Chapter VIII (1)

1578-1584

Mendoza and Elizabeth—His haughty behaviour—The French in
Flanders—Elizabeth’s approaches to Philip—The Spanish designs
on Portugal—Renewed plots of Mary Stuart—Appeals to Philip
to aid her in England—Philip’s attitude towards Guisan
co-operation with him in Britain—The Jesuit mission—Mendoza
and the Catholic plot in Scotland—Elizabeth aids the
Portuguese pretender—Anger of Mendoza—His altercation with
Elizabeth—Progress of the plots—Collapse of Lennox—The
interference of Guise in the plans—The jealousy between English
Catholic exiles and the Scots—Development of the Anglo-Spanish
plans and intended exclusion of Guise—Arrest of Francis
Throckmorton—Discovery of the plot—Expulsion of Mendoza—Philip
faces the inevitable and slowly prepares for a war of invasion

On the 16th March, 1578, Mendoza sat on a low stool by Elizabeth’s side, under the canopy in the Palace of Greenwich. He was a man already of mature age, of stately port, strong and masterful as became a dashing cavalry leader, but he spoke on this occasion, his first formal audience of Elizabeth, in silken tones, as he tried his best to excuse Don Juan’s breach of faith with the States. The Queen, on her side, had nothing but complaints and protests. Her aim was to be made a party to the new pacification, either as arbitrator or mediator, because, she said, that she would have to provide the financial guarantee offered by the States. But it was not Philip’s intention to allow her thus to come between him and his subjects, and this point was always evaded, cleverly as she urged it. But upon the main point she and Mendoza soon agreed. If Philip would make the concessions to the States that he now promised, and they refused to submit, she herself would help to punish them; and as for the French, she would take care they were never masters of Flanders, with or without Don Juan. It was noticed that as soon as the Queen said that she would help to punish the States if they did not accept the terms promised by Philip, Leicester hurriedly left the chamber, it was whispered to write by special courier to Flanders that Havrey should at once return to England and represent the rebel view of the situation.

“I am glad to see you again,”[224] said the Queen, after the business talk was finished, “although I have been told that the real object of your coming is to plan many things to my injury; but even if you were not a minister of my good brother, I do not think that you would do me much harm.” Needless to say, Mendoza loudly proclaimed his devotion to her, and for a time all went harmoniously between them. Alençon from the frontier sent to Elizabeth lovelorn epistles of devotion, which she looked at for a time with some distrust, believing that this might be a trap whereby the French, as a nation, were endeavouring to gain a footing in Flanders to her prejudice. Of one thing she was quite determined, namely, that for every Frenchman who entered Flanders an Englishman should enter too; and to all Mendoza’s remonstrances at the aid in men and money that constantly flowed over to the Netherlands, Elizabeth had the answer ready that they went as much in Philip’s interest as her own, to prevent the country from falling into the hands of the French. To Orange, whom she constantly upbraided for welcoming French aid, her scolding reproaches meant little, for, as he said, he cared not whence came the help by means of which he could fight the Spaniards, and if he obtained, as he did, forces from Alençon and from Elizabeth too, he was willing to put up with the Englishwoman’s hard words.

She did not mince matters with Mendoza, either. “By God!” she shouted, “if the edict of toleration is not re-granted to the States I will help them against you whilst I have a man left in England.” Mendoza drily remarked that she was helping them pretty effectually already, “and that, grateful as I was for her kindness to me, I could not help telling her that your Majesty had very long arms, and that if need arose their strength would be felt in any country upon which they were placed. She swallowed this,” says Mendoza, “with rather a wry face, and said she did not consider these people to be rebels, as they were satisfied with what your Majesty had granted to them before, and she would not allow either the French to set foot in the States nor the Spaniards to oppress them.” Thus surely but slowly Elizabeth worked her way; but with the inevitable consequence of convincing Mendoza, as all other Spanish ambassadors in turn had been convinced, that force against Elizabeth was their only remedy, since in diplomacy she was more than a match for the cast-iron methods of their master.

To Mendoza’s intercession for the unhappy Guaras, with whom the new ambassador had little sympathy as a plebeian and bungler in State affairs, Elizabeth replied angrily that if he had been a subject of any other King but Philip she would have hanged him long ago, as he had been plotting against her with the Queen of Scots and English rebels. She would get rid of him, she said, by and by, when she had squeezed some more information from him. Once, in June, 1578, Guaras was brought out of prison and told by the Council that he would have to leave the country in ten days; but, instead of accepting the decision humbly, he raised an altercation, again claiming diplomatic privilege, with the result that he was promptly sent to solitary confinement in the Tower again, though both Mendoza and Don Juan had received money from Spain to be spent in bribes for his help and defence.[225]

Generally speaking, the parties in Elizabeth’s Court were now sharply divided in policy, and Mendoza promptly found who were his friends and who his foes. Cecil and Sussex, particularly, with Controller Crofts in a humbler way, were opposed to the open provocation of Spain by the support of the Flemish rebels; Leicester and Walsingham, whom Mendoza rarely mentions without the epithet “devilish heretic,” being determined, if possible, to bring matters to a crisis between Elizabeth and Philip whilst the war in the Netherlands paralysed the latter. Elizabeth herself leant now to one side, now to another, always balancing counsel against counsel. How suddenly and convincingly she could change is seen in her attitude towards Mendoza directly she heard that Alençon and his French force, mainly Huguenots, had crossed the frontier into Flanders early in July, 1578, at the request of the States, and had thrown themselves into Mons. Alençon had long been trying to convince the Queen that upon her alone, and not upon his brother the King of France, would he depend in everything, and his professions of love for her were unabated, but this alarmed her.

