Mary from 

 Tutbury, an enterprise which failed miserably. If it had been resolutely 

 carried out it might well have succeeded, as the earls got within fifty-four 

 miles of the castle, a weak place and easily stormed. It was to suppress this 

 rebellion that Walter Devereux Viscount Hereford raised a troop of horse, 

 and for his services was created Earl of Essex. 231 The attempted rescue 

 caused Mary to be hurried off to Coventry 23a with orders that if she tried to 

 escape she was to be executed forthwith. 



258 Acts of P.C. 1577-8, p. 341. The evils arising from the decay of the trade of cap-making, which 

 had been the subject of several Acts of Parliament, by the disuse of caps, had received attention in the statute 

 33 Eliz. cap. 19, some time before the queen's visit. By this every person, except maiden ladies, and gentle- 

 women, all noble personages, and every lord, knight, and gentlemen of the possession of twenty marks in land 

 by the year, shall on Sundays and holidays wear on their head a cap of wool made in England by the cappers. 

 The penalty was 3/. ^d, per day. 



m Cal. of Scot. Pap. ii, 616. " MSS. Mary Queen of Scots, iii, 41 ; Cal. of Scot. Pap. ii, 617. 



831 Dugdale, Baronage (1675 ed.), ii, 177. There are many letters from Mary at this time in the Cal. 

 of Scot. Pap. iii. In one dated from 'Tutbury the ix of November, 1569," to Cecil, she prays him to 

 ask the queen to ' have pitie on our estait ' as the writer is waiting on her ' loofing friendship ' and has 

 in no ways done anything to offend her, albeit the queen may be otherwise ' informit ' by the false inventions 

 of 'our enemies.' 



131 Cal. of Scot. Pap. iii, 9. 



250 



