Bond of Association
The Bond of Association was a document created in 1584 by Francis Walsingham and William Cecil after the failure of the Throckmorton Plot in 1583. Its purpose was to deter attempts to assassinate Elizabeth I.[1][2]
Contents
[edit]The document obliged all signatories to execute any person that:
- attempted to usurp the throne
- successfully usurped the throne
- made an attempt on Elizabeth's life
- successfully assassinated Elizabeth
In the last case, the document also made it obligatory for the signatories to hunt down the killer.
Royal approval
[edit]Elizabeth authorised the Bond to achieve statutory authority.
Implications
[edit]The Bond of Association was a response to the assassination of William the Silent in July 1584, and the continuing threat posed to Elizabeth I by the supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots as a rival claimant to the English throne.[3] It was a key legal precedent for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1587. Walsingham discovered alleged evidence that Mary, in a letter to Anthony Babington, had given her approval to a plot to assassinate Elizabeth and by Right of Succession take the English throne. Ironically, Mary herself was a signatory of the Bond.[4]
In March 1585, the Bond of Association was in part incorporated in the Act for the Queen's Safety.[5]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Stephen Alford, The Watchers (Penguin, 2013), pp. 136-7.
- ^ A. R. Braunmuller, A seventeenth-century letter-book : a facsimile edition of Folger MS. V.a. 321 (University of Delaware, 1983), pp. 197–202.
- ^ John Guy, My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots (London: Fourth Estate, 2009), pp. 466–475.
- ^ Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquis of Salisbury, vol. 3 (London, 1889), p. 128 no. 232
- ^ Steven J. Reid, The Early Life of James VI, A Long Apprenticeship (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2023), p. 258: Alexander Courtney, James VI, Britannic Prince: King of Scots and Elizabeth's Heir, 1566–1603 (Routledge, 2024), pp. 82–83, 214.
Ridley, Jasper (1987). Elizabeth I: The Shrewdness of Virtue. Fromm International. p. 254.
O'Day, Rosemary (1995). The Tudor Age. England: Longman Group Limited.