Philip’s ineffectual action against Elizabeth--The Desmond
rebellion--Philip’s conquest of Portugal--Recall of Alba and
Granvelle to Philip’s councils--Don Antonio, Prior of O
Crato--Death of Anne of Austria--Philip in Portugal--Flight of
Antonio--His reception in England and France--The Duke of
Alençon--Philip and Mary Stuart--James Stuart--Fresh proposals of
the Scottish Catholics to Philip--Philip and Granvelle’s views with
regard to England--Lennox and the Jesuits mismanage the
plot--Philip’s claim to the English crown--Expulsion of Mendoza
from England--The English exiles urge Philip to invade
England--Sixtus V.--Intrigues in Rome--The Babington plot.
Philip’s advisers had for many years been urging him to adopt reprisals
against Elizabeth for her treatment of him. We have seen why, on account
both of policy and necessity, he had not done so by a direct attack. His
indirect attempts at retaliation had been quite ineffectual. He had
subsidised Mary Stuart, he had found money for the northern rebellion,
he had listened to proposals for killing the Queen of England at his
cost, he had countenanced Stukeley’s wild plans for the capture of
Ireland, and he had attempted to avenge the English depredations on his
commerce by stopping English trade and persecuting English traders for
heresy. But in every case the result had been disastrous for him.
Elizabeth’s aid to the Protestants in Holland was bolder and more
effectual than ever, English sailors mocked at his attempts to stop
trade by ruining his own ports, and the Englishmen punished by the
Inquisition were avenged by increased severity against the Catholic
party in England and Ireland. But still he was constantly assured that
the only way to disarm Elizabeth against him was to “set fire to her own
doors” by arousing rebellion in Ireland and aggression of the Catholic
party in Scotland.
Dr. Sanders had induced the pope to interest himself in favour of James
Fitzmaurice, the brother of the Earl of Desmond, and had himself
obtained the title of the pope’s nuncio. They landed in Ireland with a
small Spanish and Italian force in June 1579, but Elizabeth, through
Walsingham’s spies, was well informed of the movement, and was quite
prepared to deal with it. Philip was willing that others should weaken
his enemy so long as no responsibility was incurred by him, and
Elizabeth was not further irritated against him. When, however,
Fitzmaurice and Sanders found themselves overmatched, and appeals were
made direct to Philip to aid them by sending an armed force to Ireland,
he demurred. Fitzmaurice was ready to promise anything for aid, and the
nuncio at Madrid did his best to inflame Philip’s religious zeal. But he
could not afford to come to open war with England, and, although he
consented to subscribe 25,000 ducats out of the revenues of the
archbishopric of Toledo if the pope would subscribe a similar amount,
and promised to find arms and ammunition, he provided that the fresh
expedition should sail from Spain under the papal flag and be organised
ostensibly by the nuncio. The commanders, moreover, were to be all
Italians, and the Spanish recruits were to be enlisted privately. The
semi-concealment was quite ineffectual in hoodwinking Elizabeth, and the
ill-starred little expedition was all slaughtered at Smerwick in Dingle
Bay (November 1580), as James Fitzmaurice’s force had been previously.
John of Desmond and the Italian commanders had assured Philip only a
month before the massacre, that they would require 8000 footmen and
large stores of arms before they could effect any useful end. But this
would have meant open war with England, and for this he was not
prepared. Once more he proved that his advisers were wrong, and that he
could only curb Elizabeth with overwhelming force, which he had neither
the means nor the desire to employ at the present juncture. He continued
to urge upon his new ambassador that she must be kept in a good humour
at all costs. It was not an easy task, for she was more defiant than
ever now. She knew Philip had his hands full, and the attempted invasion
of Ireland was made the most of for years by her, as an excuse for all
she did in Flanders and elsewhere to injure him. It was an unfortunate
move for Philip, as it afforded Elizabeth a good grievance against him,
and forced him into the weak position of having to justify his action by
throwing the responsibility upon the pope.
Philip had at this time (1579) special reasons for dreading an open
rupture with England, for he had for some time past been planning a
stroke which would, if successful, enormously increase his power for
harm at sea, in relation to both France and England. In August 1578
Sebastian of Portugal, the only son of Philip’s sister, Juana--as much a
victim of atavism as was his cousin, Don Carlos--perished in his mad
crusade against the Moors, and his successor on the throne was the aged,
childless cardinal, King Henry. He was recognised as being only a
stop-gap, and after him the claimants were numerous, mostly descended,
although in different degrees, from the king, Don Manoel. The Duchess of
Braganza was daughter of his son Duarte, Philip was son of the elder
daughter of Don Manoel, the Duke of Savoy was a son of the younger
daughter, Beatrix, whilst the children of Alexander Farnese were the
offspring of a younger sister of the Duchess of Braganza. The most
popular pretender, however, was Don Antonio, Prior of O Crato, an
illegitimate son of Luis, a younger son of Don Manoel.
