Chapter VII (2)

He arrived in London on the 27th August on his way to France; and on the same day there landed at Rye two couriers from Paris, one with letters from Walsingham to the Queen, the other with official despatches to the French ambassador. The latter were seized by the port authorities and sent in haste to the Queen at Kenilworth; but secret though they were kept, ill tidings fly fast, and soon there sped through England, none knew how or whence, the dread news that the Papists had banded together to slaughter Protestants throughout the world. On the fated day of Navarre’s wedding in Paris—the day of Saint Bartholomew—the storm had burst. Hounded on by the King himself and by his mother, slaughter unchecked had swept across the capital. The noble Coligny had fallen first, and then every citizen but those who wore the badge of Guise was hounded to his death. Through France the tale of horror ran, across the Channel to Protestant England fled thousands of Huguenots, dreading the general massacre that portended; and when Elizabeth suspended her pastime at Kenilworth to read the despatch that brought the news, her brow clouded and her heart sank; for it seemed now that, at last, all her clever tricks had failed and catastrophe loomed over her and England. For the league of Bayonne had produced its baleful fruit at last.[208] The alliance and friendship just so ostentatiously concluded with France was but a fraud and a blind, the marriage talk with Alençon was all a lie: Catharine and her son, after all, had made common cause with Philip and the Guises, and England stood alone opposed to united Catholicism pledged to wholesale massacre.

In a day the orgy of St. Bartholomew had changed the political aspect. The French, lately so caressed in England, were now regarded as monsters of falsity. Elizabeth, in deep mourning, after long delay received the French ambassador coldly, and contemptuously listened to his palliations and explanations; for she knew that the Guises were now paramount in France, and from them she had nothing but enmity to expect. But dismay was not allowed to dominate the counsels of Elizabeth for very long. When such a combination as this existed between the ancient enemies Spain and France, England’s safety depended upon sowing discord between them. This was never very difficult, for their interests nationally were always antagonistic, and their antipathies were stronger than their affinities.[209] At the first flush of the news Philip and the Spaniards were overjoyed that so many heretics should be butchered, and Guaras from London, writing to the Duke of Alba on the 30th August says: “God grant that it may be true, and that these rebel heretics may have met with this bad end”; and the national consequences were not lost upon him, even thus early, for though he was but a meddling merchant, he had far clearer ideas of policy than had de Spes. “Since the news came we hear no more of English soldiers going over to Flanders. This last affair, indeed, will give them something else to think about. If the news from Paris be true, the league between these people [_i.e._, the English] and the French will probably come to nothing, as the people are already murmuring that they cannot trust Frenchmen.”

Elizabeth, indeed, had been badly betrayed by the French. She had been drawn into hostility to Philip in Flanders, and had been left in the lurch. To her alone now could the Prince of Orange look for help, since the French had deserted him; and though she had no intention of allowing the Dutch Protestants to be crushed by Alba, Elizabeth saw that in future all she did to help them must be done without an open national rupture between England and Spain. Immediately, therefore, her tone changed. Not only were the Dutch rebels ostentatiously disavowed by her, but the somewhat bewildered Guaras found himself once more a _persona grata_ at Court.[210] Early in October the Duke of Alba sent him his cool and tardy reply with regard to the proposed negotiations for reopening trade. When Guaras appeared at Windsor with the despatch he found Burghley all smiles. “On that very day, he said, and on many other previous occasions the Queen had said to him she wondered why Guaras did not come to Court with the reply. They were much surprised to have received no answer to the offer made by the Queen to withdraw the Englishmen from Flanders, who, he said, only went there to resist the Frenchmen, who might try to gain a footing.... When I told him I had a letter for the Queen he seemed greatly delighted and asked me to show it to him. When he read the superscripture he said, ‘Although it comes tardily and the Queen is unwell, I will take it to her at once, because I know how pleased she will be to know that you have come with the message.’”[211]