To some extent her distrust of Alençon had been overcome of late, particularly as a large number of English troops and Germans in her pay were in Flanders as an antidote to him; but only a few days after the startling news of Alençon’s invasion reached England, Mendoza writes (19th July, 1578): “The Queen has been very suspicious of me hitherto, as she has been assured that I had come to perform I know not what, nor what bad office; but she is beginning to be undeceived, and is turning her eyes now more towards his Majesty. Some of the ministers, too, have begun to get friendly with me, and I can assure you [Zayas] that if his Majesty wishes to retain their goodwill, I see a way of doing it.... God knows the trouble I have had in getting her and her ministers so far, as they always want to see something substantial beforehand,[226] this being the natural character of the people. I am told by a person in the Palace that, even in the matter of giving me audience readily, the Queen has been considerably influenced by the presents of gloves and perfumes I gave her when I arrived.”

It is true that Elizabeth was a glutton for presents, and her Councillors had itching palms for Spanish gold, but there were other reasons just then besides self-interest that made them smile upon Philip’s ambassador. Not only was there a French army on Flemish soil, but from all sides there came to England alarming news of some great Catholic combination against Elizabeth; the Spaniards were known to be supporting the Desmond rebellion in Ireland;[227] and at a day’s notice, until she had got Alençon completely under her thumb by the farcical marriage negotiations with him personally, she thought fit to smile upon Mendoza, and treat the moderate English Catholics with unwonted mildness. “I never see the Queen now,” writes Mendoza in September, 1578, “without her telling me how glad she is for me to be here. She gives me audience freely, and, thank God! I have her now in an excellent humour, whilst the Englishmen in general are not bad friends with me, as they think I shall not do anything against them in case of a disturbance.”

On another occasion in September, 1578, when Elizabeth was sounding Mendoza about sending an English ambassador to Spain, she said to him: “If you were a knave, you should not have stayed here so long; ... if you had been here years ago, things would not have reached such a condition as they did, by reason of Don Gerau de Spes”; and when he went to see her at Richmond on her return from an autumn progress, she became quite coquettish with him. She thought, she said, he must have run away and left her it was so long since she had seen him; and, though she was somewhat aggrieved that she was to have no part in the pending peace negotiations between Philip and the Flemings, she told him that “she liked his manner of procedure.” “I did not inspire her with suspicion; and if a favourable peace was made in the Netherlands by any means, she was quite content not to have been a mediator, being quite satisfied with my explanations.” Then, turning to him, she broached the subject really uppermost in her mind, namely, her much-talked-of marriage with the young French Prince. Did Mendoza think she ought to marry him? The courtly ambassador was sure she would act wisely in any case; but he knew, as she did, that all the French wished was to prevent her prosperity and quietude. “I hope when you see the end you will approve of it,” said Elizabeth, doubtless smiling in her sleeve; for she alone knew what she intended the end to be, though Philip himself shrewdly guessed that “it was all pastime, and she would never marry any man.”

But through all this amiability to the Spaniard, English aid still found its way abundantly across the North Sea to the Protestants in arms; and Hans Casinir, with 20,000 soldiers, was in Elizabeth’s pay in the States. Philip, much as his ambassador might humour Elizabeth and bribe her ministers, was no nearer than before to the complete control of English policy, which alone would serve his purpose. Don Juan had died brokenhearted at his miserable failure on 1st October, and this made matters somewhat easier for his brother Philip, as it removed the principal obstacle to the reconciliation of the Catholic Flemings to the Spanish rule. The absolute dissociation of the King of France from his brother Alençon’s eccentric vagaries in Flanders, and Elizabeth’s clever beguilement of the young man, also satisfied the King of Spain that once more affairs were reverting to the old groove, in which he would have against him not Catholics, but only the Protestant elements of which Elizabeth was the main supporter.

Again, therefore, he was able to face the problem of his “good sister’s” overthrow. All his attempts previously in this direction had been disastrous for his instruments and discomfiting for himself. He had subsidised Mary Stuart, before and since her incarceration; he had ineffectively supported the English Catholics to rebel; he had consented to Elizabeth’s murder preparatory to his armed intervention in England; he had countenanced Stukeley’s wild plans to capture Ireland, and supported the Desmond disaffection in Munster; he had tried to bring Elizabeth to her knees by stopping trade, with the result of nearly ruining his own subjects—but all these means had failed. Philip’s advisers for twenty years had never ceased to assure him that he must boldly carry the war into his enemy’s camp if he would succeed—that to win all he must risk something; but he had gone on still believing in the infallibility of his own methods, which always aimed at binding others whilst himself remaining vaguely pledged or not pledged at all. Philip would only play when he held all the winning cards, and, much as his ambassadors urged upon him a policy of force towards his sister-in-law, he was determined to wait until Fate had dealt them to him.