The fundamental laws of Lamego, now believed to be apocryphal, but then
accepted as genuine, excluded foreigners from the throne, but Philip
asserted that a Spanish king was not a foreigner in Portugal, and began
his intrigues for the succession immediately after Sebastian’s death.
The Perez party had managed to get the old Duke of Alba disgraced and
sent into arrest on an absurdly inadequate charge of conniving at his
son’s marriage against the king’s wish, and De Granvelle had remained in
honourable exile from Spain for many years. But when the great task of
winning Portugal had to be undertaken, Philip knew that glib, brilliant
Perez, with his biting tongue and ready pen, was not the instrument he
wanted; so the stern soldier and the crafty statesman were recalled to
their master’s councils. It was a black day for Perez, although he
probably did not realise at the time how fatal it was to be. During the
short reign of the cardinal-king, money and intrigue were lavished on
all hands to corrupt and terrorise the Portuguese nobles to Philip’s
side; the aged king himself was finally worried into his grave by
pressure exerted upon him to approve of Philip’s claim, and when he
died, the council of regency left by him were by various means coerced
into accepting the King of Spain as their sovereign. But not so the
Portuguese people or the clergy; they clung, almost all of them, to the
Prior of O Crato, the popular native claimant, ambitious, ready, and
sanguine, for the Portuguese bitterly hated the Spaniards, and the true
native heiress, the Duchess of Braganza, was timid and unready; and
before Philip and Alba could arrive Antonio was acclaimed the national
sovereign. Around him all that was patriotic grouped itself, and for a
short time he ruled as king. Philip was moving on to Portugal with that
“leaden foot” of which he was so proud, and by the autumn of 1580 he had
reached Badajoz, on the frontier. Here he fell ill of the mysterious
disease we call influenza, which was afflicting Europe at the time. His
devoted fourth wife, Anne, who accompanied him, prayed that her life
might be taken for his. Her prayer was heard. She died (October 25) and
Philip lived, but the loss deepened his gloom, and in the two years that
he was away from Madrid his yellow beard turned nearly white, and he
came back an old and broken man. How his icy heart turned to his
children at the time may be seen by the letters he constantly wrote to
his elder girls during his absence, full of love and tenderness.
However weary and sad he might be, no courier was allowed to leave
without playful accounts of his adventures, and kindly little messages
to the three orphan children of his last wife. Soon two out of the three
followed their mother to the grave, and only three-year-old Philip was
left as his father’s heir.
Relentlessly Alba swept down upon Lisbon, as years before he had pounced
upon the Netherlands, and crushed the life out of Portuguese patriotism.
There was no question of creed to stiffen men’s backs here, no William
of Orange to organise and lead them. The yielding Portuguese were made
of different stuff from the stubborn “beggars of the sea,” and Alba rode
roughshod over them with but little resistance. King Antonio was soon a
fugitive, hunted from town to town, holding out for a few weeks in one
fortress, only to be starved into another, proclaimed a bastard and a
rebel, with a great price upon his head; and yet he wandered for eight
months amongst the mountains, safe from betrayal by the peasants whose
native king he was. In the meanwhile Philip was solemnly accepted as
king by the Portuguese Cortes at Thomar (April 3, 1581) with all the
pomp of ancient ceremonial. He was in the deep mourning which he wore
for the rest of his life, and he tells his little girls in a letter at
the time how his heart turned away from the finery which accompanied
him. Then slowly he came to Lisbon to be crowned, whilst the defeated
Antonio fled to France and thence to England, to be a thorn in his side
for the rest of his life.
The accession of power thus accruing to Philip was a great blow both to
England and France. Granvelle’s management of affairs had been so
masterly that all legal forms had been complied with in Portugal; the
regents and the Cortes had acknowledged Philip as king, and Elizabeth
and Catharine had no excuse for open interference, although what could
be done by private intrigue was effected. Catharine, indeed, had set up
a nebulous far-fetched claim of her own to the Portuguese crown, to
obtain some _locus standi_ in the affair, but this did not prevent her
from opening her arms to the other claimant, Don Antonio, when he
arrived in France. He came to England in July 1581, and was made much of
by the queen. In vain did Mendoza, Philip’s ambassador, demand his
surrender as a rebel. Elizabeth said that she had not yet made up her
mind to help him, though he was no rebel, but King of Portugal, but she
had quite decided not to surrender him to be killed. He was too valuable
a card in her hand for her to let him go, and she made the most of him.
