1565-1569

Mary Stuart marries Darnley—Their intrigues with Philip through Guzman—Plan to promote revolution in England in favour of Mary—Expulsion of the English ambassador from Spain—Recall of Guzman—Don Gerau de Spes ambassador—His character—Commences conspiring at once—His turbulent behaviour—Seizure of Philip’s treasure in England—Indignation of de Spes—His imprudent and disastrous action—Alba stops trade—Strained relations—Proposed declaration of war against England—The views of Philip and Alba—The Norfolk plot—The Northern rebellion

In July, 1565, Mary Stuart had been swept by her passion along the rapids that led to her marriage with Darnley and her ruin. Up to this period her policy had been consistent and sagacious, directed mainly to the recognition of her present or prospective right to succeed to the throne of England. She had tried to attain the end alternately by the only two means open to her, by seeking marriage with a Catholic prince strong enough to enforce her claims, and by winning Elizabeth’s acknowledgment of them by submission to her will. So long as she was under the influence of Cardinal Lorraine, and the Guises were powerful, her main efforts had been in the first direction, but after her arrival in Scotland the influence of Murray and Lethington had led her into the second course. In a former chapter it has been related how, despairing of obtaining recognition from Elizabeth, Mary and her Protestant Anglophil advisers had on one occasion, in 1563, reverted to her earlier plans, and had attempted to secure Philip’s aid through her marriage with Don Carlos. She had never since quite abandoned this hope—her only one in this direction, since Guise was dead and Catharine de Medici was her deadly enemy. It is true that she had satisfied herself before Darnley arrived in Scotland that Don Carlos was unlikely or unfit to be a husband for her,[157] but prudence would have dictated delay in her marriage in order that Philip might have provided her with another Consort who would take with him the support of Spain. But Mary lost her head, if not her heart, when she saw “the long lad” Darnley, and took the step which made it, at first sight, appear the more difficult for Philip to help her, and which yet alienated from her Murray and the Protestants and brought her into open enmity with the Queen of England. On the other hand, the wedding of both the Catholic claimants to the Crown of England consolidated the Catholic elements in the north, making Elizabeth’s position more dangerous than at any time since her accession, and Mary had undoubtedly not lost sight of this feature, which she saw might yet enable her to obtain Spanish support when the time for action came.

On the 24th March, 1565, four months before the Darnley marriage, though the prospective bridegroom was already in Scotland, a servant of the Lennoxes, named Fowler, came to Guzman in London with a letter from Mary Queen of Scots. He had been sent from Scotland, he said, by the Queen, ostensibly to obtain from Elizabeth a passport for Secretary Lethington to visit England, but really to ask the Spanish ambassador whether he had instructions to discuss with her a certain business that had formerly been broached to King Philip through his predecessor, Bishop Quadra, as if so she would send Lethington to see him. Guzman did not know Mary’s handwriting and was suspicious, especially as he was aware that Don Carlos could on no account marry Mary; so that Fowler, who said he could not return to Scotland without an answer, proposed to prove his _bonâ fides_ by showing his mistress’s letter to Luis de Paz, a Spanish merchant, who knew her handwriting. On the morrow Guzman was satisfied of Fowler’s honesty, and as he heard alarming news of a plan to marry Mary to her French brother-in-law, he hesitated no longer but sent the messenger Fowler back to Scotland with a letter for Mary, asking her to send Lethington to confer with him.

A few days afterwards Guzman got a further hint from Darnley’s mother, the Countess of Lennox, of what was really in the wind. She sent to tell him how kind Mary was to her son in Scotland, and that the French ambassador had come to her promising all French help and support to Darnley if the Queen of Scots married him. The Countess in her message to Guzman affected to distrust this French offer, which probably she herself had invented, “as she knows the French way of dealing,” and said “that she and her children had no other refuge but the King of Spain, to whom she and they will ever remain faithful. She begs me to address your Majesty in their favour, so that in case the Queen of Scots should open negotiations about Lord Darnley, or in the event of this Queen’s death, they may look to your Majesty for support.” A week or two later the Countess of Lennox returned to the charge. She prayed Guzman to assure Lethington, when he arrived in London, “that your Majesty desired to favour her, as she believes that it would help her son’s business very much. She thinks he may marry the Queen of Scots, who rests her claim to this country more on the support of your Majesty than on anything else, especially as the Queen-mother of France is very much against her.” This seemed to Guzman important, and he did his best to assure Lady Lennox by hints of the sympathy that Mary and Darnley might expect from Spain. “As I have said on many occasions,” he continued in his letter to Philip, “it should be borne in mind that, in addition to the Queen of Scotland’s great claims to this realm, she has certainly here a very strong party, and it is highly desirable in many respects that she should be reckoned with in the interest of affairs that so deeply concern us. The English ports are necessary for the passage of trade between Spain and Flanders, &c.; and, besides this, these English are beginning to navigate largely, and may interfere with us in the Indies, upon which they look greedily, unless they are prevented from sailing.”

Even mild, conciliatory Guzman was thus already joining those who looked eagerly for the ejection of Elizabeth and the substitution of Mary Stuart as Queen of a Catholic Britain under Spanish control. When Lethington arrived in London, therefore, on the 24th April, 1565, Guzman was quite prepared for the approaches he knew would be made. The two first met at some formal occasion at the French Embassy, and as they went along the road together on their way home, Lethington tried to arouse the fears of the Spaniard by hinting that Elizabeth was fishing for a French husband; but Guzman parried that by saying that in such case it would go hard with the Queen of Scots, who would then be on bad terms with both England and France. The next day, 25th April, the Scottish Secretary of State unmasked his batteries. Closeted secretly with Guzman at Paget House in the Strand, he explained how Mary had always desired to lean upon Spanish support alone, how she had bidden for the hand of Don Carlos, and had waited two years for Philip’s answer. Now there were thoughts of the Countess of Lennox’s son, since the King of Spain, it was feared, might have other views for Don Carlos. Lord Darnley had many advantages, but if the King of Spain gave her any hopes of Don Carlos the Queen would not conclude the proposed marriage with Darnley. Guzman replied that the King had not pursued the negotiations for Don Carlos because he had heard that Cardinal Lorraine had practically arranged with the Emperor for Mary to wed the Archduke Charles. After much conversation and explanation on this point, in which Cardinal Lorraine’s betrayal of his niece was made clear, Guzman cautiously expressed approval of Darnley, as he says, “trying to keep them in a good humour in view of eventualities.”

But this was not enough for Lethington. Setting forth the enmity that the Darnley match might draw upon Mary from the Queen of England, he continued, “All this would cause grave evil, but could be remedied by the King of Spain taking my Queen and her affairs under his protection, in the assurance that at all times and in every matter they shall be considered as his own.... Such an arrangement would have to be treated with the utmost secrecy until the opportune moment arrived. There is no doubt whatever that the majority of the [English] gentry and common people are attached to my Queen, and I can promise positively that she will follow the wishes of your master in everything.” Lethington then suggested that, as the despatch of an ambassador from Scotland to Spain might alarm Elizabeth, the King of Spain might authorise Guzman to conclude a secret agreement by which Mary and her future husband should be bound absolutely to Spain in return for Philip’s support, or otherwise that the affair might be carried through by Mary’s ambassador in Paris (Beton, Archbishop of Glasgow) and the Spanish representative there.

Once again we see here that the exigencies of the position had driven the Protestant Lethington to place Scotland and, if possible, England, under the tutelage of the King of Spain, if no other way could be found to enforce the claim of Mary to the English Crown. The course he took was dictated by the highest diplomacy, whatever might be said for its religious consistency. Failing Don Carlos and the King of France, who are now out of the question, Darnley was, in fact, the only man who could unite the English Catholics in Mary’s cause and attract foreign support to her claims. Lethington and Mary knew that Philip’s vital political need was a submissive England, and that Scotland was only interesting to him as contributing to that end. If Philip, by means of Mary and the Lennoxes, could obtain command of the powerful Catholic elements in England united in favour of the two legitimate heirs to the Crown, with the added advantage of a permanent base of operations in Scotland, he might find himself by the death or deposition of Elizabeth, which might be brought about at any time, the virtual master of Great Britain. No wonder, therefore, that Guzman smiled upon Lethington’s important mission, and promised to send post haste to Spain for the King’s decision.

Whilst Elizabeth was making frantic efforts to prevent Mary’s marriage, and to keep up an appearance of negotiating for her own union with Don Carlos or the Archduke, and Leicester was again trying to win Spanish support for his suit by Catholic professions, Philip recognised that the offer made by Lethington to Guzman at last gave him a real opportunity of carrying through his plans for subjugating England by means of a subsidised Catholic rising in favour of Mary and Darnley. The suggestion was one after his own heart, and he accepted it with alacrity. Although cautiously, he was gradually coming round to the view that had been urged by Feria in the first days of Elizabeth’s reign, that England would have to be dealt with by force, only now, and for years afterwards, he wanted it to be the force of others wielded for his benefit. The King’s answer to Guzman was unusually decided and emphatic for him: “Your news has been very pleasing to me, and on the assumption that the marriage of the Queen and Darnley has really gone so far as they say, the bridegroom and his parents being such good Catholics and our affectionate servitors, and having in view the Queen’s good claims to the Crown of England, to which Darnley also pretends, we have decided that, the marriage is one favourable to our interests, and should be promoted and supported to the full extent of our power. We have thought well to assure the Queen of Scotland and Lord Darnley’s party, which we believe is a large one in the country, that this is our will and determination, and that if they will be ruled by our advice, and will not be precipitate, but will patiently await a favourable juncture, when any attempt to frustrate their plans would be useless, I will then assist and aid them in the object they have in view. I have instructed the Duke of Alba to write to this effect to the Scottish ambassador in Paris; but I think well to advise you also that you may know my views and keep them quite secret from the Queen of England and her friends, seeing the great danger that would result to this business and all our affairs if it were known. You may assure Lady Margaret of the sympathy and goodwill I bear to her son and towards the successful accomplishment of the project, in order that they may be satisfied, and know that they may depend upon me, and so be able to entertain and encourage the Catholics and their party in England.”[158]

Philip foresaw the danger of Elizabeth’s being driven by the fear of a Catholic coalition against her to adopt Catharine Grey, or some other Protestant, as her successor, and he enforced upon Guzman, the Lennoxes, and the Scottish and English Catholics, the closest secrecy, and especially that every means should be employed to prevent a rival successor being brought forward. At the same time there is in the King’s letter to his ambassador no concealment of the intention to use this union of Mary Stuart and Darnley to foment a Catholic revolt in England which shall sweep Elizabeth aside. “You will,” he writes, “keep in good intelligence with their party in England and with the Catholics, which is the same thing, and try by all means in your power to animate and encourage them to carry the business into effect, promising them what I have said. But it must all be done so dexterously and adroitly that it shall not become public or reach the Queen’s ears, or evil results will ensue.”

