Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/323

 The discovery and death of Babington formed the subject of many contemporary ballads (cf. Notes and Queries, 1st ser. v. 572). One of them, full of valuable biographical details, entitled 'The Complainte of Anthonie Babington,' by Richard Williams, is among the Arundel MSS. (418, art. 3) at the British Museum. Another, entitled 'A proper new ballad, breefely declaring the Death and Execution of fourteen most wicked Traitors,' which bitterly vituperates 'proud young Babington,' has been reprinted in J. P. Collier's 'Broadside Ballads' (1868), pp. 36-41. A third poetical tract is entitled 'A short discourse; expressing the substance of all the late pretended treasons against the Queenes Maiestie;' and a fourth, by William Kempe, who is to be distinguished from the actor of the same name, bears the title 'A dutiful invective against the moste haynous treasons of Ballard and Babington,' 1587. A full description of the execution is found in 'The Censure of a Loyall Subiect,' by G[eorge] W[hetstone], 1587. Dr. gives an account of the conspiracy in his 'Thankfull Remembrance' (1609), and reproduces there the picture of Babington and his confederates drawn in 1586. A Dutch translation of the correspondence between Babington and Queen Mary was circulated in Holland and the Low Countries in 1587.

The historical importance of the conspiracy lies in Mary Stuart's complicity. The discovery of the letter sent by her to Babington approving of the murder of Elizabeth in July 1586 brought her to the scaffold. Apologists for Mary in vain deny the genuineness of this letter, and represent it to have been a forgery of Walsingham. Babington never doubted its authenticity, and, as we have seen, on the day of his death fully explained the cipher in which it was written. And Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador at Paris, writing to Philip II on 10 Sept., states that Mary had written him a letter which left no doubt in his mind that she was fully acquainted with the whole business (Papiers d'Etat, iii. 458). In the presence of evidence of this kind, it is impossible to attach any weight to Mary's indignant denial at Fotheringay of all knowledge of Babington and his conspiracy (State Trials, i. 1182). But it is unnecessary, on the other hand, to credit the rumour circulated, as it was said, on the authority of Cecil, that Queen Mary had resolved to marry Babington.



BABINGTON, BENJAMIN GUY (1794–1866), physician and linguist, was the son of Dr., and was born in Guy's Hospital when his father was resident apothecary there. He entered the navy as a midshipman, and served at Walcheren and Copenhagen, but left the service early, and, having obtained a nomination for the Indian civil service, studied at Haileybury College, and was appointed to the Madras presidency. He possessed a remarkable faculty for languages, and soon became distinguished as an oriental scholar. He translated into English the Tamul-Latin Grammar of C. J. Beschius, and published other translations. Though a man of powerful frame, Babington found the climate of India trying to his health, and, returning to England, studied for his father's profession at Guy's Hospital and Cambridge. Entering the university comparatively late in life, and a widower with a family, he did not (says his contemporary, Sir ) go out in honours, but became M.D. in 1830. He was elected fellow of the College of Physicians, 1831; assistant physician to Guy's Hospital, 1837; and full physician in 1840. He was also fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1861 president of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. He was the founder, and for some years the president, of the Epidemiological Society. He was appointed by the crown a member of the medical council of the General Board of Health. He was also physician to the Deaf and Dumb Hospital, and to other charities. He resigned his appointments at Guy's Hospital in 1855, and died on 8 April 1866.

Dr. Babington was a man of remarkable and very versatile intellectual power. He was proficient in several sciences, and in all of them exact and thorough. Soon after his appointment at Guy's Hospital he gave much attention to the subject of animal chemistry, and assisted Sir, Dr. Bright, and others of his colleagues by making analyses of morbid products. He also wrote in the 'Medico-Chirurgical Transactions' two memoirs on the blood, in one of which he described the fat constantly present in the serum; in another he employed for the first time an expression now always used for the fluid portion of the blood, 'liquor sanguinis.' He wrote some more strictly medical papers in the 'Guy's Hospital Reports,' which are