Elizabeth’s and Catharine’s first retort to Philip’s assumption of the
Portuguese sovereignty was a pretence of cordial friendship for each
other, and the resumption of active negotiations for Elizabeth’s
marriage with Alençon. Orange was determined to attract once more to his
side the Flemish Catholics, whom Parma’s diplomacy had estranged from
the rebel cause. He considered that the best way to do this was to
invest Alençon--a Catholic prince--with the sovereignty of the States.
Elizabeth would not allow the French as a nation to gain a footing in
Flanders, but her plan was to make Alençon dependent upon her in hopes
of a marriage, to disarm his brother by the same means, and to secure
that any French interference with Flanders must be of Huguenots, under
her control. It suited Catharine to play the game for the purpose of
reducing Philip to extremities in Flanders, and rendering him less able
to resist attack in Portugal, whilst giving him no excuse for an open
quarrel with the French nation. All the aid, therefore, given to Don
Antonio was in the name of Catharine herself, as a claimant to the
Portuguese crown, and both in this matter and in Flemish affairs Henry
III. himself affected to stand aloof in disapproval.
It was an artful plan, but it was not to be expected that the Guises
would stand by inactive whilst they saw their king’s only brother and
heir being drawn further into the toils of the Huguenots and the
Protestant Queen of England, and they soon delivered their counter-blow.
As Catharine’s enmity to Philip became more pronounced, the Guises had
drawn closer to him as the champion of Catholicism, of which cause they
were the representatives in France. In February 1580, accordingly, the
Archbishop of Glasgow, the Scottish ambassador in Paris, told Philip’s
ambassador there that he and Guise had prevailed upon Mary Stuart to
place her interests and influence unreservedly in Philip’s hands, and to
send her son James to Spain, to have him brought up and married there,
as the King of Spain wished. This was very important, because Philip had
always been paralysed in his action with regard to Mary by the
consideration that her accession to the throne of England would make the
Guises--Frenchmen--paramount there. But if Mary and the Guises were
henceforward to be his humble servants, the whole position was changed.
Vargas, the ambassador, so understood it. “Such,” he says, “is the
present condition of England, with signs of revolt everywhere, the
queen in alarm, the Catholic party numerous, Ireland disturbed, and
distrust aroused by your Majesty’s fleet, ... that if so much as a cat
moved, the whole fabric would crumble down in three days, beyond
repair.... If your Majesty had England and Scotland attached to you,
directly or indirectly, you might consider the States of Flanders
conquered, in which case you ... could lay down the law for the whole
world.” Guise’s detachment from French interests made all the
difference, and this marked a change of Philip’s policy towards England,
which, as will be shown, ultimately led him into the quagmire of the
Armada. Mary, unfortunately for herself, was always ready for a plot
against her enemy; and Beaton assured Vargas shortly afterwards that she
would not leave prison except as Queen of England. The Catholics were so
numerous, said Beaton, that if they rose, it would be easy, even without
assistance; but if the King of Spain helped, the result would be prompt
and undoubted. Almost simultaneously with this Morton fell, and the
Catholic party in Scotland gained the upper hand.
James’s cousin, D’Aubigny, Lennox, was now paramount in Scotland, and
with his connivance the country had been flooded by Jesuit missionaries
from seminaries largely depending upon Philip’s bounty. The priests had
gone with the single-hearted desire to re-convert Scotland to the faith,
and innocent of political aims at first; but the Jesuit organisation,
which in its earlier years had met with much opposition from the Spanish
clergy, and especially the Inquisition, had now been assimilated with
Philip’s policy, and doubtless its leaders foresaw the political uses
to which the propaganda might be turned, as certainly did Mary Stuart
and Mendoza, Philip’s ambassador in London, who were prime movers in it.
