Main plot

The Main Plot (or "the treason at Maine" -- referring to the traditional province of Maine, near the present Le Mans,France) was a conspiracy by English Catholics, allegedly led by lay Catholic Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham, to remove King James I of England from the English throne, replacing him by aid of Spain with his cousin Arabella (or Arbella) Stuart.

The plot involved George Brooke and Lord Grey of Wilton raising a regiment and marching on London to take over the government. Henry Brooke, 8th Lord Cobham, was to act as a negotiator. In the version of the plot presented at trial, Cobham was negotiating with the court of Aremberg to contact the Spanish court for a very large sum of money (approximately one-hundred and sixty thousand pounds). He was to travel to Brussels, then to Spain, collect the money, and go back to England via Jersey, where Walter Raleigh was governor. Raleigh and Cobham were then to divide up the money and decide how best to spend it in furtherance of sedition.

The plot was discovered by questioning prisoners arrested in connection with the Bye Plot. In particular, George Brooke, brother of Lord Cobham, had been involved in the Main plot. He apparently believed that he could bolster his position by informing on his brother. It is currently considered unlikely that Walter Raleigh had any culpability in the plot; see the biography of Raleigh's prosecutor, Edward Coke.

If George Brooke thought that informing on his brother would help him in his show trial for the Bye plot, he was wrong as Brooke was executed with the other Bye plot conspirators in 1603. Cobham, too, was executed for his involvement in the Main plot in 1618. Raleigh was imprisoned in the Tower of London for thirteen years and was eventually released, although he was himself executed in 1618.

External links

• Lex Scripta account of the plots

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