Queen of Scots. See STUART, MARY, QUEEN
OF SCOTS.

Queen's Bench, Court of. SeeKING'S
(QUEEN'S) BENCH, COURT OF.

The Act for the Queen's Safety, passed by PAR-
LIAMENT in 1585, extended throughout the
kingdom the protections erected around the
queen by the BOND OF ASSOCIATION. One
of the most pressing concerns of the Parliament
of 1584-85 was for the queen's safety, especially
in light of the recent assassination of WILL-
IAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE, by a Catholic agent,
and the continuing plotting of the Catholic
supporters of Mary STUART, Queen of Scots.

Patterned after the Bond of Association,
the act declared that anyone supporting a
claimant to the throne who sought to advance
his or her claim by assassination of the queen
was guilty of TREASON. The act also autho-
rized loyal subjects to pursue and kill both
those who had attempted the murder and the
claimant on whose behalf they had acted. The
act differed from the Bond in that it did not
empower subjects to also seek out and kill the
claimant's heirs. Although it mentioned no one
by name, the act, like the Bond, was clearly
aimed at Mary Stuart. Elizabeth intervened in
December 1584 while the bill was being de-
bated to object to the provision allowing for
destruction of heirs, which was an attempt to
include Mary's Protestant son, James VI (see
JAMES I) of SCOTLAND, in the consequences
of any Catholic plot on his mother's behalf.

In March 1585, a new bill, devised in con-
sultation with the queen herself, was intro-
duced into Parliament. This bill excluded heirs
from the vengeance of loyal subjects unless the
heirs' involvement in the assassination plot
could be conclusively proven. Thus, under the
Queen's Safety Act, should the queen be as-
sassinated by the Queen of Scots' supporters,
Mary Stuart would die for it, but her son James
would be unharmed unless proven to be part
of the conspiracy. The act also created a mecha-
nism for determining who was involved in any
assassination attempt, and who was thus sub-
ject to the penalty of treason as meted out by
Elizabeth's subjects. Should any rebellion, in-
vasion, or murder plot be undertaken against
the queen, a commission would be created to
investigate the deed and determine the guilty
parties. Upon passage of the act, the Bond of
Association was amended to conform to it. The
Queen's Safety Act remained in force until re-
pealed during Victoria's reign in the nineteenth
century.

Further Reading: John Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parlia-
ments 1584-1601, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1958.

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