Thenceforward for a time no one was more welcome at Court than Guaras. A fortnight after the above letter was written the French ambassador, La Mothe, remarked: “Guaras ... the Spaniard, is much better attended to and more favourably received at this Court than he used to be. He has great hopes of getting them to withdraw all the English from Flushing and Flanders, as well as of arranging the disputes about commercial intercourse.”[212] All was not plain sailing yet, for Alba was hard and Elizabeth stood out firmly for religious toleration for Englishmen in Spain, which claim from the first was scouted as preposterous by the Spaniards, and in the end was almost the only point upon which the English had to give way. But the constant more or less covert aid in men and money sent from England to support Orange, and the fear that if driven too far Elizabeth might at last yield to the arguments and persuasions of the Dutch that she would assume the protection of Holland and Zeeland, brought down even Alba’s pride; and early in the spring of 1573 trade was reopened, on terms greatly in favour of Elizabeth, since her subjects again obtained an open market for their cloths, whilst she kept practically the greater part of the property she had seized.

Gradually Guaras, though in somewhat more humble fashion than de Spes, immersed himself in intrigues on behalf of Spain, many of them doubtless proposed to him in good faith, but others, as we know now, mere traps set for him by Lord Burghley’s contrivance, into which he easily fell to his own ultimate undoing. Several English captains were in close negotiation with him for months for the betrayal to the Spaniards of Flushing, Caunfer, and other strong places, for the murder of the Prince of Orange, and other schemes. But it is evident that these advances through him were received with doubt and caution by Philip and Alba, who probably doubted his discretion, for when a group of English captains had to be finally negotiated with for the capture of Flushing a special envoy, a merchant seaman named Zubiaur, was sent to England for the purpose with strict orders that Guaras should know nothing whatever of it; and even whilst Guaras was acting as _chargé d’affaires_ of Spain a Portuguese spy (Fogaza) in Spanish pay reported all his movements to the authorities at Madrid.

By the end of 1573 it was patent to all the world that Alba’s reign of blood had failed. The stern old chief had been beaten indeed by Elizabeth’s seizure of the treasure, and he never recovered from the blow. Forced to raise money somehow, for Philip was bankrupt both in credit and in means, Alba imposed upon rich Flanders and Brabant the “tenth penny” that had ruined Castile. Then all the Netherlanders rose. It was no longer a question of local government or even of faith, but of moneybags; and Catholic and Protestant alike rebelled against spoliation and the destruction of Flemish prosperity. Indignant remonstrances went to Philip, and the Spanish Council even angrily condemned Alba’s measure. “Neither the heads smitten off nor the privileges abolished have aroused so much resistance as this,” wrote Alba: but he needed money for the King’s service, and money he must have. Thus he found himself face to face, not with a faction in revolt, but with an outraged and united nation, and through 1572 the grim old Duke stuck to his guns. First he crushed the south, sweeping the Huguenot auxiliaries aside and submitting all those who raised the slightest protest to ruthless slaughter.

Brabant and Flanders, bloodless, could fight against him no more, but Holland and Zeeland were made of sterner stuff. Money and men in abundance came to them from England, and all the silver ducats scattered by Guaras and all Elizabeth’s protestations of friendship for her dear brother in Spain could not stop them; until at last Philip grew angry and impatient at the useless slaughter, and Alba, heartbroken, went into disgrace, whilst a viceroy of widely different type came with the olive-branch in hand to win back at least Catholic Brabant and Flanders to Philip’s rule again by almost any concessions. There was, indeed, no other way for Philip now, for he had come to the end of his resources, and his troubles were not confined to the Protestant Netherlands.