In August, 1578, only a few weeks before the death of Don Juan relieved him from his worst dilemma in Catholic Flanders, his rash young nephew, King Sebastian of Portugal, was killed in battle in Morocco. His heir was the old childless Cardinal Don Henrique, and amongst the many subsequent claimants Philip was the strongest. With the added power and great wealth of Portugal, the King of Spain might conquer heresy yet by force, and defy both England and France if needs be, for, with the harbours of Spain, Portugal, and the Islands closed to them, French and English ships would be unable to sail far from their own shores. The danger at once drew Catharine and Elizabeth together, but they could do nothing effectual yet, and all Philip’s plans were laid carefully to seize the throne of Portugal when the aged king should die. It was necessary, amongst other things, for him to provide that both Elizabeth and Catharine, when that event happened, should have their hands full at home, and the effect of his manœuvres is noticeable almost immediately.

Mendoza had been instructed to use the greatest caution in all approaches to him on behalf of the imprisoned Mary Stuart; but in January, 1579, Zayas wrote to him, saying that negotiations had been opened by Beton, Archbishop of Glasgow, Mary’s ambassador in Paris, and the Spanish ambassador there. “If,” he said, “Philip would provide enough money to raise four thousand troops, great things might be done for her and for the Catholic religion. His Majesty is very well disposed towards it; but nothing, as yet, has been decided, because, in good truth, the matter could only be undertaken on very safe grounds, and with the assurance that the effect would be produced, as otherwise it would be _oleum et operam perdere_. Send us your opinion on it.”[228] The French intrigues in Scotland at this period (1579) had somewhat aroused the apprehensions both of Philip and Elizabeth, for Guise had sent young Lennox d’Aubigny, the Franco-Scot Stuart, to woo his cousin James, and he had succeeded beyond the wildest expectations. Philip was willing enough to foster Guise’s ambitions to the extent of setting him against Catharine and the Huguenots; but any attempt at Guisan interference in Great Britain without his direction always alarmed him, so Mendoza lost no opportunity of whispering to Elizabeth distrust of French aims in Scotland.

At the same time, still further to divert Elizabeth from interfering with his Portuguese plans, Philip allowed himself to be persuaded to help James Fitzmaurice and the Pope’s Nuncio, Dr. Sanders, to land a small Spanish and Italian force in Ireland in the summer of 1579. The expedition was routed and pursued, Dr. Sanders dying miserably of want and exposure; but when heartrending appeals from the Irish were sent to Philip for further aid, he dared not make open war upon England for their sake—that was no part of his plan yet. All he could consent to do was to join with the Pope in defraying the expenses of a formidable expedition, not under the Spanish but the Papal flag, sailing from a Spanish port, with eight thousand soldiers to invade Ireland, and hold the Catholic West for the Desmonds. The affair was mismanaged, and all the invaders were slaughtered at Smerwick, Dingle Bay (November, 1580); but Mendoza never heard the last of it from Elizabeth, who in future excused all her interference in Flanders by pointing to this kind act of her “good brother.” It was a hint to Elizabeth that she was vulnerable, not only in Scotland by French intrigue, but in Ireland also, and that it behoved her to look to her own safety before attacking others.

Mendoza had much cold water to throw upon the suggestion of Beton and the Spanish ambassador in Paris (with whom he was at feud) as to the subsidising of a rising of Catholics in favour of Mary Stuart. He, true Spaniard as he was, looked askance at any plan of the sort in which a Frenchman had a part. But early in 1580 the matter entered a new phase. Elizabeth, for the first time in her reign, found herself unpopular, in consequence of the general belief that she really intended to marry the young French Prince; the great Jesuit propaganda was busily making ready to spread through England the young missionaries, who in the true spirit of martyrdom had pledged their lives to bring back England and Scotland to the Faith; the power of Morton in Scotland was waning fast, and Lennox was in the ascendant. Everywhere the Catholic cause had taken new hope, thanks in great measure to the encouragement of Philip, in order that when the time came he might have a free hand in Portugal.

But whilst the King of Spain was quite ready to utilise these priestly and other auxiliaries for his ends, though most of them had no idea that politics had any part in their propaganda, he himself would make no move to capture England until he knew that he, and no one else, would enjoy the benefit of success if success were attained. So long as the Pope and Guise were the leaders of the movement, Philip gave it his blessing but no more, and on the 11th February, 1580, the old Archbishop of Glasgow, in Paris, seeing this, visited Vargas Mexia, the Spanish ambassador, and made a distinct step in advance. The Duke of Guise and he, he said, had persuaded Mary Stuart to place herself without reserve in the hands of his Catholic Majesty; and the Archbishop produced a letter from Mary to that effect, saying that she had arranged for her son to be captured and sent to Spain, that Philip might marry him to his liking. Guise himself came secretly to Vargas Mexia soon afterwards, and told him that he had everything arranged now by the aid of the Scottish Catholics to overthrow Elizabeth, and if Philip would subsidise the affair, he (Guise) would undertake to prevent any French national interference.[229] As for Mary herself, said the Archbishop, “she was determined not to leave her prison until she left it to be Queen of England.” Philips attitude changed at once on hearing this; and when a Catholic Scot, Fernihurst, was sent to Madrid by the party, he gave him a cordial reply, leaving in Mary’s hands the arrangement for the capture and deportation of James. But before anything could be done, the overthrow of Morton in Scotland and the rise of Catholic Lennox d’Aubigny to supreme power gave a far wider scope to the plan.