Philip was willing enough to accept the tempting offer of Mary and
Guise, especially when it reached him soon after in a more direct way by
the despatch of Fernihurst by D’Aubigny to Madrid. The death of Vargas,
the Spanish ambassador in Paris, shelved the matter for a time, but in
April 1581 Mary Stuart reopened negotiations with the new ambassador,
Tassis. She assured him, for Philip’s information, that things were
never more favourably disposed for Scotland to be taken in hand, with a
view to dealing with England subsequently. She begged that a formal
alliance should be signed between Scotland and Spain, and that a Spanish
force should then be sent to Ireland, to be ready for the invasion of
Scotland when summoned. Her son, she said, was determined to return to
the Catholic faith, and she intended that he should be sent to Spain for
that purpose, and for his marriage to Philip’s satisfaction.
Philip, however, wished to be quite sure that James was sincere in his
religious professions before helping him to the English succession. He
knew that the King of Scots, young as he was, had already established
his fame as a master of deceit. He, James, had told the Jesuit fathers
who were labouring in Scotland that “though for certain reasons it was
advisable for him to appear publicly in favour of the French, he in his
heart would rather be Spanish”; but he knew Father Persons and his
companions were sustained by Spanish money, and that his expressions
would eventually reach Philip. But, to his mother’s despair, he would
never pledge himself too firmly. In January 1582 Mary herself was
somewhat doubtful of her son’s religious sincerity. “The poor child,”
she said, “is so surrounded by heretics that she had only been able to
obtain the assurance that he would listen to the priests she sent him.”
For her own part, she was determined that in future she would bind
herself and her son exclusively to Philip, and to none other.
James blew hot and cold, and the Catholic nobles began to recognise that
he was too slippery to be depended upon; so they came to a very
momentous conclusion. They sent Father Holt to London to convey a
message to a person to whom he was to be introduced by a disguised
priest. To Holt’s surprise and alarm, the person was Mendoza, the
Spanish ambassador, for he, like most of the missionaries, had up to
that time no idea that a political object underlay their propaganda. His
message was to the effect that if James remained obstinate, the Catholic
nobles had decided to depose him, and either convey him abroad or hold
him prisoner until Mary arrived in Scotland. They besought the guidance
of Philip in the matter, and begged that 2000 foreign troops might be
sent to them to carry out their design. The message was conveyed to Mary
in a softened form, in order not to arouse her maternal solicitude, and
Mendoza begged Philip to send the troops, “with whom the Scots might
encounter Elizabeth, and the whole of the English north country, where
the Catholics are in a majority, would be disturbed. The opportunity
would be taken by the Catholics in the other parts of the country to
rise when they knew they had on their side a more powerful prince than
the King of Scotland.”
Philip was on the Portuguese frontier at the time, and De Granvelle was
the principal minister in Madrid. He warmly seconded Mendoza’s
recommendations that troops should be sent to the Scots Catholics. “The
affair is so important,” he says, “both for the sake of religion and to
bridle England, that no other can equal it, because by keeping the Queen
of England busy we shall be ensured against her helping Alençon or
daring to obstruct us in any other way.” The Scots nobles were anxious
that the foreign force should not be large enough to threaten their
liberties, and De Granvelle agreed with this. “This is not what his
Majesty wants, nor do I approve of it, but that we should loyally help
the King of Scots and his mother to maintain their rights, and by
promoting armed disturbance, keep the Queen of England and the French
busy at a comparatively small cost to ourselves, and so enable us to
settle our own affairs better.... It is very advantageous that the
matter should be taken in hand by the Duke of Guise, as it will ensure
us against French obstruction. Since we cannot hope to hold the island
for ourselves. Guise will not try to hand it over to the King of France
to the detriment of his own near kinswoman.” Thus far it is evident that
there was no thought in Philip’s councils of invading and absorbing
England in his own dominions.
It will be noted that these new proposals of the Scots Catholics had not
been made through Tassis and Guise in Paris, as the previous approaches
had been, but through Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in London, who
had been very active in the matter of the religious propaganda, and who
had entirely gained Mary’s confidence. So long as the negotiations were
kept in their hands, all was conducted wisely and prudently, and
doubtless some such arrangement as that suggested would have resulted.
But the folly of Lennox and the political ineptitude of the Jesuit
missionaries frustrated the whole design. In March 1582 the former wrote
a foolish letter to Tassis, which he sent to Paris by Creighton, laying
bare the whole plan and giving his adhesion to it, but making all manner
of inflated demands. Creighton, he said, had promised him 15,000 foreign
troops, of which he was to have the command; and he asked for a vast sum
of money, and a personal guarantee against loss of fortune. Creighton
also sent to Guise and brought him into the business, and Jesuit
emissaries were appointed to go direct to Rome and Madrid to ask for
aid. Mary and Mendoza were furious, particularly the former, that she
should be endangered by her name being used as the head of the
conspiracy. Creighton had no authority whatever to promise 15,000 men,
nor would the Scottish nobles have accepted such a number, and the idea
that Lennox should command them was absurd. Philip took fright at the
large number of persons who were now privy to the affair, and gave
orders that nothing further was to be done. Guise, ambitious and
officious, as usual, also wanted to take a prominent share in the
direction of the enterprise. He began to make large and vague proposals
for a strong mixed force to be sent from Italy under the papal flag,
whilst he and his Frenchmen made a descent upon the coast of Sussex, his
evident object being to prevent a purely Spanish expedition being sent.
