Thomas Phelippes, Walsingham's codebreaker, intercepted and deciphered Mary's letter, marking it with a gallows drawing as the 'bloody letter' that would condemn her.

26:32by Mary it's supposedly to Babington, but in fact it's been brought to Phillips. He opens the letter, I'm probably not with trembling hands cuz he seems to be a a very cool customer, but definitely I mean, his heart must have been pounding. And he reads it through and he is not disappointed by what he finds. He deciphers Mary's letter. There is the reference to the six gentlemen.

26:54He writes it up, makes a copy um in English, which he then sends to Walsingham, and on the copy of the letter that he sends to Walsingham, he inscribes it with a drawing of a gallows, but he might as well have drawn a chopping block and an axe, and he describes it as the bloody letter because this this Phillips feels is the letter that is going to doom Mary Queen

27:20of Scots, who of course has no idea what has happened. And all the while, Mary is hoping that the letter has got through and that perhaps a plot has been set in motion to set her free from her prison. >> So, 3 and 1/2 weeks later, it's the 11th of August. Mary, of course, knows nothing of this, and her jailer, the whimsical and austere uh Mr. Paulet, who's usually

27:44very unfriendly to her, says to her, "Would you like to go on a deer hunt?" doesn't he? And she doesn't think, "Oh, this is a bit suspicious." She thinks, "Oh, deer hunt, brilliant." Especially as her legs the issue of the gross matter uh seems to have cleared up. >> Yeah, the oozing has ceased to a degree. So, she gets on on on a horse for what is going to prove the