Anxious as Philip might be for secrecy, it was difficult to attain where so many people were concerned. Already Murray and the Scottish Protestant nobles had fallen away from Mary on the mere rumour of a Catholic Darnley match, and were looking askance at the Queen’s new Catholic friends. The Lennoxes, even the Earl himself, retorted foolishly by boasting of the support of the King of Spain,[159] which made matters infinitely worse and gave rise to alarming whispers in Scotland that religious persecution at the point, mayhap, of Spanish pikes might be the outcome of this godless wooing. Darnley, who was still ill in bed, was as imprudent as his father; threatened to break the Duke of Chatelherault’s head as soon as he could get up, and vapoured about his coming greatness under foreign auspices that would enable him to snap his fingers even at the Queen of England. Nor was Mary herself much more cautious in her utterances, and the English agent, Randolph, attributed her new-born pride and indifference to the effects of some devilish enchantment.

But though she was deeply infatuated with “the young fool,” Mary would not marry him until she had received a reply to her advances to Philip. The match with Darnley was to give her, she hoped, the English Crown, but it could only be done with the aid of Spain. So, tired almost of waiting, she seized upon a hollow pretext to send James Hay, of Balmerino, to London to see Guzman, and learn if he had any news for her. On the very day that Hay first saw the Spanish ambassador Philip’s important letter had arrived in London. The Scot had just been violently snubbed by Elizabeth, and all his requests refused contumeliously, as no doubt he had foreseen they would be; his real reason for coming south at all, indeed, being to obtain the sanction not of the Queen of England but the King of Spain to Mary’s marriage with Darnley. The reply from Philip that Guzman gave to Balmerino was indeed a welcome one. “He appeared delighted with it, and said that his Queen desired nothing so much as that she should follow your Majesty’s orders in all things, without swerving a hair’s breadth, and that you should take her under your protection. I urged him to try to get his Queen to manage her affairs prudently, and not to strike until a good opportunity presented itself.”

Hay only stayed in London one day longer, for he knew that the great wish of Mary’s heart was now to be granted; and though to the English partisans and the Protestants in Scotland he deplored “the evil success of his long journey,” it must have been with a merry heart beneath his doublet that he carried his welcome message to Holyrood on the 7th July, 1565. Two days afterwards Mary was secretly married to Darnley, though the public wedding was deferred until the 29th; and the great conspiracy against Elizabeth and Protestantism was then complete. Mary was so infatuated with Darnley at the time that she would probably have married him in any case, but her caprice for him and her determination to supplant Elizabeth had thus led her to promise the submission of herself and her realms to the dictation of a foreign monarch, the traditional foe of France that she pretended to love so well; a monarch whose first object was to gain command of the policy and resources of Scotland and England by exterminating the religion of a large proportion of the people. It was a triumph for her that her marriage with the man for whom she was temporarily crazy should be instrumental in gaining what she had striven so hard for since she left France, namely, the support of Spain; but indoctrinated though she was by the cynical teaching of her uncle, Cardinal Lorraine, she can hardly have realised the turpitude of the act of treachery she was committing. She had been cherished and beloved even by her Protestant subjects, and yet the step she was taking would lead, if she were successful in her object, to the employment of the hideous methods of Spanish religious coercion to crush their religious liberty, to the subordination of the land of her birth, and of England over which she aspired to rule, to the interests of a foreign nation, and would involve the ruin or death of another Queen closely related to her.

On the other hand, it must be allowed on Mary’s behalf that her circumstances were exceptionally difficult. The political system of Catharine de Medici had deprived Scotland of the strong ally that for centuries had been its main protection against the aggression of England, whilst the spread of Protestantism in Scotland had created a new bond of union between the country and Elizabeth’s government. In order to be able to rule Scotland peacefully in these circumstances it was necessary either that the sovereign should accept frankly the Reformed doctrines and become more or less a vassal of England, or else make common cause with the great enemy of the Reformation, submit to the dictation of Spain with all it involved, and restore the lost balance of power in Europe to Philip’s advantage by uniting England and Scotland under Catholic rule. The effect would have been to reduce France to a secondary position, to secure supremacy for the papal Church, and to place Europe at the bidding of Philip II. Between these two alternatives Mary chose that to which her Guisan and Catholic traditions led her, and, reprehensible as her choice may seem to the political ethics of to-day, it was in the circumstances the most natural course for her to take.

There was no hesitation or weakness in Mary’s attitude as soon as she had taken the step and married Darnley with the blessing of Philip. Knox thundered his denunciations from the pulpit, but whimpered and “longed to depart” when the guns of Edinburgh Castle began to speak; Murray, with his 1,200 men-at-arms, meaning mischief, waxed lachrymose when he found that the burgesses shrank from open disloyalty to the Queen, and that Elizabeth dared not help him now to rebel against the friend and ally of Spain. Mary, on the other hand, was confident and energetic. Keeping the saddle through the foulest weather, and over execrable paths, she rode almost alone, armed, and eager to meet her rebellious brother and his supporters. This was the eventuality which she had foreseen when she had ensured Catholic support from abroad on her marriage with Darnley, and she lost no time in claiming it.

All the North of England was on the alert and ready for action in her favour if success were assured by the aid they looked for from Philip; and to the Pope Mary appealed even before her marriage was publicly celebrated. The Protestants, she wrote, were in arms against her, the Queen of England was in desperation: if his Holiness would send a force of 12,000 men to Scotland for six months the religion of Rome might be restored permanently. It was too much for the Pope to do without Philip’s connivance, so he put off Mary’s envoy with fair words until the reply could come from Spain.[160] To Philip himself she also wrote shortly before her public marriage (24th July, 1565): “I have given notice to your ambassador of all that has taken place, on the assurance that in the event of my urgently needing your succour and assistance, which I do, your Majesty will grant them to me in order to maintain the faith, with which object you raise such great forces against the Turk. I can truly say that no war is more dangerous to Christianity nor more pernicious to the obedience due to princes than that moved by these new evangelists (God grant that you may never be troubled with them in your dominions), and I therefore beg your Majesty, for this reason, and in consideration of the desire I have and always have had to bind myself to you against all the world, to instruct your ambassador to uphold the rights of the Earl of Lennox’s son and my own in England, and to order him to declare to the Queen of England that you will not allow anything to be done to our disadvantage.”[161]

There is no doubt that a vast Catholic conspiracy, especially in the North of England, was in existence at this time, full of hope, encouraged by the agents of the Countess of Lennox, that the aid of Philip sent to Mary would enable them to shake off the yoke of Elizabeth and her Protestant ministers. The constant injunctions of the King of Spain that everything must be kept inviolably secret, and no move made until success was ensured, had been powerless, as usual, to close the mouths of elated people who thought that their days of tribulation were soon to end. Before Mary’s public marriage the eager English Catholics also sent their own emissary to the Spanish Regent of Flanders, Philip’s sister, the Duchess of Parma, to confer with her, and thence to proceed to Scotland. The man they chose was one Francis Yaxley, who had filled several bureaucratic posts in the English Court, especially that of Clerk of the Signet during Philip’s stay in England. He had been a friend of Bishop Quadra and a follower of Cecil, but at this time was a professed Catholic attached to the Lennox party. He knew foreign countries, and had even been in Spain; so that he was considered to be a good instrument for bringing into accord the English Catholics, the Scottish Queen, and King Philip. Guzman, giving notice to the King of his going to Flanders, says that “he is a person well acquainted with affairs here and will be able to give the Queen of Scotland a great deal of information. They (_i.e._, the English Catholics) say that he is a devoted servant of your Majesty.”[162]

Exactly what this man arranged in Flanders before proceeding to Scotland is not known, but when he arrived, in August, at Leith, Randolph, the English agent in Edinburgh, knew enough to suspect him. “His errand I yet know not,” he wrote to Cecil, “and would I knew what might be said to such ‘gestes’ who come for little good.”[163] Whatever message Yaxley brought it was a welcome one to Mary and her husband, Darnley particularly “rejoicing and imparting all his affairs to him.” Yaxley is represented by the English agent as imposing upon Darnley and his “yong company,” by his boastful talk, “as a fit man to send abroad, as he knew so well the Courts of Spain and England, besides his acquaintance in Flanders and at Brussels, that he doubted not to accomplish any commission. So he is to pass secretly to the Duchess of Aerschot [Mary’s aunt], who shall procure him audience of the Regent, to whom he shall declare that this Queen ... will commit herself, her husband, and her country to his [King Philip’s] protection, and, seeing the Queen of England disposed to marry the French King, the rather to maintain her [Mary’s] estate she and her husband will remit all her titles to England to the King of Spain’s judgment; and if the Duchess of Parma thought meet he is to pass with these offers to Spain.... He [Yaxley] told his secret friends the names of many noblemen and gentlemen of good power in England ready to follow the King of Spain’s directions for the alteration of religion.”[164]