His brilliant young brother, Don Juan of Austria, in command of the combined Christian fleet, had sailed from Messina in September, 1571, and had broken the Moslem power in the Mediterranean that had for so long been a thorn in the side of Spain. All Catholic Christendom lost its head over Don Juan: his enthusiasm, his gallantry, his personal beauty made him in the eyes of his contemporaries a very paladin of the Cross. Philip, religious though he might be, was cold and reticent, appealing little to the imagination of men. But this young Prince, his brother, splendid beyond words and with some of the military ability of his father the Emperor, might be the man destined by God for the final victory of the Cross over all its enemies. Don Juan not only carried away others, but was carried away himself. To follow up his victory by the conquest of Constantinople and the Holy Land, and to become a new Constantine, seemed to him and to the Catholics, who idolised him, an easily realisable vision. If not that, then why not Christianise Africa, re-establish the empire of Carthage with Don Juan as its sovereign?

But all this meant vast sums of money, and to such suggestions Philip turned an irresponsive ear. Clamour as Don Juan and his friends might, no assistance could be got from Spain for his wild schemes; for King Philip had other things to do than conquer vast new empires for his base brother, whilst his own Netherlands were slipping from his grasp and Elizabeth of England openly defied him. Then Don Juan, disobeying orders, seized and fortified Tunis on his own account. All appeals for support to Philip were sternly refused, and within a year the city was recaptured by the Turk and the eight thousand Spaniards in it slaughtered. Don Juan in despair remained in Italy, full still of high dreams if heroic conquest for the faith. He was surrounded, as before, by advisers as flighty and hot-headed as himself; and it occurred to some of them if he was not to be allowed to become a Christian Emperor of the East, there was in the West another empire in the hands of heretics, still awaiting its champion who should restore it to the Church.

Guaras wrote to Philip’s Secretary, Zayas, as early as November, 1574, saying, “The Queen of Scotland founds all her hopes upon his Majesty after God, and by a letter she has written to an influential friend, who read it to me, it is certain that there is nothing she desires more than to accept the proposition about Don Juan of Austria,[213] she having been persuaded by this person and others that it would benefit Christendom greatly. If it be his Majesty’s wish that this matter should be considered, and communications have to be carried on with the Queen about it, this cipher can be utilised for the purpose, it being so obscure and without an alphabet that no one can decipher it.... If this happy event could be brought about, she would be a saintly, chaste, and Catholic Princess, the greatest lady on earth, for England, Scotland, and Ireland are indeed a vast empire.... If his Majesty will graciously allow a letter for her contentment in this business to be written, an opportunity might occur for her rescue. If consent is given on our part this project would undoubtedly be executed. She writes herself about it to the person I have mentioned, and desires above all things that her son should marry the elder Infanta, for which purpose she will consent that the man who holds him should carry him to Spain.”

Philip had heard stories similar to this before, and was not ready yet for another plot depending upon the English Catholics. Requesens, the new Viceroy of Flanders, did his best, but he was surrounded by unconquerable difficulties from the first, legacies, most of them, from the _régime_ of Alba. Many of the Flemish seamen were disloyal and the Catholic clergy disaffected, whilst the mercantile classes were nearly beggared and in deep discontent. But, withal, the Walloons and Southern States were pacified, though Holland and Zeeland were as stubborn as ever. Requesens’ principal difficulty, as usual, was want of money; and the Catholic Flemings insisted that if they were to remain loyal to Spain the unpaid, murderous rabble of foreign soldiers who were terrorising friends and enemies alike must be withdrawn from Flanders. But Philip could not pay them, and they would not budge without their wage, for the rich houses of the burghers were always there for plunder. In the midst of this _impasse_, when things were at their worst, Requesens died, in March, 1576, and Philip, glad to get his brother away from Italy, ordered him to hurry direct to Flanders and carry out the policy of pacification at any cost or sacrifice. The troops were to be sent away, the burghers conciliated, and, if possible, the Dutch won over by promises of large concessions.

