Thomas Morgan (of Llantarnam) facts for kids
Thomas Morgan (1546–1606) was a Welshman from Monmouthshire. He was a trusted helper and a spy for Mary, Queen of Scots. He was also involved in the Babington plot, which was a plan to kill Queen Elizabeth I of England.
When he was young, Thomas was a strong Catholic. He worked as a secretary for the Archbishop of York until 1568. After that, he worked for Lord Shrewsbury, who was in charge of Mary, Queen of Scots at the time. Because Thomas was Catholic, Mary trusted him. She made him her secretary and a messenger between 1569 and 1572. This was a time when many secret plans were being made against Queen Elizabeth. Thomas was put in prison in the Tower of London for three years. After he was released, he moved to France.
The Parry Plot: A Secret Plan
Thomas Morgan secretly wrote letters to Mary, Queen of Scots, who was held prisoner in England. He was planning to kill Queen Elizabeth. In 1584, he might have helped create a book called Leicester's Commonwealth. This book attacked Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, who was a powerful friend of Queen Elizabeth. The book was shared widely in England and argued that Mary should become queen after Elizabeth. Francis Walsingham, who was in charge of Elizabeth's secret service, thought Thomas Morgan wrote it.
In 1584, Morgan went to Paris with letters from Mary to her friends in France. There, he met Dr. William Parry. Together, they made a plan to kill the queen. Parry was later arrested in England and accused of a very serious crime called High Treason (plotting against the ruler). He said he was a secret agent trying to find out what the Catholics were planning.
In 1586, Mary was accused of being involved with Morgan. One of the accusations said that her servant Morgan worked with Parry to kill the Queen, and Mary knew he was the main person who convinced Parry to do this terrible act. Morgan strongly denied he was involved in his secret letters to Mary, and she chose to believe him.
The Babington Plot: A Bigger Secret
Morgan and Charles Paget found a young English nobleman named Anthony Babington. He was ready to risk his life for Mary. They asked him to murder Queen Elizabeth I in what became known as the famous Babington plot.
In 1585, Gilbert Gifford arrived in Paris to meet Morgan and Charles Paget. They sent Gifford to England. But Francis Walsingham's secret agents arrested Gifford at the port of Rye, East Sussex. He was taken to London for questioning. It seems Walsingham convinced Gifford to become a spy for him. Gifford then started to secretly copy the letters between Mary, Queen of Scots and her supporters. These letters eventually led to Mary's downfall and her execution. Gifford even said that Walsingham's main codebreaker, Phelippes, was very good at understanding Morgan's messages.
Gifford, while spying for Elizabeth from the embassy, copied all the letters exchanged between Thomas Morgan and Mary and gave them to Walsingham. Elizabeth's top codebreaker, Thomas Phelippes, was able to figure out the secret code Thomas Morgan used. The plot was discovered. Babington was arrested, and he and the others involved were put to death. Thomas Morgan managed to avoid being sent back to England, which would have meant a terrible fate. He was thrown into the Bastille prison and then another prison in Flanders. He was finally set free in 1593.
Life After the Plots
Some of Morgan's fellow plotters, like Charles Paget, Thomas Throgmorton, and Ralph Liggons, accused him of being a spy for Walsingham. He was held in the Bastille prison, but his friends asked the Pope for help, and the Pope ordered his release. Morgan then went to live with the Bishop of Cusano Milanino in Amiens. The exact date of his death is not known. In January 1605, he was sentenced to death for plotting, but the punishment was never carried out.
