The success of the plan required Norfolk's approval and involvement. Elizabeth sent Lady Howard and Lady Cecil to the Tower to break the news to Lady Lennox. Jealous, frightened as she was of Mary's power, she was not prepared to see it thrown away by actions which discredited monarchy and seemed likely, by plunging Scotland into civil war, either to encourage rebellion or to bring in the French. These treasons will be proved to you and all made manifest. The first blow missed her neck and struck the back of her head. An initial approach by the bishop of Ross, forwarding ciphered letters from Mary, failed to secure his support. (25) On 24th July she was presented with deeds of abdication, telling her that she would be killed if she did not sign. Then the two women departed from her, and she kneeling down upon the cushion most resolutely, and without any token or fear of death, she spake aloud this Psalm in Latin, In Te Domine confido, non confundar in eternam , etc. It is claimed that "Norfolk assumed an air of aristocratic disdain in his responses to the mounting evidence against him". In the hiding-place Walsingham found a complete collection of the papers connected with Ridolfi's mission, and nineteen letters to Norfolk from the Queen of Scots and the Bishop of Ross. I have no scruples and no fear of danger. (41) The government case was supported with documentary proof, the written confessions of the bishop of Ross, his servant Bailly, the duke's secretaries, and other servants, and his own admissions. Mary Queen of Scots wrote: "When all is ready, the six gentlemen must be set to work, and you will provide that on their design being accomplished, I may be myself rescued from this place." (23), People were shocked that Mary could marry a man accused of murdering her husband. At first Elizabeth was confident that she would block it because Darnley was an English subject, and his parents were her dependants with lands in England. She, turning herself to them, embracing them, said these words in French, ' Ne crie vous, j'ay prome pour vous ', and so crossing and kissing them, bad them pray for her and rejoice and not weep, for that now they should see an end of all their mistress's troubles. (51), In October 1585, Gilbert Gifford went to Paris, where he got in touch with Thomas Morgan, an agent of Mary Queen of Scots. He employed counterfeiters, who would then break the seal on the letter, make a copy, and then reseal the original letter with an identical stamp before handing it back to Gifford. Was Queen Catherine Howard guilty of treason? When Elizabeth heard this, she was momentarily startled out of herself: she could not credit such idiocy; she declared it could not be true! The apparently untouched letter could then be delivered to Mary or her correspondents, who remained oblivious to what was going on. Mary's passion was soon extinct, and her coldness and dislike roused him to the fatuous self-assertion that had been fostered by his mother." Lord Darnley was taken ill (officially with smallpox, possibly in fact with syphilis) and was convalescing in a house called Kirk o' Field. At the same time she could not use her military forces to reimpose Mary's rule on the protestant Scots; nor could she allow Mary to take refuge in France and Spain, where she would be used as a "valuable pawn in the power game against England". Gifford then suggested that he would try to find a way of smuggling the letters into Chartley Castle. Mary sent Maitland, her Secretary of State, to England to ask Elizabeth for the succession. It was even suggested that Rizzio was the real father of Mary's unborn child. (61), Babington home was searched for documents that would provide evidence against him. Riccio was buried hastily in a cemetery outside Holyrood Abbey. (42), Queen Elizabeth was reluctant to authorize the execution of the Duke of Norfolk. "I would be glad to know the names and qualities of the six gentleman which are to accomplish the designment; for it may be that I shall be able, upon knowledge of the parties, to give you some further advice necessary to be followed therein, as also from time to time particularly how you proceed.