Before Yaxley left again—not, as this letter says, to Flanders, but direct to Spain from Dumbarton—he renounced his English citizenship to become a Scotsman. “The Queen and her husband,” wrote Randolph, “have sent him ambassador to Spain; he embarked three days past [_i.e._, 17th September]. It passes my power to know his commission, but it is for little good.”[165] What Randolph could not fathom is to some extent divulged to us by the letter Mary wrote to Philip by Yaxley; although, of course, his verbal message was more precise as to what was required and intended. “Monsieur mon bon frère,” she writes from Glasgow on the 10th September, “the earnestness you have always displayed in the maintenance of our Catholic faith has caused me previously to crave your favours and aid, foreseeing that which has now happened in this realm of mine, tending to the entire ruin of the Catholics and the establishment of these unhappy errors. In resisting them my husband and myself will be in peril of losing our Crown, and by the same means our claims elsewhere, unless we have the help of one of the great Christian princes. Bearing this in mind, and seeing the energy with which you have proceeded in your own States, and especially the firmness with which you have upheld those who have depended upon your favour, we have thought well to address you, in preference to any others, to ask for your counsel, and for your help and support. With this end we have sent this gentleman, an Englishman and a faithful servant of my husband and myself, with ample charge to render to you an account of the condition of our affairs, of which he has full knowledge; praying you to give credit to his words as if they were our own, and to send him back with all speed, as the case is so pressing as to touch both our Crown and the liberty of the Church for ever. To maintain this we will spare neither life nor estate, with your support and counsel.”[166]

Elizabeth’s Government were fully informed through their spies of the grave purport of Yaxley’s mission; and Catharine, who was almost as apprehensive of a Spanish domination of Scotland and England as Elizabeth herself, made an attempt by means of a special ambassador (Castelnau de la Mauvissière) to win Mary away from dependence upon Philip by new professions of friendship towards her. Mary, however, was in no humble frame of mind now, and would brook no interference either from her mother-in-law in France or her cousin in England, with both of whom she had long scores to settle. She would listen to no suggestions of a reconciliation with Murray, and she plainly threatened the French ambassador that if his King did not at once help her to punish the rebels she would invoke the aid of the King of Spain. The position was a triumphant one for Mary so long as she depended upon Spanish help; and if Philip had been prompt and such armed aid had been sent to Scotland before Murray succumbed, Elizabeth might have been deposed and Philip have obtained the control of Britain.

Elizabeth for once was really alarmed. There was the confident talk now of Philip’s coming with a great fleet and army to Flanders, which pessimists in England thought might be used against this country. So whilst Mary of Scotland, in full hope of Philip’s support, was defying England, Elizabeth was afraid of stirring a finger to help Murray and the Protestants ostensibly, for fear of bringing Spaniards or French Catholics, or both, into North Britain; in which case her own crown would have been in dire danger. Guzman saw Elizabeth on the 16th September, and found her full of complaints of the ingratitude of the Queen of Scots and the Lennoxes, to whom she had been so kind and meant so well. The present rebellion in Scotland was not really about religion at all, she said, and Mary only pretended that it was, in order to enlist the help of foreign princes. “Well, that may be,” replied Guzman drily, “but in any case it is very inexpedient, and sets a bad example to help rebellious subjects in their disobedience.” “Oh,” cried Elizabeth, quite shocked at the idea, “God forbid that _I_ should ever help disobedient subjects, unless I saw very good reason why they should not be made to suffer without a hearing!” Elizabeth, indeed, who was sending money secretly to Murray, and throwing the blame for everything upon the Lennoxes and Darnley, was now quite apologetic at the attitude into which she was forced by events and by Mary’s appeal to Spain. So powerless was she at this juncture that she had to sit idly by whilst Murray and his adherents fled across the Border (13th October, 1565) before Mary’s threatened vengeance, and she was even forced to feign anger and indignation at his rebellion when he sought audience in England of the Queen whose stalking-horse he had been.

Ignorant, of course, of Murray’s collapse, Yaxley duly arrived at Segovia, where Philip was, on the 23rd October, 1565, and gave his letter and verbal message to the King. Fortunately Philip repeated this message to Guzman in his letter to him, written on the following day, and we are thus able to understand exactly how far Mary was willing to go in her ambitious plans. “The first thing,” writes Philip, “was to assure us in fair words of the great hope and confidence they reposed in me, desiring to govern themselves by my direction alone, and to do nothing without my consent and pleasure: for this reason they wish to inform me of the need in which they are, and assure us of their zealous desire to establish their realm anew under the Christian religion, and to join other Christian princes with that object. Not having sufficient forces of their own they begged me to aid them as a Christian monarch; and, in order to induce me to do so, the envoy set forth the danger in which the Queen and King of Scotland were, by reason of the heretics, stimulated and favoured by the English with men and money; so that the said sovereigns might easily fall into the hands of the rebels, and be conveyed abroad, leaving the State unprotected, unless I, in whom after God they put their trust, aided them with money and troops. If I would consent to do this it would not only be the means of destroying the rebels, but would confirm the King and Queen in their hope of succeeding to the English throne, and would banish their fear that the heretics would oust them, the real heirs, and elect some heretic instead. They promised that if they obtained the succession of the Crown by my means they would renew more closely the alliance and league between England and our house against the world, and leave all other friends for us. They also begged us to write urgent letters to the Queen of England, first asking her to release Lady Margaret (Lennox), and secondly to desist from aiding the Scottish rebels.”[167] Yaxley also asked that an accredited Spanish ambassador might be sent to Scotland to arrange a binding treaty and to advise Mary and her husband as to their proceedings.

Philip was not ready yet for heroic measures in Great Britain, for he was busy planning the deadly blow he hoped to deal upon his disaffected Flemings. But he sent back by Yaxley cordial letters to Mary and Darnley, and told them to consult either Guzman or the Spanish ambassador in Paris when they were in doubt how to proceed. What advice was to be given to them in such case is seen in the King’s instructions to Guzman. “They should confine themselves for the present to punishing the rebels and pacifying the kingdom. When they have done this, and affairs have settled down, they could look further ahead than at present.” Philip was equally cautious in other directions. He did not want to tie himself openly or formally to Mary until he was quite sure that she would be a fit and obedient instrument for him to obtain command of England. She must, with her husband, for this purpose be able to command the united support of the English Catholic party, and Philip must be quite sure that her French relatives were not to influence her in any way. So he declined to negotiate a formal treaty or to write to Elizabeth about Lady Lennox, and even confined his present assistance to a sum of money, no less than 20,000 crowns, which was to be secretly handed to Yaxley by a Spanish banker, who himself did not know its destination, outside Antwerp.

With this answer Yaxley travelled post-haste to Flanders, and duly took ship in Antwerp bound for the port of Leith with this large sum of money on his person. This was about the 20th November, 1565. The season was a terribly tempestuous one, and at some time in December, from the wreck of a Flemish ship, there was cast up by the sea upon the coast of Northumberland the drowned body of Yaxley with his treasure upon him. Guzman was alarmed when he heard of it, more for the letters and papers from Philip that the man bore than for the money, as they would divulge the whole plot; but if the letters were found, which it is probable they were, they were not delivered to Elizabeth. The Earl of Northumberland was a Catholic noble and secretly an adherent of Mary’s, as will be seen later; but, although his attachment to her might prompt him to keep or destroy letters compromising her, it was not proof against his claiming the money upon the dead man, which he seized in virtue of his territorial rights; although he had angry disputes and lawsuits with the Lord Admiral on the subject, who also claimed the salvage. Mary herself sent Melville to ask Northumberland for the delivery of the money intended for her. “But all my entreaties were ineffectual; he altogether refused to give any part thereof to the Queen (of Scots), albeit he was himself a Catholic and professed secretly to be her friend.”[168]

At about the same time the Pope sent to Mary, by Philip’s permission, a similar sum of 20,000 crowns, and promised a subsidy of 4,000 crowns a month to pay troops to suppress the rebellion. But Murray was in England and the revolt practically at an end by this time. Elizabeth was protesting with injured innocence that nothing was further from her thoughts than subsidising trouble in her dear sister’s realm; whilst Mary, taking Philip’s advice to heart, was diplomatically biding her time for the great blow to be struck that would give her the Crown of England. She once more turned a smiling face upon Randolph, and readily agreed now to receive special ambassadors from Elizabeth to settle all disputes between them. The rebels, all but Murray and Kirkaldy of Grange, were received into favour again, and to please and lull Elizabeth into false security, Darnley was ostentatiously neglected by his wife. Kirkaldy, dour and unbending, warned the English that Mary was fooling them. “Send as many ambassadors as ye please to our Queen, they shall receive proud answers, for she thinks to have a force ready as soon as ye do, besides her hope of friendship [of the Catholics] in England, of which she brags not a little, so driving time is to her advantage.”[169] Kirkaldy was right, as events proved. Mary was temporising as Philip advised her to do, counting upon the aid of Spain, the Pope, and the English Catholics when the hour should strike. But for her the hour never did strike. Her evil star led her along the path which ended in England and martyrdom.

The tragedy of Rizzio, the vicious foolishness of Darnley, the levity of Mary, and the falsity of Murray and Morton, destroyed for a time the great dream, once so promising in appearance, that the Queen of Scots would mount the Catholic throne of Britain by the aid of Spain. When Mary was in Lochleven and her infant son had been adopted as their King by the nobles, Elizabeth and Catharine vied with each other in their loud expressions of sympathy with a Queen thus contemned by her subjects, the object in both cases being to obtain, if possible, either through Mary or her persecutors, a pretext to interfere in Scotland, and thus to frustrate the Spanish combination. Murray, who was not in Scotland when Darnley was murdered, found himself assiduously courted, by the French especially, on his way home, and had a long friendly interview even with Guzman in London. After the first shock of dismay caused to the Catholics by the marriage of Mary to Bothwell—a divorced man and a Protestant—public opinion on their part agreed to regard her as innocent of the crimes laid to her charge; and when, on the unhappy 16th May, 1568, Mary, weeping with grief and bitter disappointment, bade a last farewell to the land of her fathers to claim the hospitality of her bitterest enemy, her party in the north still founded their hopes upon her, notwithstanding the black suspicion that hung over her, whilst she was unsubdued and full of plans for future triumph over her enemies.

