A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE afterwards we read that the statute was daily put in execution in all parts of the realm. 839 We have now to narrate the part which Staffordshire played in the captivity of Mary Queen of Scots, the most romantic figure in English history. In February, 1568-9, Mary arrived at Tutbury from Bolton, 289 having been transferred thither because of her many intrigues, in order that she might be in closer custody. Tutbury was at that time one of the seven mansions of George Talbot, the sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, who held it on a lease from the crown, and was used by him as a hunting box. His wife, the famous ' Bess of Hardwick,' owned two more in her own right, so that Shrewsbury was almost a king in that neighbourhood. As he was ' half a Catholic ' and a nobleman of high rank and character, he seemed peculiarly fitted to be Mary's guardian. It cannot be said, reading the provision made for Mary, that she was so badly treated, in spite of the house being poor. She was allowed two physicians who slept in the house, a large suite of more than fifty persons attended her, ten horses were provided, 230 and 52 a week was allowed for her maintenance. She was not destined to stay at Tutbury long, for in the middle of March Shrewsbury received orders to remove her to Wingfield Manor, another of his mansions, and a great change for the better for the captive. In September Mary was taken back to Tutbury in order to be again in more strict custody, as Elizabeth had awakened to the danger of Norfolk's plot to marry Mary, who probably was all the time only using Norfolk as a tool whereby she might obtain her freedom. Her second visit to Tutbury marked an epoch in her captivity, for hitherto she had been treated leniently ; now her retinue was diminished and her actions more closely watched. She was at this time, indeed, the centre of plots against Elizabeth and her government which were backed up by Spain, and it was now that the conspiracy of the northern earls, Westmorland and Northum- berland, came to a head, and they resolved to march and deliver Mary from Tutbury, an enterprise which failed miserably. If it had been resolutely carried out it might well have succeeded, as the earls got within fifty-four miles of the castle, a weak place and easily stormed. It was to suppress this rebellion that Walter Devereux Viscount Hereford raised a troop of horse, and for his services was created Earl of Essex. 231 The attempted rescue caused Mary to be hurried off to Coventry 23a with orders that if she tried to escape she was to be executed forthwith. 258 Acts of P.C. 1577-8, p. 341. The evils arising from the decay of the trade of cap-making, which had been the subject of several Acts of Parliament, by the disuse of caps, had received attention in the statute 33 Eliz. cap. 19, some time before the queen's visit. By this every person, except maiden ladies, and gentle- women, all noble personages, and every lord, knight, and gentlemen of the possession of twenty marks in land by the year, shall on Sundays and holidays wear on their head a cap of wool made in England by the cappers. The penalty was 3/. ^d, per day. m Cal. of Scot. Pap. ii, 616. " MSS. Mary Queen of Scots, iii, 41 ; Cal. of Scot. Pap. ii, 617. 831 Dugdale, Baronage (1675 ed.), ii, 177. There are many letters from Mary at this time in the Cal. of Scot. Pap. iii. In one dated from 'Tutbury the ix of November, 1569," to Cecil, she prays him to ask the queen to ' have pitie on our estait ' as the writer is waiting on her ' loofing friendship ' and has in no ways done anything to offend her, albeit the queen may be otherwise ' informit ' by the false inventions of 'our enemies.' 131 Cal. of Scot. Pap. iii, 9. 250
