The Assassination of Shakespeare's Patron: Investigating the Deat ...

that “persuaded” meant “actually talked into.” But it is clear in context—incontestably clear—that Burghley’s meaning, in late 1593 usage, was that Hesketh had “tried to persuade” Ferdinando (of which more later).¹¹ Devlin argued that the evidence of Ferdinando’s treasonable agreement was leaked by Burghley and had some desired influence in discrediting the earl among prominent players. Much, much later (a hundred years or more), a good-sized document (which is extant) was found amongst Burghley’s private papers: an enumerated list of “talking-points” written out for Hesketh to use on his ill-fated journey to Lathom to see the earl. It was a virtual instruction manual for Hesketh to follow (after having memorized it) when he was trying to “persuade” the Derby earl to take the throne—and it seems to have been written by Dr. Thomas Worthington. (The reader may remember that Worthington and Ferdinando’s kinsman Sir William Stanley were two of the high-ranking Catholic leaders abroad who are thought by mainstream academic historians to have designed the entire plot and to have sent Hesketh to implement it.) Devlin called this document “an obvious forgery.”¹² It is summarized later, and its full text is provided as this book’s appendix.

In other words, the claim that was first launched by Devlin and then embraced by his followers is that the entire “Hesketh Plot” was in actuality not just a government test of Ferdinando launched in the hopes that he would fail it. It also included a corollary, “fail-safe” plot to destroy him anyway in case he passed—which he did when he turned Hesketh in. That method was to imply, in the reports of the official private testimony that would be made public after Ferdinando’s death (which the plotters would engineer), that Hesketh had indeed talked Ferdinando into accepting the deal, but Ferdinando had then backed out. Lord Burghley & Co. could thus seriously besmirch Ferdinando’s posthumous reputation by reporting that he had agreed, for the ten days or so between his conversations with Hesketh and his turning him in, to commit the highest and most heinous of treasonous acts. What they thought they could get out of this, these historians have implied, was the dampening, or hopefully even the stemming, of public outcry about any suspicious circumstances that might accompany the death of such a popular, near-deified young nobleman.