In her first letter to Elizabeth she struck a high but unwise note, claiming admission to the Queen’s presence and English aid to subdue her rebel subjects, failing which she demanded leave to go to France or Spain and obtain assistance there. Elizabeth refused both requests, for whilst she was kept in England the unhappy Mary had nothing to offer in return; but Knollys, who took the message, warned the Queen of England that the Catholic gentry were flocking to salute the fugitive, whose presence in the north was a danger, and Mary sent indignant and imprudent messages by Lord Herries to Elizabeth threatening to appeal to her great Catholic friends on the Continent. This attitude sealed Mary’s fate and determined her imprisonment. Lord Herries talked openly, even in Elizabeth’s palace, of his plans for claiming Catholic aid for his mistress; and although Guzman used all his deft persuasions to soften the English Queen, Elizabeth explained to him quite cogently again and again that she dared not allow Mary to bring foreign Catholic forces into Britain, nor from a safe refuge on the Continent to organise disaffection in England.

Elizabeth, with ample reason, was at the time in a panic at Philip’s action in Flanders. For many months the pretence had been kept up that the King himself was coming to the Netherlands to pacify discontent. Great forces had been raised in Italy, Spain, and Germany, and a strong fleet fitted out, to the great alarm of the English, who feared that at last the time for Philip’s vengeance had arrived, although Elizabeth had tremblingly tried to keep up the pretence to Guzman that she was delighted at “her good brother’s” coming. At last when all was ready, in the autumn of 1567, vast sums of money collected, and the troops under arms, no longer a royal escort but a strong avenging army, Philip announced that he would not go to Flanders himself but would send the terrible Duke of Alba. Then all the world knew what was meant—war to the knife until Protestantism and political liberty were crushed in the Netherlands. It was clear to Huguenots, Lutherans, and Anglicans that the time of trial and struggle was at hand, and mutual messages and promises of support crossed from one to the other, for they all knew that if the King of Spain were victorious over dissent in his own land the turn of the others would come. Elizabeth’s retort to Alba’s proceedings was, as usual, both bold and diplomatic. She once more made strenuous efforts to reopen the negotiations for her marriage with the Archduke, she cajoled Guzman again into the belief that she was not in accord with the proceedings of her Reformed bishops; and whilst all England was thrilling with sympathy for the oppressed Flemings she made the most elaborate protestations to the Spanish ambassador that she had not helped and would not help them in their resistance.[170] But at the same time Elizabeth, by a policy of alternate severity and leniency towards them, convinced the English Catholic party that their future treatment depended alone upon their gaining her goodwill.

The first suppression of revolt in Flanders effected by Alba on his arrival coincided with a change in Philip’s policy towards England, probably under the influence of the warlike party now dominant in his counsels. Guzman, as we have seen, had always spoken fair to Elizabeth and Cecil, though he often complained to his master of having to deal with “heretics” thus. But from Madrid now a harsher note was struck. The English spies in Spain reported that all the talk now was of the coming conquest of England, and of Catholic combinations to overthrow the Queen; and in February Elizabeth learnt from a messenger sent by her ambassador in Spain, Dr. Man, Dean of Gloucester, to inform her of the imprisonment of Don Carlos, that the household of her ambassador had not been allowed to celebrate Protestant worship in the embassy building. Dr. Man was a notoriously foolish, babbling person, and, as Philip averred, had openly scoffed at a religious procession, and had spoken at dinner before Spaniards disrespectfully of the Catholic faith. The Duke of Feria had been sent to warn him, which we may be sure he did haughtily enough,[171] and Philip, on Man’s first arrival in Madrid, appears to have told him harshly “that he must conduct himself as his predecessors had done.” The Inquisition had, so Philip declared, complained of him, and he was said to have acted “simply as a perverse dogmatiser.”

However this may have been, the prohibition of his own national worship within the embassy walls was a violation of diplomatic privilege, though Philip said that other English ambassadors (meaning Challoner) had put up with it; and when Elizabeth heard of it she was violently angry. Cecil went to Guzman and told him heatedly that unless the English ambassador in Madrid had the same privileges conceded to him as those that Guzman enjoyed in London, he would immediately be withdrawn. Philip, said Elizabeth, might do as he liked with his own subjects, but he should not persecute hers. The complaint, of course, went to Madrid, and at the same time a letter to Dr. Man from the irate Elizabeth ordering him to demand immediate satisfaction from the King. Philip was ready for it and gave him no opportunity. In a violent letter to Guzman, entirely unlike his previous tone towards England, he tells his ambassador that he has banished Man from Madrid, and refused to have any more intercourse with him. He had, says the King, even tried to proselytise in Spain; and if he had not been an ambassador the Inquisition would have made short work of him. If Elizabeth did not recall him at once, he would be expelled from Spain. When Guzman waited upon Elizabeth early in May, 1568, with this message and handed her his new letter of credence, he watched her face closely. “When she came to the latter part about the ambassador she changed colour and seemed annoyed, asking me what it meant.” Guzman, as gently as he could, gave her the rough message, and said that a gentleman was on the way from Spain to explain matters. In the meanwhile, amongst other things, he might tell her that this precious ambassador of hers had publicly called the Pope a “canting little monk!” “Oh! there is nothing in that,” said the Queen, but Guzman thought otherwise. She had not dealt with Bishop Quadra so harshly, she said, although she found he was positively plotting against her. “She therefore grieved that her ambassador should be treated as he had been, especially as at this time suspicions and comments would arise therefrom. This way of treating ambassadors was a forerunner of greater unpleasantness, particularly coming as it did on the top of the news of the Catholic league against her, and I should hear next day what would be said in London about it.”

A week or so after this came the news that Man had been expelled from Madrid with every circumstance of insult, and Guzman, anxious to hear what the English would think of it, called upon Cecil. He found the minister in a furious passion at the outrage upon international courtesy. Such a thing, he said, had never been heard of before unless a pretext for war was sought, and it was a great piece of disrespect and an insult to the Queen, showing a desire to pick a quarrel with her, as had already been stated in certain quarters, and it now behoved the Queen to be prepared. It is certain that this incident, almost coinciding as it did with Mary Stuart’s arrival in England and her open threats to appeal to the Catholic Powers for aid, greatly perturbed and alarmed Elizabeth. The war of religion in France was again in full swing, and her friends the Huguenots had their hands full and could not help her, the Flemings were temporarily crushed under the iron heel of Alba, and the Catholics of the North of England were in a ferment at the coming of the Queen of Scots.

In spite, therefore, of Guzman’s remonstrances, the flail fell upon the backs of the English Catholics, and for the first time Guzman himself was treated with harshness. Cecil told him “that the Council regarded him with suspicion, and the Queen did the same.” The ambassador was gentler and more conciliatory than ever; but in the new situation created he was not the man for the place. In February, 1568, he had earnestly begged the King to recall him on the pretext of ill-health and lack of means. At that time, before Mary Stuart’s arrival in England, the relations between England and Spain were not abnormally strained, for Mary, being deposed and imprisoned, was powerless. Philip sent no answer to the ambassador’s request for several months; but in May, when the prospect was no longer “quiet and friendly,” he sent to Guzman his letter of dismissal. The King at this time needed a rough, overbearing man to support his strong action with regard to the English ambassador. The communications that had passed between Philip and Mary Stuart, and the reports he had received as to the attitude of the English Catholics of the north from the Lennoxes and others, had convinced him that an opportunity offered for dealing his blow. Guzman had continued gently to encourage the Queen of Scotland’s agent, Fleming, but neither his instructions nor his disposition allowed him to go beyond bare expressions of sympathy. “I have shown him great goodwill, and have in general terms assured him of your Majesty’s sincere affection for his Queen, as I am letting the Catholics, her friends, understand.”[172] But Guzman went no further than this.

Philip always chose his instruments carefully, with a view for the precise task he confided to them. He had sent Guzman to London to tranquillise Elizabeth by cordiality and a show of simple frankness, at a time when trade was suspended and she was deeply irritated at the intrigues of Bishop Quadra. The ambassador had done his work admirably, but now another phase had to be dealt with, and a different man was required. To some extent, perhaps, Guzman’s recall may have been influenced by his own remark that Catholics are exposed to much danger to the purity of their faith by living so long amongst heretics, in answer to which the King told him that he was not to join in religious discussions with enemies of the Church; but the choice of his successor was certainly made with a view to an alteration in the attitude in future to be adopted towards Elizabeth by her brother-in-law. All hope of bringing her round to a Catholic policy was now quite abandoned. To invade and conquer her country, as Feria had proposed, when it might have been done, in the first days of her reign, was not at present in Philip’s power. But he had a famous general and a powerful army a few hours only from her shores, and she might be frightened into a humble and tolerant mood, perhaps, by a rough-tongued bully with such a force to threaten with. Besides, reports had told the King that the Catholics of the North of England were yearning for his coming to liberate their country from the yoke of heresy, and a bold zealot was needed to organise them into a fit instrument for Philip’s future purpose.

Such a man, though without the subtlety and secrecy required, was found in Don Gerau de Spes, a haughty Catalan knight of the Alba school, as intolerant as Feria himself. It was no part of Philip’s intention yet to quarrel openly with Elizabeth, and the instructions he gave to his new ambassador were, as will be seen presently, entirely pacific; but the King was really in great trepidation as to the way in which the Queen would take the expulsion of her ambassador, and de Spes’s first task was to frighten her into humility, and into desisting from countenancing the open aid that was flowing over from England to the Flemish rebels. When Guzman went to Hatfield to announce to the Queen his recall he found her troubled and suspicious at the rumours that had reached her as to the reasons for the change. “She showed more sorrow than I expected, and, changing colour, told me that she was grieved to the bottom of her heart that there should be any change, as she was so greatly pleased with my procedure. She said she had always shown me how pleased she was with me, and hoped to God there was no mystery behind this change.”

