The considerable part that this county played in the safeguarding of Elizabeth’s unhappy prisoner, Mary, Queen of Scots, during her repeated sojourns at Wingfield Manor House, together with her visits to Chatsworth and Buxton, are fully dealt with in another paper in this volume. It may, however, be here remarked that the deplorable execution of Mary, in 1587, and the way in which the youthful Babington had so rashly conspired in her favour, made a great impression upon this county, and caused the Council as well as the local authorities to redouble their precautions. Not only was a certain local undercurrent stirred up in Derbyshire through the Fotheringay execution, but it also had the result of hastening the hostilities of Philip of Spain and other of Elizabeth’s external enemies. There was in consequence at this period frequent exercise of the county forces. The Earl of Shrewsbury’s gout prevented his taking any active part, and the work was chiefly supervised by his brother-in-law, John Manners, the senior of the deputy-lieutenants. A certificate of the musters, as viewed by Manners in November, 1587, shows that there were 400 “selected bands armed and prest for present service”; these bands were divided into 160 “shot,” 80 pikemen, 80 billmen, and 80 archers. It is interesting here to note the remarkable way in which the musket had gained ascendancy over the bow in fourteen years. In addition to the selected 400, Manners returned 1,300 men who were available in times of need, namely, 300 for shot, 300 for pikes, 360 for bills, 200 for bows, 80 as carpenters and wheelwrights, and 60 as smiths. The mounted forces consisted of 9 demi-lances and 178 light-horse. [Illustration: Wingfield Manor. (_From an Indian Ink Drawing by Colonel Machell, 7th August, 1785._)] This return, large as it was, was not, however, a complete one for the whole county, for none of the musters from the hundred of Scarsdale were allowed to be present for fear of infection. A grievous attack of the plague was then raging at Chesterfield and several of the adjacent parishes. The severity of what is termed in the parish register “the great plague of Chesterfield” may be gathered from the fact that the deaths of that town in June, 1587, were fifty-four, in July fifty-two, and yet the average deaths in Chesterfield for several years about that period were only three a month.