To Don Juan, with his heart aflame with high ambitions, concessions and conciliation of heretics were utterly repugnant; but the mission seemed to open a sure road to the great plan we have seen hinted at in Guaras’ letter of November, 1574. Pope Gregory XIII. was as ready as Don Juan for such an enterprise, and sent his Nuncio to Philip to pray him to allow his brother to swoop down upon England with the troops from Flanders, release and marry Mary Stuart, and with her become sovereign of a Britain Catholic and a faithful ally of Spain. Philip, as was his wont when he disapproved of a plan, was vaguely benevolent, but he hated priestly interference in his plans, and distrusted the Vatican where the French priests had so much to say. Worst of all, Don Juan disobeyed orders and came to Spain to press his plans for capturing England, and the delay thus caused was fatal. Before he could reach the Flemish frontier the Italian and Spanish troops had thrown off all restraint and had sacked Antwerp. The Catholic Flemings and Walloons were forced to make common cause with Orange, who assumed the lead in the Government, and all Netherlanders stood shoulder to shoulder against the ravishers and spoilers of their homes. When Don Juan came, therefore, he was told that he would only be admitted on conditions to be dictated by the States. Among these conditions was that the mutinous troops should not be sent away by sea, for the plan to invade England with them was well known by Orange, but should march out overland. Don Juan protested and raved in vain. Philip coldly ordered him to accede to any terms consistent with Spanish sovereignty over Flanders; and at last, in the early spring of 1577, he made his “joyous entry” into Brussels with a heart steeped in hate of the Flemings, whose firmness had destroyed his great dream of capturing England for the Cross and marrying the imprisoned Catholic Queen, like the hero of a fairy tale.

In these fine plans Guaras was a zealous and a willing agent, and Mary Stuart, as usual, an eager participant, all their intrigues being perfectly well known to Cecil through his spies. Cecil, indeed, had become quite friendly with Guaras,[214] and thus, without being suspected, kept his eye on all his proceedings. The letters the merchant wrote to Spain were frequently intercepted, and although the pride of Guaras in his cipher was justified and most of the contents are still undeciphered, sufficient was read to prove that he was plotting ceaselessly with England’s enemies. Letters, too, were known to be passing by means of Guaras between Mary Stuart and Don Juan; and even the Flemish Catholic nobles, who had now for a time deserted the Spanish cause and were appealing to Elizabeth for aid, were constantly warning the English of the plans that were being so industriously forwarded by Guaras.

That Mary Stuart and Don Juan at this time understood each other perfectly, though Philip, for reasons already pointed out, was irresponsive to their appeals, is seen in an important letter written by Mary to the conspirator Charles Paget long afterwards (May, 1586) at the time when she was implicated in the plot that ended in her death. Paget was instructed to discover through Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in Paris, whether Philip was then (1586) ready to attack England, which, she says, “to me seemeth the surest and readiest way for him whereby to rid himself altogether of the Queen’s malice against him. So as now he doth find himself constrained to come to the same remedies which in Don John of Austria’s time were propounded unto him, which I doubt he shall not find presently in these parts of such strength and virtue as if he had applied them in time and place.... I remember that Don John was always stiff in this opinion that there was no other means in the world whereby to set up again the King’s affairs in the Low Countries, and to assure his States in all other parts, than in re-establishing this realm under God and a Prince his friend; for, so much as Don John foresaw right well that this Queen would not fail to break with him, and give him, as she hath done, the first blow.”[215]