The supple ambassador tranquillised her. She knew, he said, what poor health he had, and how badly the English climate suited him. There was no other mystery behind his going than that. She was coquettishly aggrieved, too, at his wanting to leave her, as they had been such friends; and besides, there was all this talk about a Catholic league against her! Guzman again reassured her; but when he got back to London he found Cecil less easy to calm. He had been told alarming stories by his spies, most of which we now know were untrue, and after assuring Guzman of the grief that his recall would cause to the Queen, he continued that “it confirmed what he had heard from various quarters, that Cardinal Lorraine had arranged a treaty with the Duke of Alba respecting this country and the Queen of Scots, which had been negotiated through me [_i.e._, Guzman] as they could not trust the French ambassador. It was said, also, that the Queen of Scots herself was in communication with me and sent me letters for your Majesty. It was asserted that, now that I had arranged it all, I wished to leave in order that my successor, and not myself, should witness the carrying out of the plan.”[173] Guzman knew that a letter to him enclosing one from Mary to Philip had fallen into Cecil’s hands, so he had to be dexterous in his management of the situation. He affected to laugh at such assertions as absurd;[174] and the interview ended by the highest praise being bestowed upon Guzman, who, said Cecil, had absolutely gained the Queen’s confidence; and many dubious questions were put by Cecil as to what sort of a person Don Gerau de Spes was.

Don Gerau soon showed this for himself. He was instructed by Philip to explain to Elizabeth the misdeeds of Dr. Man that had led to his expulsion, and to exonerate the Duke and Duchess of Feria, and especially the English relatives of the latter, from any blame in the matter. He was also to watch the introduction of warlike stores into England and keep in touch with the Duke of Alba in Flanders; but he is emphatically enjoined “to serve and gratify the Queen on every possible occasion, trying to keep her on good terms, and assuring her from me that I will always return her friendship as her good neighbour and brother.” De Spes, however, must have carried secret instructions in addition to this, because when he was passing through Paris, Mary Stuarts ambassador, the Archbishop of Glasgow, recommended to him the care of the imprisoned Queen’s affairs, “as she founded all her hopes on your Majesty’s favour,” and, in reply, de Spes said that he had orders to do everything he could for her. There is no such clause in his public instructions, and it is most unlikely that any ambassador of Philip would have dared to plunge without instructions into conspiracies against the Government to which he was accredited, as de Spes did immediately after his arrival in England.

Before crossing the Channel, de Spes had a conference with the Duke of Alba at Utrecht, where a long list of Philip’s grievances against Elizabeth were discussed. The indictment was a grave one, the injuries said to be inflicted by the English upon Spaniards and Flemings amounting in value, it was computed, to 300,000 ducats a year; and it is certain that at this interview between the two fiery Spaniards plans for revenging and amending this state of things were canvassed and agreed upon. In England at the time there resided a Spanish merchant, ambitious to fill a diplomatic _rôle_, and, although he had lived in London for thirty years at least, he was as zealous and intolerant in religious affairs as de Spes, or even Philip himself. This man, of whom we shall hear much presently, Antonio de Guaras, anxious to ingratiate himself, had sent to de Spes in Flanders two broadsheets that had just been published in England attacking Philip’s system and the communications that it was known passed between the English Catholics and the King of Spain. Such papers, of course, had been published in Guzman’s time, but he had wisely passed them by or minimised their importance. To de Spes they served as a spark to the tinder of his passion, and he arrived in England fuming with rage at the insolence of the heretics.

As de Spes rode from Dover towards London, with a long train of Spanish residents in England at his heels, early in September, 1568, he was overtaken by a Scottish gentleman (probably James Beton) on his way from Paris in the service of the imprisoned Mary, with whom he was going to seek an interview. De Spes listened eagerly to his story of the ill-treatment of Mary by the “heretics,” and told him that he had letters in London from King Philip to her. He had enough prudence to tell the Scot when, after their arrival in the capital, he came for the King’s letter to take to Mary that it would be wise that he, as Spanish ambassador, should not be seen too prominently in her interests; but he associated himself at once in all the Scottish Queen’s plans to escape from her bondage, and sent her warm messages of encouragement. Almost at the same time (15th September) Philip himself was writing from the Escorial an important letter to the Duke of Alba. The Queen of Scots, he said, had written praying for his help to extricate her from Elizabeth’s hands, and professing her readiness to die in defence of the faith.[175] “I have refrained from arriving at any decision or answering her autograph letter ... until you tell me what you think of the business, and in what way and to what extent I should assist her. I beg you to write to me by the first opportunity on the matter, and in the meanwhile to encourage the Queen the best you can to persevere firmly in her saintly purpose; for whilst she does so God will not abandon her.”[176] It is obvious from this that Philip had not decided yet to help Mary, but only to encourage her until affairs appeared to him propitious, and we shall be able to judge, therefore, to what extent the zeal of de Spes precipitated matters.

Elizabeth was making a progress through Hampshire, and Guzman presented his successor to her at Newbury on the 12th September, 1568. To the scornful anger of de Spes, Cardinal Chatillon, the Huguenot brother of Coligny, was also seeking audience of the Queen, and being feasted and made much of in the interval by Sir Thomas Gresham at his house in London. That a Cardinal, a prince of the Catholic Church, followed by a wife and family and with several bishops at his side as unorthodox as he, should be ruffling about the streets of London in cape and sword and jewelled cap, shocked de Spes gravely; but that he should be asking, and obtaining, arms from the Tower of London and money and English volunteers to fight against the Catholics and the King in France made the Spaniard more bitter than anything else. The new ambassador had not been installed in Paget House[177] a fortnight before Mary Stuart’s emissaries were in close conference with him. One of them came to him early in October disguised as a merchant, saying that he was bearing letters from her to the Duke of Alba in Flanders. The Conference of York, which had been summoned to decide Mary’s guilt or innocence of the murder of her husband, was already gathering, and the Scottish Queen herself was at Bolton. How eager de Spes was even thus early to engage in plots in her favour is seen in the letter he wrote to the King on the 9th October giving him this news. “Where she is the Catholics are more numerous than in any part of the country. She knows how to ingratiate herself with her keepers, and has many sympathisers on her side. It will not be difficult to release her, and even to raise a great revolt against this Queen; but it will be more prudent that your Majesty should not appear in this, and I will do nothing until I receive orders from your Majesty or the Duke.”[178]

All this foregathering with Scottish agents on the part of de Spes was not lost upon the English Government, whose spies reported everything. De Spes says that Cecil sneeringly asked Beton (the nephew of the Archbishop of Glasgow, who was in London on his way from Paris to see Mary) “whether he had been with his complaints to the new Spanish ambassador yet, and how often he went to Paget House.” In these circumstances it is not surprising that relations grew rapidly acrimonious between Philip’s ambassador and Elizabeth’s ministers. He pressed with boldness and persistence the claims of the Spanish shipmasters for the depredations committed by English rovers, and by the Huguenots and Dutch rebels who took shelter in English ports; and to these claims Cecil retorted by bringing up the old grievance of Dr. Man’s expulsion, and certain insulting references to the Queen of England contained in a recently published Spanish book by Dr. Illescas on Pontifical History. To make matters worse, de Spes did not confine himself to the redress of Spanish grievances, but made himself the champion of Catholics generally. A Portuguese envoy, Dr. Alvarez, was in London to ask Elizabeth to forbid English ships to go to the coast of Guinea, where Hawkins had been slave-trading, and suddenly one morning the Bishop of London’s men appeared before the house in which Alvarez lived and demanded that certain Englishmen then attending Mass there should be delivered to them for punishment. The Portuguese refused to surrender them, and the house was soon surrounded by a threatening crowd. Word was carried to de Spes, who immediately sent off one of his household to demand of the Lord Mayor (Sir Roger Martin) the dispersal of the mob. “What is the cause of the gathering?” asked the chief magistrate, and when the Spaniard told him that it was a question of Catholic worship, Sir Roger burst out in a rage that he would rather send his men to reinforce the mob than to disperse it in such a case.

The presence of such a firebrand ambassador as this in London, in constant communication, as Elizabeth’s ministers knew, with all the elements of disaffection in England, and in close correspondence with the terrible Duke of Alba in Flanders, convinced the English Government that evil plans were brewing. It was known that Philip’s principal difficulty was money. The expense of the campaigns in Flanders and the constant wars in the Mediterranean had exhausted the resources of Castile, and Philip’s credit was as bad as could be. Alba’s troops were unpaid and growing mutinous, committing outrage and depredations upon Catholics as much as upon Protestants. The Duke had pressed, again and again, for money from Spain, and the English spies in Flanders had continued to send alarmist reports, all premature as we see now, but then believed to be true, of the hostile intentions of Alba against England as soon as he had crushed the Dutchmen and obtained the needed resources from Spain.

Chance threw into Elizabeth’s way a means of paralysing Alba for a time and rendering impossible the plans to injure her that she knew were hatching. Philip had, with infinite difficulty, managed to contract, at usurious rates, a loan of money from Genoese bankers, and, with his characteristic caution, he had stipulated that the money should be delivered by the lenders to the agents of the Duke of Alba in Antwerp. The Channel was infested with Huguenot privateers and pirates of all sorts on the look out for ships flying the Spanish flag, and the Dutch “Beggars” blockaded the Belgian coast. The ships, six or seven of them, which were bringing Philip’s borrowed treasure were known to have sailed late in November, and the rovers were all on the alert for them when they came. Finding themselves chased, the treasure ships ran into English ports, some into Plymouth, some to Falmouth, and the largest of them into Southampton, in order to escape their pursuers and claim official English protection. Even in port the privateers threatened the fugitives, and two of the treasure ships, swift Biscay cutters, fearing that the heretics on shore were as dangerous as their colleagues afloat, boldly ran the blockade of pirates and escaped, eventually arriving safely in Antwerp. But the others, and especially the big ship in Southampton with £31,000 in money on board, could only cling desperately to the English port authorities, whilst they sent swift messengers to Benedict Spinola, the famous Genoese banker in London, the agent and partner of the lenders, praying him to obtain safety for them.

