John Ballard (died 20 September 1586) was an English priest executed for being involved in an attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England in the Babington Plot.
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'.
However, the plot had been discovered and nurtured by Queen Elizabeth's spymaster Francis Walsingham from the start.
The plot was manipulated by Walsingham in order to bring about his primary objective: the downfall of Mary, Queen of Scots.
[citation needed] When Elizabeth was told of the suffering the men had endured on the scaffold, and its effect on the many witnesses, she is said to have ordered that the remaining seven conspirators be left hanging until they were 'quite dead' before being cut down and butchered.