Guaras had many hints and warnings which he failed to regard, both from Cecil and the Queen herself. In his letter of 29th March, 1575, he gives an account of one such hint. “The Queen was walking,” he says, “a long way from the Palace of Richmond, where she is staying, surrounded by her courtiers and nobles, when, catching sight of me from afar, she called me by name and welcomed me.” He had to ask her permission to buy some cannon in England for the Flemish Government, to which she gave him an amiable reply, and he continued to walk through the park a few steps behind her chatting with her alone. She was full of her witcheries and compliments to Spaniards, with whom for the moment it suited to be friends, but told Guaras that she was annoyed at the way her subjects in Spain were treated by the Inquisition. She grew somewhat vehement about it and said, “I promise ye my father would not have put up with it, and if the matter is not amended I shall be obliged to arrest some of the King of Spain’s subjects and treat them in the same way.” Having given this hint, she grew gracious again and said: “You know full well, old wine, old bread, and old friends should be valued, and if only to let these Frenchmen see, who are wrangling as to whether our friendship is firm or not, there is good reason to show undisguisedly the kindly feeling which inwardly exists.” This, of course, referred to the attempts of the French to interfere in Flanders, which always made Elizabeth smile upon Spaniards;[216] and when Guaras handsomely returned the compliment the Queen suddenly turned upon him, and shot the bolt she had been preparing all along: “You say you wish to serve me, Guaras; will you tell me the truth? They say that a certain Scottish prisoner of mine has sent you a token of friendship in the form of a painted lion; is it true?” Poor Guaras could only protest that he had never received any such token, as he had not; but the hint, and the more pointed one about the arrest, certainly did not abate his activity as a go-between for Mary and Don Juan.

So long as the danger of French interference in Flanders lasted Elizabeth dared not do anything very unpleasant to Spain; but as soon as that difficulty was banished by new negotiations for the marriage of Elizabeth and Alençon, Guaras began to find his position less comfortable. In November, 1575, Egremont Ratcliff, the brother of the Earl of Sussex, who had been a fugitive in Flanders and Italy since the northern rebellion, came to England, with a story of Don Juan’s plans in conjunction with Mary Stuart, and in this, of course, Guaras was involved. His fresh negotiations, too, early in 1576 for the betrayal by the English Catholics of certain of the Zeeland fortresses to the Spaniards was discovered. The Flemish Catholic nobles were now in England praying for support against Philip’s soldiery, and Elizabeth was in mortal fear of French aid being given to them on the one hand and of Don Juan’s reported plans against England on the other, whilst Guaras in his correspondence grew more and more bitter and violent as he saw the fruition of his hopes gradually disappear before Elizabeth’s amiability to the Catholic Flemish nobles and the united opposition now offered to Don Juan’s ambitions.

But in the circumstances Elizabeth did not dare yet to proceed to extremities with Spaniards; and one case amusingly shows that these high political considerations somewhat bewildered administrative officers, who could not follow such frequent changes of attitude. A Portuguese ambassador, Giraldi, had been for some time in England endeavouring to arrange some open questions relative to the depredations of the Protestant privateers; and late in 1576 the Recorder of London, Sir William Fleetwood, a zealous Catholic-baiter, with the Sheriffs, considered it his duty to surround with his posse the house of the Portuguese envoy for the purpose of catching and arresting unauthorised persons there hearing Mass. They forced an entry after a stiff fight with the Portuguese porter, Mr. Recorder Fleetwood being rather seriously mauled in the affray, and loudly broke in upon the sacred service by summoning all English people to come out in custody. Immediately the foreigners present, indignant at the interruption, drew their daggers and swords, and made as if to attack the officers, but were appeased by the sheriffs until the ladies had withdrawn. Having allowed the members of the embassy to depart, the officers then examined the other foreigners: “and trulie they most despitefully against all civilitie used such lewd words in their language against us, that if our company had understande them there might have chanced great harm. ‘Sirs,’ I saide to them, ‘I see no remedie but you must goe to prison, for most of you be free denizens.’ And then I willed the officers to lay hand on them, and immediately every man suddenly most humbly put off his cap, and began to be sutors and sought favour; and so on their submission we suffered them to depart, all save Antonio de Guaras, who was not willing to go from us, but kept us company.” After sending the English subjects off to prison and scolding some of their own constables for accepting “singing cakes” from the priest at the altar, Fleetwood and Sheriff Barnes stood in the gallery looking down upon the altar. “And then Antonio Guaras tooke me by the hand to see the altar how trim it was. And I said to Guaras, ‘Sir, if I had done my duty here to you and to the Queen upon All Hallowes Day last I had taken two hundred, and as many more on All Souls.’ ‘Ho! Sir,’ said Guaras unto me: ‘become of this religion, and surely you will like it well, and I will be readie means to make you a good Christian.’ And so we went near the altar, where neither he nor I touched any manner of thing; and so we bade the priest farewell, who gently saluted us, and I suddenlie looked back and saw the priest shake his head mumbling out words that sounded like _Diable_ and _male croix_, or to that effect. Then said I to Mr. Sheriff, ‘Let us depart, for the priest doth curse us.’ And so we departed, and Antonio Guaras brought us to the utter gate, where the Sheriff and I invited him to dynner with us; but he departed back to hear the profaned Mass. The aforesaid Guaras at this business said that he himself was an ambassador of a greater person than —— and so did shake his head. ‘What!’ quoth I, ‘do you mean a greater personage than our mistress?’ ‘Na, na,’ said he, ‘I mean not so.’ ‘No,’ quoth I, ‘it were not best for you to make comparisons with the Queen our mistress. Whose ambassador are ye, then?’ quoth I, ‘the Pope’s?’ And then he departed further off in anger. This Guaras was a very busy fellow in this action.”[217]

