The Bond of Association was a document created in 1584 by Francis Walsingham and William Cecil after the failure of the Throckmorton Plot in 1583.[1]
The document obliged all signatories to execute any person that:
In the last case, the document also made it obligatory for the signatories to hunt down the killer.
Elizabeth authorised the Bond to achieve statutory authority.
The Bond of Association was a key legal precedent for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1587. Walsingham discovered alleged evidence that Mary, in a letter to Anthony Babington, had given her approval to a plot to assassinate Elizabeth and by Right of Succession take the English throne. Ironically, Mary herself was a signatory of the Bond.[2]