Spinola, being, of course, interested in the treasure, went at once to de Spes, and asked him to request officially of the Queen’s Council that the money should be protected effectively in the English ports, and, if necessary, landed and conveyed overland to Dover for transmission to Antwerp under English convoy. De Spes lost no time, and on the 29th November saw the Queen, who readily promised him a passport to carry the money overland, or, if the Genoese preferred it, she would have the ships convoyed to their destination. Satisfied with this, de Spes wrote to Alba for instructions as to which course to follow. In the meanwhile Admiral Wynter was leaving the Thames with an English squadron to relieve the Huguenots besieged by the King of France in Rochelle, and on the way he looked into the Channel ports to ensure the safety of the treasure ships. Before Wynter sailed finally from England Spinola, who was interested, as great financiers are to-day, in many enterprises, wrote to him that he had just received word that rumours were current in Spain of a great disaster having happened on the coast of Mexico to Captain John Hawkins, the bold English sailor who had on more than one occasion braved the Spanish prohibition and had conducted successful trading expeditions to the Spanish colonies. De Spes had been bitterly complaining of this, and it was feared, said Spinola, that the Hawkins expedition, in which he had an interest, had been attacked and annihilated by the Spanish authorities.

When Wynter received Spinola’s news on the 2nd December he was in Plymouth, assuring himself of the safety of the Spanish treasure ships there. Wynter naturally told the evil news he had learned from Spinola to William Hawkins, the brother of John, who lived in Plymouth, and William at once wrote to Cecil, who was also interested in the venture, suggesting that Spinola should be questioned, and if it turned out that the Spaniards had attacked the English trading expedition, the money in the ships now being protected by English guns should be seized in reprisal. This letter was written on the 3rd December, the day after the safe conduct had been signed by Elizabeth for bringing the treasure overland to Dover, and before Cecil can have received it this safe conduct was on its way in the hands of de Spes’s agents to Southampton, and so to Plymouth and Falmouth. Cecil’s messengers, however, were not far behind, and, in spite of the protest of the Spanish captain, Horsey, the Governor of the Isle of Wight, by Cecil’s secret orders, landed the treasure from the ship at Southampton and placed it in the keeping of the mayor of the town. Similar action was taken with the treasure at Plymouth and Falmouth, and when the news reached de Spes in London he at once jumped at the conclusion that the rumours were true that he had heard at Court to the effect that some of the Queen’s Council and her Huguenot friends had been urging her to keep the treasure for her own purposes.

Spinola, a resident in London, dependent largely upon Elizabeth’s goodwill and Cecil’s friendship, had, indeed, let out in conversation not only what he had heard about the Spanish attack upon John Hawkins’s expedition in Mexico, but also that the Genoese financiers were responsible for the money advanced to Philip until it was handed to the Spanish authorities in Flanders. “In that case,” said Elizabeth, “I can borrow it myself; for my credit is quite as good as that of the King of Spain.” Rash de Spes, however, did not wait for any such public avowal. To his intemperate and insolent protests Cecil and the other Councillors would only say that the money was quite safe, and for the present no other answer with regard to it could be given to him. This was on the 21st December and the ambassador at once sent a special courier to Alba with a letter praying, in burning indignation, that all English property and that of Spinola on Spanish soil should be seized.[179] Nothing more unwise than this can be conceived; for no sooner had Alba made the confiscatory proclamation than Elizabeth not only justified thereby her seizure of the money, now openly avowed, but at once confiscated all Spanish and Flemish property in England, including the ships that had brought the money.

De Spes had been saying for weeks past that the best way to bring the Queen to her knees, and to force her into the arms of Spain, would be to stop all English trade; and when he had sent to Alba the unwise advice to make the seizure of English property he still believed that such a measure would dismay the “heretic” Government. So far from doing that it placed Elizabeth technically in the right; for up to that point she had not openly avowed her intention of keeping the loan money; and the value of Spanish-Flemish property in England was immensely greater than that of English property in Philip’s dominions. The news of the seizure of the loan money fell upon Alba and his master like a death sentence. Without this money to pay his troops Alba was almost in despair, and Philip had exhausted his last rag of credit in raising the loan. In vain de Spes raged and fumed. Cecil and his mistress were perfectly cool about it; for they saw that the impetuousness of their opponents had put them in the right, and the large sum of ready money they had seized strengthened them as it proportionately weakened Philip. De Spes’s house was placed under guard; and a threatening mob in the City of London breathed vengeance upon the foreigners, and especially Spaniards, most of whom had fled into hiding. To make matters worse, a cipher letter from de Spes to Alba was intercepted and deciphered, full of violent and insulting references to Cecil, and other letters to Spanish friends in Flanders containing foolish abuse of the Queen herself.[180] Called upon peremptorily for explanation of these references, the ambassador could only palliate, disavow, and explain that he did not mean what he said; and he himself was placed under arrest and forbidden access to the Court.

Even then, when the dire consequences of his imprudence must have been patent to him, he was in close cipher correspondence with Mary Stuart, who sent him news, which he took care to exaggerate, of Protestant plots being formed to murder King Philip. Writing to the King on the 8th January, 1569, he says, after pressing him to foment dissatisfaction in England by stopping all trade: “In the meanwhile means will be found to bring this country to its senses and subdue it to the Catholic faith. Those who have spoken to me about a rising for the Queen of Scots will not fail to return to the subject,[181] and I will inform the Duke [Alba], as your Majesty orders. Pray do not consider me or my safety, but take the best course for your Majesty’s interests.... These heretic knaves of the Council are going headlong to perdition, incited by Cecil, who is indescribably crazy in his zeal for heresy.” Later in the same letter de Spes tells how his own prediction came true and the conspirators did seek him. “The Earl of Northumberland came to see me disguised at four o’clock this morning, and is ready to serve your Majesty. I sent a post yesterday to the Duke by an Englishman who has secret communication with Flanders.... At midnight last night the Bishop of Ross came to offer the goodwill of his mistress [_i.e._, Mary Stuart] and of many gentlemen of this country, and I have reported this to the Duke [of Alba]. The Queen of Scotland told my servant to convey to me the following words: ‘Tell the ambassador that if his master will help me I shall be Queen of England in three months, and Mass shall be said throughout the land.’”[182]

It will be seen that before de Spes had been in England four months he had forced King Philip into a position of hardly veiled hostility towards England, at the very period when his lack of resources and the recrudescence of the war in the Netherlands made it impossible for him to attempt coercion upon Elizabeth. Alba himself was dismayed at the unexpectedly bold action of the English Government in seizing the treasure and embargoing all Spanish-Flemish property in England. The Flemish burghers, already sorely distressed by the civil war, were almost in open revolt at this stoppage of the rich English trade and the embargo of their property in England, and Alba, hard as he might be, was forced to make an attempt to reason with Elizabeth by means of some more pliable instrument than de Spes. The person chosen was the garrulous Flemish lawyer, Dassonleville, who had come to England just before Queen Mary Tudor’s death, but he found himself more contemptuously treated even than de Spes. Who was he, the Council asked, that he should seek audience of a Queen with a letter of credence from a person who, so far as she knew, was not a sovereign? Nothing wounded proud Alba so much as this slight, and poor Dassonleville was denied audience, and was placed under arrest in the house of the Sheriff of London.

By this time no less than 700,000 ducats worth of Flemish ships and property had been seized in England, besides Philip’s treasure of a million; and the Spaniards, especially Alba, were bitterly regretting the deplorable diplomacy of de Spes. Philip, who hated to come to prompt decisions, was now face to face with a crisis. In obedience to the clamours of his ambassador he had stopped all trade between his dominions and England; by which, instead of its bringing Elizabeth to her knees, his subjects suffered much more than the English. It was evident, however, that this state of things could not continue indefinitely, and he was driven by these circumstances, at the very time when he was more hardly pressed than ever, to consider whether he could now conquer England by means of the English Catholics and Mary Stuart. For such a conquest to be of use to him it was necessary to be quite sure that Mary should be free from French influence, and that the new Catholic Government should look to him alone for orders.

When, therefore, he received news from Alba and de Spes of the seizures he wrote to the former: “Don Gerau urges the opportunity which now presents itself to remedy religious affairs in that country by deposing the present Queen and giving the crown to the Queen of Scots, who will immediately be joined by all the Catholics. Please inquire what foundation there is for this, and what success would probably attend such a plan; as if there is anything in it, I should be glad to carry it out. It appears to me that, after my special obligation to maintain my own dominions in our holy faith, I am bound to make every effort to restore and preserve it in England, as in former times. If there is any good grounds for the suggestion, no time more opportune than the present could be found ... and in order not to miss the chance, I have thought well to refer the decision to you. If you think the opportunity will be lost by waiting to consult me you may at once take the steps you may see fitting.” It was not often that Philip went so far as this in a prompt decision, and to de Spes he was equally decided. “If what you suggest about taking the crown away from the Queen were successful, it would certainly be of great moment, and I would help it most willingly, in order to redress religion, and shelter and console the Catholics, who, I am convinced, are very numerous. You will learn all you can about this thoroughly and advise me and the Duke of Alba fully.”[183]

In the meanwhile the conspiracy, by far the most dangerous that Elizabeth ever had to face, was developing in London. Cecil, who, in fact, was the most pacific of ministers, is represented by the Spanish party as the firebrand, determined to precipitate a war with Spain. This was certainly not the case. He, with his cool head, understood how far he might go now that Philip was powerless to attack England. The seizure of the money destined to pay Alba’s troops had made all the difference, and Cecil and his mistress knew that they might for the present defy Spain with impunity. The news of the attack upon Hawkins’s expedition at San Juan de Lua was now confirmed and added to the determination of the English Protestant party to get even with a Power which, for the time at all events, was disabled for harm. But the conservative elements, the old English nobility, with their strong Catholic leanings, their traditions of awed regard for the alliance of the House of Burgundy and Spain, and with their long-standing jealousy of Cecil, saw in his present action a dangerous provocation to a Power they dreaded, and a possible opportunity of supplanting him and his party in the counsels of the Queen.

