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By Root 883 0

we had brought the corn, and were coming with the next tide; and this I did in order that you might the sooner be advised of my arrival. However, as far as I know, there was nobody there to take the corn or receive the said Peter. Therefore I am obliged to write now to point out to you that there is danger in delay, especially as M. Scepperus is now coming to Stansgate with a warship, and near Harwich there are three other ships waiting and moreover four larger ships are out to sea. Consider therefore whether we must not hurry. There is yet another reason as well: the water will not be as high tomorrow night as tonight, and will be lower every night until next moon, and we now have the advantage that the tide serves our purpose late at night and towards morning, that is, about two o’clock. By that hour or immediately afterwards all ought to be here, so that we may be on our way while the tide is still rising … I will sell my corn at once, and be ready tonight. Please let me know your intentions…. I must add that I see no better opportunity than the present one; and this undertaking is passing through so many hands that it is daily becoming more difficult, and I fear it may not remain secret. However I will yield to a better opinion, and I pray God to inspire you now; for the Emperor has done all he could.

Hours later, Dubois and Rochester met on the pretext of trading grain. Though Dubois expected them to confirm the final details of the plan, Rochester called the whole scheme into question. He said he thought Mary’s imminent flight was unnecessary, as she would be “in no way molested before the end of the Parliament that was to meet the following Michaelmas at the earliest,” at which point she would have the advantage of being at her house at St. Osyth, also in Essex, which had a garden from which it was easy to reach the open sea. It was, he argued, simply too dangerous for Mary to attempt her escape with a watch posted on every road near Maldon. “If you understand me,” Rochester explained, “what I say is not that my Lady does not wish to go, but that she wishes to go if she can.” Dubois demanded clarification. “The thing was now a question of Yes or No.” A decision had to be made. The men of Harwich had seen their ships, and it would not be long before the Council was informed of their presence.

That evening Dubois rode in secret to visit Mary. Rochester voiced his concerns again, and the imperial secretary grew frustrated. “The whole business was so near being discovered that it was most improbable that it could be kept secret.” Rochester replied, “For the love of God, do not say that to my Lady! She is a good woman and really wants to go; but neither she nor you see what I see and know. Great danger threatens us!” As Mary stowed her possessions into hop sacks, she expressed fear as to “how the Emperor would take it if it turned out to be impossible to go now.” She would not be ready until the day after next. On Friday morning, just after the watch retired, she would leave her house on the pretext of going “to amuse herself and purge her stomach by the sea.”

As the plan was agreed, word came that the bailiffs of Maldon wished to impound Dubois’s boat on suspicion that it was associated with the warship at Stansgate. According to Dubois, Mary started to panic, asking “What shall we do? What shall become of me?” She feared “how the Emperor would take it if it turned out impossible to go now, after I have so often importuned his Majesty on the subject.” Dubois urged that they should take Mary immediately, but Rochester declared that it would be impossible: the watch was going to be doubled that night and men would be posted on the church tower. At this point Mary became hysterical, repeatedly shrieking “But what is to become of me?” It was decided that Rochester would contact her again within ten or twelve days with an exact date when they would be ready to put the plan into action. But no further attempt was made. Dubois suspected “that the Comptroller had made out the situation at Maldon to be more dangerous than it