Neither Giraldi nor Guaras was disposed to allow their diplomatic privileges to be violated in this fashion, however; and in consequence of their vehement complaints Fleetwood had to submit to a severe scolding from the Council and was sent to the Fleet. But Guaras’ immunity was not to last much longer. Elizabeth, before many months were over, found herself assiduously courted by the French, and assured by Catharine that Alençon would do nothing in Flanders but with the co-operation of England—it was hoped as Elizabeth’s husband. Don Juan also, during the time that he remained in negotiation with the States, was only too anxious to win Elizabeth’s help, or at least neutrality; so that when suspicion against Guaras became certainty she had no hesitation in closing the toils around him. In January, 1577, Sir Amyas Paulet, the English ambassador in Paris, reported that a dependent of Guaras, a Spanish tailor, named Damian Dela, a resident in London, had passed through Paris with some highly suspicious letters for King Philip. We know now that the King was firmly against Don Juan’s plans to invade England; but this, of course, was not known at the time, and Paulet advised Burghley to put Guaras to the torture to discover what was going on. This only made the English Government more vigilant; but in the spring of 1577 Secretary Wilson was sent to Flanders to endeavour to bring about an agreement between the States and Don Juan. The latter, when jocosely twitted by Wilson on his wish to marry the Queen of Scots, somewhat ungallantly ridiculed the idea as preposterous; but whilst Wilson was in the Low Countries he managed to obtain through St. Aldegonde possession of some intercepted letters from Guaras on the matter. The cipher was difficult, and only some words could be read; but they were enough to prove that Guaras was in constant communication with Mary Stuart and Don Juan, and Wilson wrote to Cecil expressing his surprise that an unofficial person like Guaras should be allowed to act more scandalously than any accredited ambassador would be allowed to do.

From that time, May, 1577, Guaras was watched almost night and day, and most of his letters intercepted, though not many could be read. On the 28th September, 1577, he proposed to Zayas, King Philip’s secretary, that he should be allowed to arrange for the kidnapping and conveyance to Spain of some of the important Catholic Flemish nobles then in England, or to promote a revolt in Ireland; and he continues by saying, “I have received the enclosed letters from the Queen of Scotland. I have perfectly safe means of sending and receiving letters for her, and the world is praying that God may be preserving her for some great service to the fear of this Queen and her friends. I am encouraging her with letters of comfort until she can be served by acts.”[218] On the 4th October Guaras wrote another inflammatory letter to Zayas, detailing the plans which he said had been agreed upon by England and the Flemish nobles to throw off the Spanish yoke for good by the aid of Elizabeth. He passionately cries for prompt reprisals upon the English, but he complains that his letters are read, and he fears his ciphers may be discovered.

