Page:Archaeologia Volume 13.djvu/130

96 It appears from Camden's Annals of Queen Elizabeth and other authorities, that this Charles Bailly, or Bailif, as Camden spells his name, was a person engaged in the service and practices of the queen of Scots, who, coming over to England early in the year 1571, was the moment he landed at Dover seized and imprisoned. By the first inscription he appears to have been in the Tower on the 10th of April that year.

In Murdin's Collection of State Papers relating to Affairs in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, there is preserved a great deal of information concerning him. In a letter dated from his prison in the Tower, "this month of October, the 7th of my imprisonment, 1571," to lord Burghley, he most humbly beseeches his lordship "for God's sake, and for the passion that he suffered for us, to take pitie of me, and to bend your mercyfull eyes toward me, Charles Bailly, a poor prisoner and stranger."

Camden says he was a Dutchman by birth, but his name is plainly Scottish.

Having discovered, as he says, all he knew, he concludes with saying, there "restith no more for me, but after my prayer to God, all the quenes majesties and your lordships enemys knowen, to the end they may be overthrowen and destroyed, and all their purposes and enterprises broken, most humbly to beseech your lordship to take companion of me, in putting me to liberty; assuring your lordship that I will make an othe never to serve any Scottishman agayn, or stranger, whilest I lyve, but the queenes' majesty and your lordship, to whose service I have been addicted all the tyme of my being in this realme, and have been carefull to shew it in deede; and that your lordship will consyder that I am a stranger, who have no frend at all to help me with a penny, and that I am allready all naked and torne; and that all those that be touched by that I have already opened to your lordship, do laughe me to scorne for this