The Ridolfi plot

The Ridolfi plot was a plot in 1571 to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. The plot was named after its instigator, Roberto Ridolfi, an international banker who was able to travel between Brussels, Rome, and Madrid to gather support without attracting too much suspicion.

Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, was a cousin of Queen Elizabeth's and the wealthiest landowner in the country; he had been proposed as a possible husband for Mary Queen of Scots since her imprisonment in 1568. Norfolk was very ambitious and felt Elizabeth persistently undervalued him. He initially supported the Northern Rebellion but quickly lost his nerve and was imprisoned in the Tower of London for nine months. He was only freed under house arrest when he confessed all and begged for mercy.

Pope Pius V, in his 1570 papal bull Regnans in Excelsis, excommunicated the Protestant Elizabeth and permitted all faithful Catholics to do all they could to depose her. The majority of English Catholics ignored the bull, but in response to it, Elizabeth became much harsher towards Catholics and their sympathisers.

Roberto Ridolfi was a Florentine banker and ardent Catholic; he had been involved in the planning of the Northern Rebellion and had been plotting to overthrow Elizabeth as early as 1569. After the failure of the rebellion, he concluded that foreign intervention was needed to restore Catholicism and bring Mary to the English throne, and so he began to contact potential conspirators. 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. Both Mary and Norfolk, desperate to remedy their respective situations, agreed to the plot. With their blessing, Ridolfi set off to the continent to gain Alba, Pius V, and King Philip II's support.

In 1571, Elizabeth's intelligence network received information about a plot against her life. By gaining the confidence of Spain's ambassador to England, the details of the conspiracy were discovered, and the government was notified to arrest the plotters. Ridolfi's messenger was arrested on April 12, 1571, at Dover for carrying compromising letters, and by the use of torture and prison, he was forced to reveal the cypher of the messages he carried.

On August 29, 1571, Norfolk's secretaries entrusted to Thomas Browne, a Shrewsbury draper, what was purported to be a bag of silver coins for delivery to one of Norfolk's officials in the north of England. Browne grew suspicious of the bag's weight, opened it, and discovered 600 pounds in gold from the French ambassador, destined for Scotland on Mary's behalf, and cyphered letters. Because he knew Norfolk was under suspicion, Browne reported his find to William Cecil, the Secretary of State. Norfolk’s secretaries were interrogated, and a search for the cypher key at Howard House uncovered a cyphered letter from Mary Stuart hidden under a doormat. Norfolk claimed the money was for his own private purposes. The deciphered letter, however, proved that he was lying. Unaware of his servants' confessions or the survival of letters that, contrary to his instructions, had not been burned, he denied the charges against him. On September 7, the queen's warrant for conveying him to the Tower of London arrived. In January 1572, Norfolk was tried and convicted on three counts of high treason, and on June 2, he was beheaded on Tower Hill. Ridolfi himself escaped execution and lived until 1612.

Portrait of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk,

Sources:

England under the Tudors, G. R. Elton

The Ridolfi Plot, Cyril Hamshere

Ridolfi Plot, Ronald H. Fritze

Elizabeth the Great, Elizabeth Jenkins

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