On several occasions the nobles of this party had expressed to de Spes their annoyance at the seizure of the treasure; and we have seen that the Earl of Northumberland, the powerful Catholic head of the House of Percy, had sought him out secretly in the dead of night to make disloyal offers to him. The Duke of Norfolk, unhappily for himself, had also been drawn into these questionable intrigues by his father-in-law, the Earl of Arundel. Late in February, 1569, Norfolk and Arundel sent a Florentine banker in London, one Ridolfi, a great friend of de Spes and the Pope’s agent in England, to tell the Spanish ambassador that they had put up with Cecil’s impertinences and violence in seizing the treasure so far because they were not strong enough to resist him. “But they are gathering their friends, and letting the public know what is going on, in the hope and belief that they will be able to turn out the present accursed Government and raise a Catholic one, bringing the Queen to consent thereto. They think you [_i.e._, the Duke of Alba] will support them in this, and that the country will not lose the friendship of our King.” The object of this conspiracy was to capture (and probably kill) Cecil; and, although the nobles euphemistically professed to believe that Elizabeth would consent to a entire revolution in her religion and policy, it is evident that the intention of the majority was to depose her in favour of Mary Stuart. On the 2nd April de Spes writes: “The Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Arundel wish to serve your Majesty. They have many friends and adherents in the country, and when they hear that your Majesty will accept their goodwill, they will declare themselves more openly at a convenient opportunity. The Duke of Alba ... orders me to entertain and caress them on your Majesty’s behalf, and says that he expects shortly your Majesty’s decision as to what is to be done.... If your Majesty orders measures to be taken for the conversion of the kingdom and the punishment of these insolent heretics and barefaced thieves, I do not think it will be difficult to bring them to subjection, or at least to change the Government and religion.... Many Catholics write to me secretly, saying that the moment they see your Majesty’s standard raised in this country they will all rise to serve you.”

But Cecil was too wary to be caught by such weaklings as Norfolk and Arundel, and by pretending to fall into their views for a time about the reconciliation and concessions to the Spaniards, he managed a few weeks after the above letter was written to throw the plans of the conspirators into confusion by dividing their counsels. In the meanwhile Alba (on the 10th March) had to tell Philip some unpleasant truths in answer to his suggestion that English affairs should be taken in hand and settled on the impracticable lines suggested by feather-headed de Spes. “I know not,” Alba wrote to the King, “whether an open rupture with England at the present time will be advantageous, considering the condition of your treasury, and these States being so exhausted with the war and late disturbances, and so lacking of ships and many other things necessary for a fresh war; and it would certainly be a grave loss of dignity, with your Majesty’s power, to return to the old negotiations. All things considered, I think it would be best to adopt a gentle course, writing to the Queen that, seeing the close friendship and alliance that have so long existed between the two countries, particularly between her father and the Emperor, and your brotherly affection for her, even though she should desire to quarrel, you will not consent to do so, and that it shall never be said that the tie that binds you together has been loosened.”

To this lame and impotent conclusion had even warlike Alba been brought by the inevitable logic of events. Elizabeth had seized the treasure, imprisoned two ambassadors, embargoed all Spanish property in her realms; she had at the time hundreds of Spanish sailors and others in gaol, and she rejected with contumely all attempts of the Spaniards to reconcile her on the basis of mutual concessions. The Dutch and the Huguenots depended now largely upon her support, and the English Catholics were made to feel more painfully than ever that appeals to their powerful friends upon the Continent could not protect them from the hard rule of their own Sovereign. And yet, withal, Alba had to confess that the only course now open to him was to speak fair, until at some future time a safe opportunity for injuring Elizabeth might arrive.

Up to this time since Philip had faced the necessity for winning England by other means than moral suasion, the projects for doing so had always run upon the lines of subsidising and supporting the revolt of the Catholic party in the interests of the Queen of Scots; and in this direction, but later with an ominous addition to the programme, the next attempts developed. During the sitting of the Conference of York in October, 1568, to investigate the charges against Mary relative to the murder of Darnley, the Duke of Norfolk had suggested to Lethington the desirability of hushing up the ugly business as against the Queen of Scots; and on the following day he had a long, private conversation with Murray to the same effect. Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of Norfolk, son of the martyred Surrey, was the greatest noble in England, a kinsman of the Queen, and up to this time ostensibly a Protestant. Personally, he was popular, for his manners were kindly and his possessions great, but, as events proved, he was as weak and unstable as he was ambitious. At this time he was about thirty-three years of age, and his wife, the daughter of the Earl of Arundel, and widow of Lord Dacre, had died. Such a man, with his personal prestige and his powerful name, was a fit instrument for stronger spirits than himself. In conversation with Murray at York, Norfolk said that Queen Elizabeth herself would not consider the subject of the succession, but it was necessary for the nobles of England to look ahead. “What could be Murray’s motive,” he asked, “in coming to England to blacken Queen Mary’s character and thus injuring her chances of the English succession?”

As a consequence of these efforts of Norfolk, it was agreed with Murray and Lethington to make the Conference of York abortive, and Mary was informed of this by a letter from Norfolk.[184] In the course of the subsequent negotiations a few days afterwards, Lethington remarked that as Norfolk showed himself so much in favour of Mary, the whisper he had heard about the possibility of his marriage to her was probably true, and, according to Norfolk, earnestly advocated the match.[185] Norfolk listened, for the prospect of the matrimonial Crown of England was a tempting one, and his sister, Lady Scrope, who was with Mary at Bolton, had no difficulty in obtaining the Scottish Queen’s acceptance of a suggestion which seemed to secure for her cause the higher nobility of England, who were anxious to overthrow the Cecils, and Bacons, and Hunsdons, and other new men, who now ruled England. De Spes was very soon approached, and, of course, warmly approved of the plan to marry Norfolk to the Queen of Scots, whilst a close and affectionate correspondence was carried on between Mary and her new suitor. For a time the plan was frustrated by the alarm of Leicester, when he suspected the real object of it, and by the dexterity of Cecil, as has already been described.

Norfolk and Arundel had, however, never lost touch of de Spes, both of them constantly importuning him for money in return for their efforts in favour of the Spaniards in the seizure dispute. The Bishop of Ross, Mary’s busy agent, also kept the matter alive with de Spes. Norfolk, Arundel, Lumley, Northumberland, Cumberland, Montagu, Dacre, Morley, and many other Catholic nobles, de Spes wrote to Alba, were ready to join in the conspiracy to release Mary and place England under the control of King Philip, if some armed demonstration were made on their behalf from Flanders. But Alba, as he plaintively assured King Philip, was powerless to assail, or even to offend, Elizabeth further, until she could be persuaded to surrender the vast quantity of Spanish-Flemish property she now held. Until then, he said, they must speak fair and softly to her, though the English and other Protestant privateers were capturing and plundering every Spanish ship they came across.

In the meanwhile de Spes, still in disgrace and forbidden from Court, could only plot impotently through the Bishop of Ross and Italian intermediaries, many of them spies. The coming and going of such folk and the constant news sent by de Spes of the progress of the conspiracy, fairly alarmed Alba, who was now chiefly concerned in getting some of the confiscated property restored and trade reopened. In July he sent to de Spes, though he could ill spare it, the six thousand crowns bribe demanded by Norfolk, Arundel, and Lumley for their efforts in favour of the Spanish claims, and for the first time he spoke firmly to de Spes about his constant plotting. “I must again repeat,” he said, “to you, most emphatically, that you are not, on any account, to entertain approaches to you against the Queen or her Councillors, or anything touching them. On the contrary, if people come to you with such talk, you must be so reticent that they may never be able to say that any minister of the King has given ear to it.” At this very time the imprudent ambassador was almost daily or nightly closeted with some agent of the conspirators, and was warmly seconding their plans. But as pacific, almost humble, representations by other agents came from Alba to the English Government, in hope of some arrangement for the restitution, Elizabeth assumed a gentler attitude; though she gave up not an atom of her plunder, and she partially released de Spes from his imprisonment.

