John Ballard

Who was John Ballard?

John Ballard was an English Jesuit priest executed for being involved in an attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England in the Babington Plot.

John Ballard was the son of William Ballard of Wratting, Suffolk. Ballard matriculated at St Catharine's College, Cambridge in 1569, but subsequently migrated to Caius College, Cambridge, and on the 29 November 1579 went on to study at the English College at Rheims. He was ordained as a Jesuit priest at Châlons on 4 March 1581, and was sent back to England on 29 March as a Catholic missionary and, as such, had a price on his head. To conceal his true identity, he played the part of a swashbuckling, courtly soldier called Captain Fortescue and was once described as wearing 'a fine cape laced with gold, a cut satin doublet and silver buttons on his hat'. Being a tall, dark-complexioned man, he was referred to by those who were unaware of his true identity as 'Black Foskew'.

In the Babington Plot, Ballard instigated Anthony Babington, Chidiock Tichborne and others to assassinate the Queen as a prelude to a full-blown invasion of England by Spanish-led Catholic forces.