As a Secretary of some influence, he was active in forging alliances with England's Protestant friends in Holland and Scotland to prevent war with France.
[1] He first visited Scotland acting as secretary to Henry Killigrew, according to an early biographer, in June 1566 when Mary Stuart gave birth to her son in Edinburgh Castle.
[3] Davison was a member of the English Privy Council's Puritan group around Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's principal secretary and spymaster.
Davison travelled from London with Mothe-Fénelon and, by chance, met the Esmé Stewart, Duke of Lennox at Topcliffe in Yorkshire.
Davison gathered information about a goldsmith named John Mosman who was carrying letters for Maineville and the French ambassador in London, Michel de Castelnau.
[13] Although praised for his diplomatic role by the Puritan Earl of Leicester, when he returned he found the Queen incensed by their assumption of the Governorship in Amsterdam; they had behaved too independently for an English mission.
[citation needed] Davison eventually drifted away from Leicester, his erstwhile patron, and more towards the extreme war party around Walsingham.
[14] In the same year he became member of parliament for Knaresborough, a privy councillor, and assistant to Walsingham; but from 30 September 1586, he appears to have acted more as his colleague than as a subordinate.
Meanwhile, the Privy Council, having been summoned by Lord Burghley, decided to draft the warrant on 6 December, two days after the Queen's Proclamation, and carry out the sentence at once.
When sentence was passed upon Mary, the warrant for her execution was entrusted to Davison who, after some delay, obtained the Queen's signature on 1 February.
On this occasion, and also in subsequent interviews with her secretary, Elizabeth suggested that Mary should be executed in some more secret fashion, and her conversation afforded ample proof that she disliked the idea of taking any responsibility upon herself for the death of her rival.
[iii] 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.
[15][16][17] 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.
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.