Savage alone refused, during some time, to share the glory of the enterprise with any others;[*] he challenged the whole to himself; and it was with some difficulty he was induced to depart from this preposterous ambition.
* State Trials, vol.i.p.

111.
The deliverance of the queen of Scots, at the very same instant when Elizabeth should be assassinated, was requisite for effecting the purpose of the conspirators; and Babington undertook, with a party of a hundred horse, to attack her guards while she should be taking the air on horseback.

In this enterprise, he engaged Edward Windsor, brother to the lord of that name, Thomas Salisbury, Robert Gage, John Travers, John Jones, and Henry Donne; most of them men of family and interest.

The conspirators much wanted, but could not find, any nobleman of note whom they might place at the head of the enterprise; but they trusted that the great events, of the queen's death and Mary's deliverance, would rouse all the zealous Catholics to arms; and that foreign forces, taking advantage of the general confusion, would easily fix the queen of Scots on the throne, and reestablish the ancient religion.
These desperate projects had not escaped the vigilance of Elizabeth's council, particularly of Walsingham, secretary of state.

That artful minister had engaged Maud, a Catholic priest, whom he retained in pay, to attend Ballard in his journey to France, and had thereby got a hint of the designs entertained by the fugitives.