The great conspiracy of 1569-70 against Elizabeth had failed, owing to lack of complete co-operation of the various Catholic elements: the present attempt seemed to promise an organisation of greater ramifications and more intimate combination. This was owing in great part to a new feature now first introduced. Those who watched the debarkation at Dover of the passengers from a skiff that had arrived from Calais on the 12th June, 1580, saw leap upon the shore a swashbuckling young captain, such as many who came from the Flemish war. He was a man of five-and-thirty, clad in a buff military coat covered with gold lace, and had a great, clanking rapier hung upon his hip, whilst a fine feather flaunted in his wide-brimmed hat. With him came a soldier-servant of humbler mien, and, after being duly searched and coming through the ordeal successfully, the two travellers swaggered upon their way.[230] The captain told the searcher who kindly procured him a horse that a friend of his, an English jeweller living at St. Omer, would follow him to England in a day or two. The jeweller, Mr. Edmunds, duly came, and also went on his road to Gravesend, and so by tilt-boat to London, there to be lost like his military forerunner in the crowds of the capital. The captain came not to rest from the wars against the Spaniards in Flanders, but to conquer England again for the Faith, for he was Father Robert Parsons the Jesuit, and the jeweller Edmunds, who followed, sold, not jewels alone, but his own life for the task to which he had been dedicated by the Church, for he was Edmund Campion.

These three young men were but the advance guard of an army of Jesuit missionaries who soon flocked over from the seminaries of Rheims and Rome to strengthen the resistance of the sorely tried Catholics of England and Scotland. Wherever these zealous clerics reached, the power of Elizabeth over her subjects was weakened. There were many Catholics who had grown tired of persecution, and were willing to purchase peace by open compliance with the Queen’s laws. More there were who would have been fully content with even limited toleration for their observance. But to these fiery young spirits toleration was a more deadly blow than persecution, and although up to this time the secular priests had been willing to concede to Catholics some appearance of outward conformity, the attendance at Protestant service was now forbidden to those of the old Faith. The result was almost at once a recrudescence of the persecutions against Catholics in a crueller form than ever, with the inevitable result of raising a stronger and more fanatical religious spirit than had existed amongst the Catholics in England since the early days of Elizabeth’s reign.

1546-1610]

Needless to say, Mendoza soon got into touch with the new fighting element in the struggle against Elizabeth. The ambassador’s feigned politeness towards Elizabeth had been strained almost to breaking point by the news of Drake’s terrible depredations in the Pacific; and he had already fallen in his correspondence with his master into the same heated tone of indignation as his predecessors had done, urging the King to prompt reprisals upon these “insolent heretics.” When Drake himself arrived with his vast booty, and was effusively received by the Queen, Mendoza’s angry violence of word, and his open threats, earned for him exclusion from the Queen’s presence. He was offered, indeed, a bribe of 50,000 crowns to moderate his tone, but he replied in a rage, “that he would pay more than that sum himself to punish so great a thief as Drake.”[231]

Almost daily Mendoza’s indignation with Elizabeth became more heated. Amongst other causes of complaint was one that for the first time brought him into an acrimonious squabble with Elizabeth herself, though the occasion was a small one. The ambassador had been trapped into one of the usual bogus plots, ostensibly to betray Flushing, but really to cheat and betray him, and he had paid a large sum of money and given much information to certain Dutchmen for the purpose. One of the conspirators had left his son, a child, in Mendoza’s hands as a hostage, and when the fraud was complete, on the 4th June, 1581, during the ambassador’s absence, his house in the Strand was forcibly entered by London constables accompanied by the Secretary of the Prince of Orange, and the young hostage was taken from the custody of the Spaniards. The household drew their swords and attacked the authorities, but before the affray had proceeded far the ambassador himself appeared. Learning that the officers were acting under the authority of the Council, he ordered his servants to put up their weapons and angrily protested against this violation of his domicile.

Mendoza had avoided appearing at Court during the warm philandering with Alençon and the French that was going on, fearing that Elizabeth might, with her usual artfulness, get better terms from the French by pretending that the Spaniards were seeking her. But this new insult overcame all other considerations. In a violent temper Mendoza demanded immediate reparation from the Queen. She must receive him at once, he said, and apologise, or he would leave the country and lay the matter before his master for redress. Elizabeth was anxious not to have an altercation with him whilst the special French embassy as well as Alençon’s _mignons_ filled her Court, and by flattery and cajolery she managed to defer the unpleasant interview until the French embassy had gone. On the 17th June, Elizabeth stood in the gallery of Whitehall overlooking the river, when Mendoza, who had landed at the private stairs, was led to her by Hatton, the captain of the guard. Fearing that the Spaniard might use angry words, she took him into a window embrasure out of earshot of the only two persons in the gallery, Sussex and Hatton, and at once anticipated him by complaining bitterly that King Philip had helped these knaves of Irish rebels by sending a large body of soldiers to them. Mendoza said he must leave that subject for another time, and launched into angry invective of the treatment to which he had been subjected. He had, he said, been denied rights recognised even amongst savages to the ambassadors of kings. He had expected to hear that she had hanged the constables the next morning; but as she had not done so, he supposed they had told the truth when they said they acted in her name.

