Mary by assassination. Charged before the Star Chamber with misprision and contempt, he was acquitted of evil intention, but was sentenced to pay a fine of 10,000 marks and to imprisonment during the Queen's pleasure. Owing to the exertions of several influential men he was released in September 1588, after the invasion crisis had passed; the Queen, however, refused to employ him again in her service, but he kept his office, and probably never paid the fine. His friends, notably the Earl of Essex, tried to get him the exercise of the Secretary's office, particularly after Walsingham's death in 1590. However, Burghley coveted the post, keeping it vacant for his son Robert Cecil. Davison was excluded from the emoluments of office for the remainder of the reign. And James I was even less likely to offer preferment. Davison and family retired to Stepney, where he died on 21 December 1608, and was buried on the 24th. The fruits of the office of Custos Brevium were "benefit of said office wholly to me and my assigns". Despite mortgaging his home in 1579, it seems his widow was not evicted; the debt was not called until much later. Davison appears to have been an industrious and outspoken man, and was undoubtedly made the scapegoat for the Queen's conduct. By his wife, Catherine Spelman, daughter of Henry Spelman of Norfolk, whom he married around 1570, he had a family of four sons and two daughters. His wife was Leicester's 'cousin' by marriage. Two of his sons, Francis and Walter, obtained some celebrity as poets. Many state papers written by him, and many of his letters, are extant in various manuscript collections. His will's executors were brothers of Gray's Inn, George and Robert Byng, who had mortgaged his house in Stepney. Davison left his widow with large debts. When all debts were paid on the sale of the house, his second son Christopher Davison was to inherit the right to a Treasury Office as stated in the will proven 9 January 1609. In popular culture He is a minor character in the play Maria Stuart by Friedrich Schiller. Notes References Bibliography Nicholas Harris Nicolas, Life of William Davison: Secretary of State and Privy Counsellor to Queen Elizabeth, Nichols (1823) Calendar of State Papers Scotland, 1574–81 Z 1540s births 1608 deaths English MPs 1586–1587 English people of Scottish descent Members of the Privy Council of