In the comparative remoteness of Winchester House, in Southwark, which he now rented, the Spanish ambassador, as imprudent as ever, found it easier than before to carry on his plots for the subjection of England; and, regardless of Alba’s stern injunction quoted above, he became more active and mischievous than ever. On the 25th July, 1569, he wrote to the King that the Bishop of Ross had been to see him at three o’clock that morning “to assure me of the wish of the Duke of Norfolk to serve your Majesty. He said he was a Catholic, and has the support, even in London, of many merchants and aldermen. I will report everything to the Duke of Alba and follow his instructions.” Shortly before this, Mary herself, in one of her many affectionate letters to Norfolk, had intimated that she was in communication with the Duke of Alba; and de Spes followed up the letter by an assurance that everything was almost ready for the great _coup_. Whilst Norfolk was thus playing the game of Spain and pretending to be a Catholic, he was full of Protestant professions to Murray, and to the French ambassador, La Mothe Fénélon, and he avowed himself at the same time the devoted servant of Catharine de Medici. A majority of the English Council had met in caucus and had decided in favour of Norfolk’s marriage with Mary; and although it is probable that most of the members were not aware of the plot behind the match, it is certain that neither Mary nor her intended husband deceived themselves with regard to the ultimate aim. Nor was there any concealment on the part of the Spaniards. Alba sent Mary a subsidy of 10,000 ducats in August (she had asked for 30,000 or 40,000), and at the same date de Spes wrote to the King: “I believe some great event will happen here soon, as the people are much dissatisfied and distressed for want of trade, and these gentlemen of Nonsuch have some new imaginations in their heads.”[186]

The “new imaginations,” whatever they were, hardly suited Philip. He had through life a distinct repugnance to associating himself with the French in any of his plans with regard to England. Norfolk and his friends, doubtless in good faith, desired by means of Mary Stuart to change the government and religion of England, with or without the deposition of Elizabeth, and in order to do so they were glad to obtain support from any quarter they could. They had primarily no desire to hand England, bound hard and fast, to Spain, which was alone what Philip wanted. It is certain that Mary herself was willing to do so, because she knew that no effective armed aid could come to her from France, divided as that country was religiously and with her enemy Catharine dominant. Whilst Norfolk and his friends, therefore, were bidding for support on all sides and obtaining it, Mary was endeavouring with her might to keep the Spaniards, upon whom alone she depended, from slipping away from her. By the Bishop of Ross she begged de Spes to obtain Philip’s consent to her marriage with Norfolk, and the ambassador, in relating this to the King, wrote: “The business is so far forward that it will be difficult now to prevent it, and if it is to be done I think it had better be with your Majesty’s consent, which cannot fail to be of great advantage to them, and will bind them more closely to your Majesty’s service. The Queen of Scots says that if she were at liberty, or could get such help as would enable her to bring her country into submission, she would deliver herself and her son entirely into your Majesty’s hands; but that now she is obliged to sail with the wind, though she will never depart from your Majesty’s wishes.”

Philip, indeed, was growing doubtful of the way the affair was progressing, and of de Spes’s management of it. “If the marriage of the Duke of Norfolk and the Queen of Scots,” he wrote, “is effected in the way, and with the objects you are informed, there is no doubt that it would be of great importance for the restoration of our true Faith in England, and would console the good Catholics now so oppressed. I desire these objects warmly, as you know; but they [the conspirators] must be very careful how they undertake the business, for if they make a mistake they will all be ruined. You did well in referring them to the Duke of Alba. You will limit yourself to this, in accordance with your orders, which you will not exceed.” Philip distrusted Norfolk, who up to that time had been a Protestant, and the Duke’s approaches to the French completed the King’s coolness towards him. But before this letter of Philip’s reached London the miserable Norfolk had collapsed. Leicester, who had been a party to the plan, again took fright when he began to understand the object behind it, and this time made a clean breast of it to the Queen herself.

Suddenly the blow fell. Mary Stuart’s prison was made closer, and Norfolk and the conservative lords were peremptorily summoned before the Queen at Windsor. The Duke, protesting his unalterable loyalty to Elizabeth, travelled in deadly fear as far as London, and on the day of his arrival at Howard House a messenger from the Earl of Northumberland came secretly to de Spes. Making a private sign, which had been agreed upon as a proof of genuineness, he said “that the Earl of Northumberland and his friends in the North had agreed to liberate the Queen of Scotland and establish the Catholic religion, returning to the amity and alliance with your Majesty which they so much desire. The Earl wished to know if your Majesty would approve of this, as he would undertake nothing that was not in your interest.” To this de Spes dared not say more than that he would write to the Duke of Alba about it. “The Duke of Norfolk,” he adds, “is here preparing all his friends.” So far from doing this, Norfolk was malingering in a panic, and two days later fled to Kenninghall, whimpering in a pitiable letter to Elizabeth that he never meant any harm. On his honour, he never dealt with the Queen of Scots further than he declared to the Queen and some of her Council. Such lying and prevarication was scorned by the irate Elizabeth. Ill or well, she wrote in a rage, Norfolk must come to her instantly, and, trembling with fear, the poor wretch went as slow as he dared to Windsor, there with lachrymose repentance to be ordered into arrest with Arundel, Lumley, Pembroke, and all the rest of his accomplices who were within Elizabeth’s reach.

It is clear that notwithstanding de Spes’s constant predictions of immediate coming success, and his repeated assurances that Elizabeth and her friends would be swept aside as a consequence of this plan, Philip was never greatly deceived by it. Alba had told him that he was powerless for the present, and he knew England sufficiently well to see that unless a large and well-organised force was used at the critical moment by him, an attempt to revolutionise England in his interests would fail. The trail of deadly deliberation, moreover, palsied every act of his life. At some time in August, 1569, when Mary Stuart’s appeals were reaching him, he instructed Alba to obtain full particulars of the military possibilities of the situation in England, in order that any action he might decide to take later should be effectual. A half-dozen or more envoys of various sorts, official and unofficial, had been sent over one after the other to try by some means to effect a mutual restitution of the seizures—Genoese financiers, Flemish diplomatists, and even Protestant merchants—but all without effect. On receiving the King’s orders, however, Alba instructed another embassy, surely the strangest for such a purpose ever seen, to go to England and endeavour to make terms with Elizabeth or bribe her advisers. The leader was one of Alba’s most trusted Italian generals, Ciappino Vitelli, and he was to be accompanied by fifty experienced military officers, with a couple of official secretaries for appearance’ sake. That their mission was not that which ostensibly appeared is clear from the fact that at the same time Alba sent another unofficial envoy—the Genoese merchant mariner Fiesco—to attempt to gain a restitution by the private bribery of Leicester and Cecil. Cecil and the Queen laughed at the idea of such an embassy as that of this fire-eating Ciappino coming to settle a commercial dispute, and when the party arrived at Calais for embarkation for England, Cobham, the Governor of Dover Castle, sent word that only Ciappino Vitelli himself and a small suite would be received. A still smaller number was allowed to proceed beyond Dover, and another detachment was stayed at Canterbury; so that by the time the gouty, obese, old Italian general was received by the Queen at Kingston-on-Thames, not even de Spes being allowed to accompany him to the presence, the military object of the mission was cleverly frustrated. The plague was raging in London, and Ciappino never entered the capital; and his interview with the Queen was mainly taken up by her angry complaint of the insolence of the Duke of Alba. After many days of quibbling, he was told that his powers were insufficient, and was politely invited to get out of the country as quickly as possible, his despatches to Alba being intercepted and read at Dover.

It was indeed time that so dangerous a guest should be promptly asked to depart; for this was the most critical juncture of Elizabeth’s reign and her Crown trembled in the balance. All the lords were not so pusillanimous as Norfolk. Both Dacre and Northumberland had formally notified to de Spes that they were ready to take up arms in Philip’s service. For many months the imprudent ambassador had been going beyond his instructions and encouraging these nobles to expect effective aid from Philip. If only a small number of arquebusiers were sent to them from Flanders, said Northumberland and Westmorland, they would undertake to release Mary, subdue the North of England, restore Catholic worship, and make friends with Spain. “I feel sure,” wrote de Spes, “that they will attempt the task; and it will be better effected by them than by the Duke of Norfolk, as they are better fitted for it, and the Queen of Scots will have greater freedom in the choice of a husband.”

The questionable attitude of Westmorland and Northumberland caused Elizabeth to summon them to her presence. They disobeyed and, raising their standard, marched into Durham in force on the 14th November. Destroying the communion table in the cathedral, they caused Mass to be solemnly celebrated; and then pushing rapidly onward towards Ripon, Wetherby and Tadcaster, they finally assembled on Clifford Moor. The Earl of Sussex, the Queen’s Lieutenant in York, was for a time reduced to act on the defensive; and now, if Alba had been prompt and Philip ready, it is possible that the die might have been cast a winning number; and Mary Stuart, rescued from Tutbury, whither she had been rapidly carried, might have been made Queen of a Catholic Britain, under Spanish protection. When news came to de Spes of the southward march of the lords and their renewed prayers for aid from Flanders, he wrote to the King: “I have on several occasions written to your Majesty of the goodwill of these nobles, and I have given a letter in cipher to the gentleman they are sending to the Duke of Alba to ask for aid. They beg for prompt reply, as communications will soon be stopped.... It is certain that there has never been so good an opportunity either of punishing those who have so grievously opposed your Majesty’s interests, or of restoring the Catholic religion, in which consists the maintenance of our old alliance and friendship with this country.” To Alba de Spes wrote in jubilant strain on the 1st December. “The rebels,” he said, “were twelve thousand strong and were marching to release Mary and give battle to the Queen’s forces;” but he ominously adds that none of their confederates have yet risen. Ciappino Vitelli was still lingering at Colebrook, near Windsor, on the pretext of gout, though messages were being sent to him from the Queen that she considered his continued stay in England highly suspicious, as indeed it was, considering that he told de Spes, who doubtless conveyed it to the rebels, that they ought to march straight to London, where nothing could withstand them, seeing the confusion at Court, whilst their other friends would have a greater chance of moving.

And de Spes, the man who, before all others, had led these unfortunate lords to believe that Spanish aid would not fail them, was obliged, now that the crisis had come, to assure the Duke of Alba that he would “do nothing without orders from your Excellency.” The northern lords could not wait for Philip’s leaden pondering, nor upon Alba’s need, and, disheartened at the lack of response, they fell into disunion and wasted the precious time besieging Barnard Castle until the approach of Sussex with a newly organised army struck them with panic and they fled to Scotland—Northumberland to be sold basely to the English and to the scaffold; Westmorland, more unfortunate still, to seek lifelong exile in Spanish lands—a pathetic, poverty-stricken pensioner upon Philip’s irregular bounty, striving to earn his poor living by joining in plots to hand his native country over to the King of Spain. The rebellion in the North, for a time so threatening, was begun, as we have seen, without due preparation and conducted without ability to an inglorious termination.[187] But not a little of the blame for the miserable fiasco must be laid at the door of de Spes, who for months had been holding out hopes—as we see now, without authority—that an armed Spanish force from Flanders would be ready to support the rising. Alas! English Catholics, even after this first hard lesson, had yet to learn that Philip’s aid was not so lightly given, or given at all, without ample assurance that he alone should reap the harvest of success without incurring the penalties of failure.