At midnight on the 19th October, 1577, the Sheriff of London with an armed force appeared before the house of Guaras in Thames Street. In the Queen’s name entrance was forced and Guaras placed under arrest, all his papers being seized, and he himself a few days later placed in solitary confinement in Newgate. His clerk, in conveying the news to Zayas, understood the gravity of the affair, for from the first the authorities refused to acknowledge the prisoner’s diplomatic status. “God deliver us from these troubles,” he wrote, “for I promise your worship that unless some remedy be sent from Spain my master Antonio de Guaras will find himself in dire trouble, as will all of us in his house, for we are sore distressed. With all earnestness I supplicate you to let his Majesty know, in the hope that delivery may be sent to us.” Guaras himself writes from prison in hot indignation. He had, he says, placed the letters from the Queen of Scots and King Philip in a safe place, and they had not been captured, but he knows that much of his correspondence has been sent to England by the Flemish nobles, and, reading between the lines, one sees that the poor wretch is in mortal fear, though he passionately protests his innocence whilst vituperating his captors.

No consideration or mercy was shown to him, and now that he was under lock and key all sorts of claims and accusations were made against him.[219] To add to his trouble he, who for thirty years at least had been looked upon as a wealthy merchant, was found to be well-nigh penniless. Philip was always a bad paymaster, and the 500 ducats a year he allowed to Guaras had been embargoed or stopped in Spain for some time previously. The great sum of 20,000 crowns, promised to him for his services in negotiating the reopening of trade, was never paid to him, though for the rest of his life he was petitioning piteously for it. Damian Dela, his tailor-steward, was arrested at the same time as his master and lodged in Newgate, whereupon Recorder Fleetwood, examining him in November, he revealed the sad condition of Guaras’ finances: “I finde that he hath not a groat to bless him withal. His household stuff is not worth forty shillings. He is in my opinion _Iro Pauperior_, and were it not that libertie is sweet I know not where in his own country he should have like entertainment.” By Fleetwood Guaras sent beseeching messages for mercy to Burghley, “his only hope and trust”; but it was not the Cecil way to befriend fallen men, and Guaras appealed to his former crony in vain.

Slowly the act of accusation against Guaras was elaborated. Such portions of his letters as could be read were brought up against him,[220] his servants, one and all, were interrogated, whilst he himself was almost driven crazy by threats of the rack and the scaffold. The questions administered to him in prison are amongst Lord Burghley’s papers and at Simancas, and show the charges brought against him: “What letters had passed between you and the Scots Queen?” “What do you know of their contents and of the negotiations between her and Don Juan?” “How far did Don Juan proceed in the marriage treaty with the Queen of Scots?” “In the cipher between you and Don Juan, who were intended by the numbers 82, 29, and 38?” “What practices have been intended for disquieting the realm, and who were the principal authors?”[221] and many other questions of the same sort. In June, 1578, the case against him for conspiring against the State in favour of Mary Stuart was held to be proven, and the unfortunate man was lodged in the Tower, threatened now with death. To all interrogatories Guaras had answered haughtily that he was the diplomatic representative of the Catholic King, who would heavily avenge any injury done to him; but Philip had other cares to occupy him than to avenge a meddling merchant’s plots, of which he (Philip) had never approved.

