Chapter VI (1)

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.