Calling Sussex and Leicester to her, she ordered that inquiry should be made in the matter, and then once more started her Irish grievance, again forcing Mendoza to take the defensive. He made the best of matters, and retorted with Drake’s plunder and her constant aid to the Netherlanders, ending by a scarcely veiled threat that unless she mended her behaviour towards his master, especially in her attitude towards Portugal, his vengeance would fall upon her. Elizabeth was rather cowed at this, and said she did not want to quarrel with her good brother; the King of France had done more harm in the matter of Portugal than she had. To this Mendoza retorted curtly that if the King of France did evil that was no reason why she should. Mendoza afterwards snubbed and hectored Cecil and the Council, and left the Palace in no very pacific frame of mind. “If I had not shown spirit,” he wrote to the King, in giving him an account of the interview, “which is the thing that moves the Queen and her ministers most, such is their insolence that probably I should never have been able to get conference with them. This attitude alone has enabled me to hold my own with them until now, thus gaining time for matters to develop themselves.”[232] Notwithstanding his self-satisfaction, it is clear that Mendoza got the worst of the interview with the Queen, for although she was compliant on the unimportant point of the violation of domicile, the boy was never restored, and she assumed the position of the injured party about Ireland, as well as preventing Mendoza from making a formal reclamation about Drake’s plunder.

But soon there came a new grievance to exacerbate the irritation of the Spaniards. Alba had been summoned from his retirement to conquer Portugal for Philip on the death of the old Cardinal King. The many claimants to the Crown were mostly timid and unready, whilst Philip’s power was irresistible, and Alba marched through Portugal, with the King in his wake, brushing aside such slight attempts as were made to stay him in the interests of the only Portuguese claimant who showed fight at all—the doubtfully legitimate Don Antonio, Prior of Ocrato, who had at first been accepted by his countrymen as their Sovereign. He had fled before Alba’s advance, and had been a fugitive for months past—some said in Brazil, some in Azores, and some in France. Wherever he was, he carried with him jewels of inestimable value, and such a man in the hands of Philip’s enemies might be made a powerful weapon against the King of Spain. Rumour was busy as to Don Antonio’s movements, and Mendoza’s spies had much to tell, most of which was untrue. But it was noticed at the end of June, 1581, that Elizabeth’s Portuguese-Jew physician, Lopez, was very busy and important, posting backwards and forwards between London and Dover, and soon Mendoza learnt that a party of Portuguese had landed there, amongst whom one was treated with marked respect and consideration. He was described as being “under the middle height, very dark and thin, with a spare face, a grizzled beard, and greenish-grey eyes.”

This man Mendoza, from the description, at once recognised as Don Antonio, the so-called King of Portugal, proclaimed by Philip a rebel with a heavy price upon his head. Before even he had had time to verify his suspicions, Mendoza peremptorily demanded audience of Elizabeth to complain of her thus sheltering the Pretender. The Queen’s ministers, through the Earl of Sussex, flatly refused him access to their mistress for any such purpose unless he brought fresh special letters from Philip; and as, he says, he was determined to have no more _pros_ and _cons_ with intermediaries who simply talk nonsense and then repudiate what they say, blaming the messengers, he wrote a haughty letter to Elizabeth herself, threatening to leave England instantly unless audience was accorded to him. Elizabeth was hunting at Eltham when the letter was handed to her, and as she read it she changed countenance. Through Hatton, who was by her side, she replied to the bearer, “that if the ambassador, for reasons of health or other private causes, wished for his passports he could have them; but that the Queen had not the slightest desire that he should leave her Court, or that she should break with the King of Spain.”

Two or three days afterwards, however, thanks to Cecil, Mendoza was led up a secret stair into the Queen’s private chamber, where she was with Leicester, Sussex, Hatton, and Walsingham. “I suppose,” began Elizabeth as soon as she saw him, “you have come to give me some satisfaction about Ireland.” “That, your Majesty,” he replied, “as I told you before, is a matter concerning the Pope, not my master.” She had, he continued, refused to receive him for nearly a year, pending her investigation of the case. Elizabeth angrily swore that she had never sent him such a message. Until he could bring her a fresh letter from Philip excusing this Irish business, she would have no more to say to him; and she thought that he had done his master a poor service in giving her the answer he had done. “If I have done ill to my master, madam,” he replied, “I have a head to pay for it; and although as the King’s minister I am bound to render an account to him of my acts, I thank God that He has granted me such a noble ancestry as alone would prevent me from failing in my duty to my Sovereign, if for no other reason but to leave unsullied the scutcheon of Mendoza.”[233] “She screamed out louder than before at this, saying that I was to blame for everything that had happened, to which I replied smilingly that she was speaking as a lady, those of her sex usually displaying most annoyance at the things that were done in their interest. It was no small service I had done her, I said, in patiently awaiting her pleasure so long.”