It was more important now than ever that Elizabeth should be conciliated. Don Juan, in despair at his hateful position and at the cold irresponsiveness of his brother, had in February, 1578, cast all considerations to the winds, had fortified himself in Namur, and had defied the States to do their worst. Philip, by the rash impetuosity of his brother, thus found it necessary to fight not only for the maintenance of orthodoxy in his Netherlands dominions, but for his sovereignty. The Archduke Mathias, one of his own kin, had been invited by the Flemings to accept the Catholic Crown of Flanders, and on his failure to unite the country, Alençon, the French Prince, had bidden for the prize. If Elizabeth could be won over by Orange to help or co-operate with the French in Flanders, then nothing could save Philip’s sovereignty; and so, until the great Alexander Farnese, Don Juan’s successor, with warcraft and diplomacy combined, was able gradually to separate the Catholic Flemings from the Protestant Dutchmen, it behoved Philip at any sacrifice to win again the good graces of Elizabeth, to arouse her jealousy of French interference in Flanders, and hold her, notwithstanding all that had passed, to the traditional alliance with his House with the ancient object. Nor was Elizabeth loath to meet her brother-in-law half-way this time, for a French domination in Flanders she could never allow, and whilst on the one hand she conjured the danger by befooling Alençon into the firm belief that she would marry him if he would obey her, on the other she held out her hand to Philip. Wilkes, the Clerk of the Privy Council, was sent off to Spain to vindicate the Queen’s action in Flanders: to say how hard she had tried to bring about peace, notwithstanding Don Juan’s impracticability, to beg for Don Juan’s recall,[222] and to urge that some sort of peace should be brought about with the States on the basis that Don Juan had violated, failing which she will be obliged, as before, to aid those who are battling for freedom of conscience.

It was a bitter pill for Philip that he should have to brook Elizabeth’s interference between his rebel subjects and himself, and he treated Wilkes in very high and mighty fashion, on the pretext that his rank was inadequate for such a mission. But he made amends by sending to England, hard upon Wilkes’ heels, a scion of one of the noblest houses in Spain as his ambassador. Soldier, author, diplomatist, and courtier, Don Bernardino de Mendoza, a man with the pride of Lucifer and the intolerance of St. Dominic, was entrusted with a mission of humility to the Queen of all the “heretics.” No apology had ever been sent by Elizabeth for the expulsion of de Spes, or for the seizure of the treasure; Guaras was a close prisoner, daily threatened with torture, and his claim to diplomatic privilege laughed at; yet the King of Spain was obliged to swallow his pride, and send an ambassador who was almost a suppliant to beg Elizabeth not to help his revolted subjects.

The change of position between the two sovereigns since the beginning of the Queen’s reign is nowhere so clearly seen as by a comparison of the instructions of Mendoza with the attitude of Feria and his master, described in the earlier pages of the present volume. Mendoza’s mission was piteously apologetic. Don Juan and the Spanish troops should be withdrawn. It was all a mistake about the abrogation of the edict of toleration. The States should have all they demanded if they would only be loyal and Catholic, and Elizabeth was appealed to earnestly not to aid rebellion in her good brother’s States. Mendoza was directed to “endeavour to keep her in a good humour, and convinced of our friendship, banishing the distrust of us which she now appears to entertain, and for which we have given her no good cause.” The English ministers were all to be heavily bribed, and at any cost, the new ambassador was instructed, English neutrality was to be secured.

Mendoza passed through Paris on his way to England in February, and found the French Court in dismay. Young Alençon had escaped his brother’s vigilance, and, with a force of Huguenots and German mercenaries, was on the Flemish frontier in full negotiation with the Prince of Orange and the Protestants to assume the sovereignty as a rival to Mathias, the nominee of the Catholics. Don Juan had just won the battle of Gembloux against the united rebel States, and was known to be intriguing with the Guises against Elizabeth, though not, as was thought in England, with Philip’s connivance; and the Queen of England found herself in perplexity between two fires. The Marquis d’Havrey, the Flemish Catholic noble representing the States, was assuring her that unless she sent an army over at once, under Leicester or his brother, to help them, they must hand themselves over to Alençon and the Frenchmen, which she was determined to prevent, cost what it might;[223] whilst, on the other hand, she was told from all quarters that the Kings of Spain and France, with the Pope, Don Juan, and the Guises, were all united and determined to crush her for once and for all. Her problem was how to save Orange and the Protestants in Holland from being overwhelmed, without dragging England into a war with Philip; to prevent the French, even Huguenots, from gaining a footing in the Low Countries, and to avert a Catholic coalition against her. By what consummate diplomacy she contrived to attain her ends will be seen in the next chapter, which recounts her intercourse with Bernardino de Mendoza as Philip’s ambassador.