In the heated altercation that ensued, Mendoza seized an opportunity of mentioning the real object of his visit, namely, the arrival of Don Antonio. She prevaricated for a long time, and finally retorted that if Don Antonio was in England, the rebel Earl of Westmorland was not only in King Philip’s dominions but enjoyed a pension from him. She had not made up her mind yet, she said, whether she should help the Portuguese or not, but she was determined not to surrender any one to be killed; and if she did not choose to give him up it would not be she, but Philip, who had first violated the old treaties. Upon this Mendoza made a formal demand for the surrender of Don Antonio in accordance with the international agreement, and was curtly refused.

Thus every day the breach between Elizabeth and her brother-in-law grew wider, and Mendoza followed in the footsteps of de Spes and Guaras. Don Antonio was welcomed at Court with royal honours, and was very soon borrowing money on his jewels to fit out expeditions to the Azores, which still held out in his favour. The Queen herself blew hot and cold. If Antonio succeeded in capturing the throne of Portugal again, she wished him to be beholden to her for it and not to the French, whilst she was determined not to be drawn into open war with Philip for him unless she could manœuvre the King of France into the same position. Philip wrote to Elizabeth himself, begging her to expel or surrender the rebel Pretender, and Mendoza continued to press her, often intemperately, on the subject; but she always countered with Ireland, the refugee Desmonds, Ridolfi, and the Earl of Westmorland; and usually succeeded in getting up a wrangle with the heated ambassador, which placed him at a disadvantage. To prevent Philip from proceeding to extremities against her, and to keep the King of France from breaking away, the marriage dealings with Alençon were carried by her to a point from which all observers believed she could never extricate herself. But her tactics, risky as they really were at this time, were successful in their main object, namely, in weakening Philip’s power on every hand, and making it impracticable for him to avenge himself by force.

The English Catholic party had already felt the cruel consequences of the renewed Jesuit activity. Campion, the most fearless of the young missionaries, with two brethren, suffered cruel martyrdom with unshaken constancy in December, 1581, and scores of other priests and laymen were under sentence of death,[234] whilst throughout the country recusants were hunted with merciless vigour, not, of course, for religion, said Elizabeth’s officers, but as disobedient and disloyal subjects. Most of the active Catholic nobles were now in exile, and it was clear that no armed rising in England against the Queen’s Government was now possible, except with very powerful help from abroad. But in Scotland matters were entirely different. Morton had fallen, and the half-French Lennox d’Aubigny, a Catholic, was the most powerful force in the country. His French ancestry had caused the Spaniards to look askance at him for a time; but the declaration of Guise to the Spanish ambassador in Paris, that Mary Stuart in future would look alone to Philip for direction, somewhat disarmed Mendoza, and, despairing of striking at Elizabeth by other means, the ambassador turned to this quarter to aid him in his vengeance.

Philip had commanded him to continue to console and encourage the imprisoned Mary, and in September, 1581, referring to his correspondence with her, the ambassador opens a new chapter in his activities in England. He has, he says, been trying in every way—of course, through the Jesuit missionaries mainly—to convince the Scots how advantageous it would be for King James if Scotland were formally to return to the Catholic Church; but for fear of driving Elizabeth into the arms of the French, if she knew it, he has had, he says, to work very cautiously and secretly. He then goes on to say that he had just held a private meeting with some leading English Catholics, especially the brothers Tresham, and had urged upon them that the best way to cause trouble to Elizabeth would be for Scotland to submit to the Holy See. Even if Philip’s other cares allowed of his sending a large force to England, such a course would be impossible owing to French jealousy. Yes, admitted the Treshams sorrowfully, the English Catholics were now so downhearted and crushed that a rising in England was impossible unless King Philip sent a great fleet and army fit to conquer the country, which they saw he could not do. The Irish, too, were not to be depended upon, and they agreed that the only way to gain England now was by winning Scotland first for the Church.

The idea took root, and a meeting of six English Catholic peers and several gentlemen thereupon took a joint oath of fidelity to devote all their means and energies to this end. The confederates, with Mendoza’s approval, despatched one of the senior Jesuit missioners, Father Creighton, to Scotland to broach the matter to Lennox d’Aubigny, saying that if James would embrace the Church the English Catholics would rise, have him proclaimed heir of England, and release his mother, but if he refused they promised to adopt another candidate as Elizabeth’s successor. D’Aubigny was to be entertained with the notion that help would be forthcoming from France and the Pope, as well as from Philip; but this was only intended to be a blind, for Mendoza specially warned the plotters that nothing should be said to Frenchmen about it, “in order to prevent it from being hindered by the fear that it is a plan of your Majesty alone.” “They agree with me in this, as they are all Spanish and Catholic at heart, and do not wish to have anything to do with France.”

Creighton went on his way to Scotland in disguise, and in the meanwhile the relations between Elizabeth and Mendoza became more strained than ever. Philip had instructed him in October to address the Queen strongly about the unconcealed encouragement she was giving to Don Antonio. For some time Mendoza asked for audience in vain. Elizabeth was at Nonsuch, and all sorts of excuses were given for her declining to receive him. Mendoza, chafing under what he calls “her insolent and outrageous” treatment of him, at last sent a servant of his to Burghley, positively to demand audience of the Queen when she arrived at Richmond. The reply brought back in Burghley’s words was ominous. “Sir, I must tell you the truth; the Queen is at present alone, unattended by Councillors, and as Don Bernardino is to bring letters to the Queen from so great an enemy of hers as his master, it is meet that he should be received accordingly.”

They kept Mendoza fuming for several days longer before he was received; and when he entered the presence chamber at Richmond, boiling over with wounded pride, he found the Queen no longer the smiling coquette she had formerly been with him. Seated upon a tabouret under the canopy, with Sussex and Lord Admiral Clinton standing by her, she refrained from rising and advancing to receive him, as was her wont, and welcoming him with a greeting in Italian. Instead of that she sat frowning as he bowed low before her, the first words she said being to complain that she was suffering from a pain in her hip. Mendoza expressed his sorrow that he should have to trouble her with business in such circumstances, but she made no reply, and left him standing uncovered. “How about the letter you say you have from the King?” she snapped at last, and he handed her the King’s demand for Don Antonio’s surrender, which she read with a clouded brow. “You know very well,” she said, “that Don Antonio has left England; but I can tell you that if I had chosen to help him your King’s fleets from the Indies would not be where they are now, and Portugal, perchance, would not be so tranquil”—all this, as Mendoza says, with much browbeating and vociferation.

“What else have you to say?” asked the Queen tartly; and in answer Mendoza, in high and mighty strain, began to talk about the power of his master’s fleets, and how those who dared to attack them would get well trounced. She had helped the rebel Antonio, he said, she had called him “King,” she had let him sail from the Thames with English ships and arms from the Tower to attack his sovereign, the London merchants had lent him money on his jewels, and much more to the same effect. His King, already offended by the way she had helped the Flemish rebels, was doubly resentful now. What more could she do, asked Mendoza, even if she were at open war? To all of which Elizabeth replied boldly. As for Don Antonio, she had helped him and still would do so; but she knew not what the ambassador meant by his other complaints. “This was said,” continues Mendoza, “with the most terrible insolence; and as I saw her evil intent, I replied that I had been here for over three and a half years; but as it appears she had heard nothing in all this time of the complaints I had constantly been making, and would find no remedy for them, it would be necessary to see whether cannon would not make her hear better.” In answer to this Elizabeth, for a wonder, replied calmly and in a low voice that he need not think to threaten or frighten her, or she would put him into a place where he could not say a word. In future he might negotiate with her Council, but as she had no ambassador in Spain she would not receive him herself.

Mendoza thought probably that he had gone too far, as he certainly had; for Philip, as we shall see later, had no intention, or indeed ability, at this time (October, 1581) to attempt the conquest of England. He did not desire to threaten, Mendoza said; he was in her power and of course she could do as she liked with him, but whatever she did, thank God! King Philip would avenge him. Elizabeth then ordered every one out of the room but the two Councillors, to whom in angry tones she repeated Mendoza’s threat about cannon, and her reply. “I smiled to hear her relate this with so much fury and agitation, and remarked that I would not waste time on that point. Monarchs, I knew, were never afraid of private individuals, and above all she, who was a lady so beautiful that even lions would crouch before her. She is so vain and flighty that her anger was at once soothed on hearing this, and she began to relate how thankful your Majesty ought to be to her for having refused help to the Flemish rebels. All she had done was to prevent the French from taking possession of your territory.” Thenceforward to the end of the long interview Elizabeth played off the Spanish support of the Irish rebels, the subsidising of the northern rebellion, and the intrigues of de Spes, against Mendoza’s complaints of her help to Orange, the depredations of Drake, and the reception of Don Antonio; and the exchange of grievances ended by Elizabeth coldly saying that she would receive the ambassador no more until the King sent her some satisfaction, to which he retorted by saying that he would prefer to do business with the Council. As he turned to go and was already some paces from the Queen he heard her heave a deep sigh, and say in Italian, evidently intended to reach his ear, “I would to God that each one had his own and was at peace.”[235] Mendoza, humiliated and embittered at the course of events, which he ascribed entirely to Leicester and Hatton, thenceforward became a more virulent enemy of Elizabeth than ever de Spes had been. In the next letter after the interview just described he prayed Philip to avenge himself by seizing all English property in his dominions; but the King had tried that game before to his cost, and dared not run the risk again, nor would he listen to Mendoza’s earnest prayers to anticipate the intrigues of Leicester to have him expelled from England by recalling him himself.

When, therefore, Father Creighton returned, in October, 1581, from his mission to Scotland, Mendoza was ripe for any plan which promised injury to Elizabeth. The Jesuit told him how he had been secretly conveyed across the Scottish border, and had conferred with Lennox, Eglinton, Huntly, Caithness, and Seton, who had warmly consented to Catholic missioners being sent—“on condition that they brought money for their own maintenance.” They would have King James approached, too, and told that his one hope of obtaining the English succession would be for him to embrace Catholicism and make friends with Spain. Neither Lennox nor the King was to be frightened with the suggestion that the French were to be thrown over: but Seton, who appears to have known James’s character well, proposed that his greed and ambition might be worked upon by his being shown how much more effectual a friend Spain would be to him than France. Father Parsons was in London when Creighton arrived, and he and his colleague Heywood were long closeted with Mendoza to discuss who should be the pioneer missioners to Scotland. Creighton thought that Father Parsons, himself, and Heywood should go, “as they would need to be very learned and virtuous men.” Parsons, still in his captain’s garb, ran over to Rheims to consult the Principal of the English Seminary, Dr. Allen; and at Mendoza’s instance it was agreed that Parsons could not well be spared from England, and that Dr. Allen should appoint fresh men for the Scottish mission.

The six English Catholic lords who had first arranged the matter with Mendoza were now in prison: Catholics were being savagely persecuted everywhere, and it was evident that the scheme for upsetting Elizabeth by means of a Catholic movement in Scotland must be managed by Spanish agents in France and Dr. Allen, “as the Queen and her heretics are served here by such a multitude of spies that the Queen of Scots herself is in great alarm.” But above all, says Mendoza, though the affair must be managed in France, “the French must have no suspicion that your Majesty has anything to do with it.” As may be supposed, Mary Stuart was a keen participant in the scheme. In April, 1581, six months previously, she had sent a message through Archbishop Beton to the new Spanish ambassador in Paris, Tassis. “Things,” she said, “were never in better form in Scotland than now for a return to ancient conditions, so that English affairs could be dealt with afterwards from there. Her son was determined to be a Catholic, and inclined to break with Elizabeth as soon as he could be sure of substantial help.” This help Mary earnestly begged of Philip through Tassis, and asked that it should be landed first in Ireland, ready to cross to Scotland as soon as the treaty was signed.

For some reason or another Mary conceived some distrust of Tassis, the Spanish ambassador in Paris, and of Beton; and as soon as she heard of the result of Father Creighton’s mission to Scotland, she wrote direct to Mendoza to tell him that she had partly consented to join her son with herself in the sovereignty of Scotland, which course had been urged upon her by the French, but that she was still determined in all things to follow the direction of the King of Spain in her affairs. She had understood from the first that from France, divided as it was, she had nothing effective to hope for. Her son and the Catholic Scots might desire to keep alive the ancient alliance with France, but Mary wanted more than that: she needed rescue from England, and this could only be effected by a Power that was willing to go to war with England if necessary for her sake, which she knew France, with its powerful Huguenot element and Catharine de Medici at the helm, would never do. Mary was suspicious, and grew even more so, of Guise’s interference in her affairs, which she saw was not occasioned by the desire to benefit her personally, but to increase his power by keeping hold of Scotland. Mendoza, of course, threw cold water upon the suggestion that Mary should recognise James as King on the recommendation of France, and by gaining Mary’s entire confidence, gradually worked her affairs into his own hands.

The priests sent to Scotland were meeting with great success; and James himself told Creighton that, though out of policy he was obliged to appear in favour of the French, in his heart he would rather be Spanish. Parsons, whilst, fortunately for himself, he was abroad, though just about to embark for England, had been proclaimed a traitor and a price set upon his head; so that in future his sphere of activity was in Scotland and on the Continent, where he continued to direct English affairs with ever-increasing violence against the Queen and her faith. It is characteristic of Spanish methods that, though even Mary protested against it, all the priests sent by Dr. Allen to Scotland were to be Englishmen, because it was feared that Scotsmen might have other ends and incline to France. Above all, it was provided that the French should have no idea that Spain was behind this purely religious propaganda. Elizabeth’s Government, suspicious already of the Catholic _régime_ in Scotland, was well aware that something was going on in which Mendoza was concerned,[236] and keen vigilance was kept upon the Border. “So far as can be seen, this business is proceeding most hopefully,” writes Mendoza in December, 1581, “and is under God’s protection; for, whilst these two priests were on the English Border one night, a great search was made in every house in the neighbourhood, as the Queen had been informed that some English priests would endeavour to go to Scotland, but God ordained that they should escape almost by a miracle.”[237] Tresham was in prison, but priests carried messages backwards and forwards between him and Mendoza, so that the plot was kept going; and the fortitude of the Catholic prisoners under torture in refusing to divulge the names of their associates had drawn into the new combination a large number of sympathisers, whilst Mary herself, gaining ever more confidence in Mendoza personally, was urging him to assure King Philip that the time was propitious for him to take some bold and decided action in her favour in Scotland.

This was the hopeful condition of affairs when Father Holt, a young Jesuit sent by Parsons and Creighton from Scotland, arrived in London. Tresham and the other English leaders being in prison, he had been directed to a disguised English priest in London, who would take him to the person who was to receive his message. Holt, like the rest of the rank and file of the Jesuit missioners, had no suspicion that a political object was behind their Scottish propaganda, and was astounded when he was led to the house of the Spanish ambassador to give his report. What he had to say was important. Everything, he reported, was going excellently in Scotland. The lords were trying by every means to convert the King; but they wished to obtain Queen Mary’s permission, if he remained obstinate, “to force the King to open his eyes and to see the truth.” Failing this, they would, if the Queen authorised them, depose or transport James until Mary’s arrival in her realm. But, continued Holt, they considered it necessary, if they were to succeed in their aim, to be able to count positively upon foreign armed assistance to subdue the heretics and provide against any interference from England. If they had two thousand soldiers from abroad they would be sufficient for the purpose. Where could they look, he asked, for such assistance? Not to France or to the Guises, for several reasons, and they hoped that Queen Mary would prevail upon the Pope and the King of Spain to send Spaniards or Italians. He begged that Mendoza would convey this to Mary and to Philip, and to have more English priests sent into Scotland for the propaganda, “only they must bring money for their own maintenance.”