Granvelle and Philip very soon saw whither the affair was drifting, and
nipped it in the bud. They had only been induced to listen to it on the
assumption that the Guises where to work exclusively for Spanish
interests. The moment the contrary appeared, the proposal lost its
attractions for them. It is true that at this time Philip had no
intention of conquering England for himself, but Mary and James must owe
their crown to him alone, and be forced to restore the close alliance
between England and the House of Burgundy, or the change would be
useless to him. Too much French or Italian aid or Guisan influence
spoilt the business for his purpose. But there was still another reason.
He had a large number of English Catholic refugees living on pensions
from him in France, Flanders, and Spain; and they and Sir Francis
Englefield, his English secretary, ceaselessly represented to him their
national dislike and distrust of the French, their secular enemies, and
their jealousy of any plan that should make the Frenchified Scots
masters of England. Almost with one accord the English Catholics urged
this view upon Philip and the Spaniards. All England, they said, would
welcome a Catholic restoration if it came from their old friends, the
Spaniards, but the attempt would fail if it were made under the auspices
of their old enemies, the French. Philip’s policy thenceforward
gradually changed. With the Raid of Ruthven and the fall of Lennox he
saw that for the time the Protestants had conquered, and the plans of
the Scottish Catholics were at an end. Guise was to be flattered and
conciliated, but all Philip’s efforts in future were to confine his
attentions to France, and to alienate him from English and Scottish
affairs. He was told how dangerous it would be for him to leave France
with the Huguenots in possession, and Spanish support was lavishly
promised to him for his ambitious plans at home.
Guise was flattered but dissatisfied, and sent emissaries to Scotland
and the pope to endeavour to keep alive the plan of landing foreign
troops in Scotland. James pretended to be strongly favourable, but
Philip purposely threw cold water on the plans whilst appearing to
entertain them, to prevent anything being done without his knowledge. In
May 1583 Guise had a new design. Philip and the pope were to find
100,000 crowns, and Guise would have Elizabeth murdered, whilst he
landed in England and raised the country. Father Allen and the English
exiles frowned upon such “chatter and buckler-play,” as they called it.
They would not have any Scotch control over England, they declared, but
would rather the affair were carried through by Spaniards.
They had a plan of their own. A Spanish force was to be landed in
Yorkshire, accompanied by Westmoreland, Dacre, and other nobles, with
Allen as papal nuncio. Guise heard of this, and wished to co-operate by
landing 5000 men in the south of England at the same time. He sent word
of it to James, who professed to be favourable; he sent Charles Paget in
disguise to England to arrange a place for his landing; he despatched an
envoy to the pope to ask for money and to explain the whole plan. When
Philip learned all this he was naturally angry, and it is clear, from
the notes he has scrawled upon the papers sent to him, that he was
determined that in future Guise should have nothing more to do with his
English and Scottish policy. What opened Philip’s eyes more than
anything else was Guise’s pledge to the English Catholics that his one
object was to restore religion in England and place Mary Stuart on the
throne; “and when this is effected, the foreigners will immediately
retire. If any one attempts to frustrate this intention, Guise promises
that he and his forces will join the English to compel the foreigners to
withdraw.” Well might Philip scatter notes of exclamation around this
passage, for thenceforward he knew that in English affairs Guise was his
rival, and that Allen and the English Catholics were wise in insisting
that England must be taken in hand directly by Spain, and not through
Scotland and the Guises. The Marquis of Santa Cruz, Philip’s great
admiral, had just scattered the fleet that Catharine de Medici had aided
Don Antonio to fit out to hold the Azores; and in the flush of victory
he wrote, in August 1583, begging his master to let him conquer England
in the name of God and Spain. Philip was not quite ready for this yet,
but the idea was germinating, for the English exiles were for ever
pointing out that this was the only course, and that his own descent
from Edward III. Plantagenet gave him a good claim to the crown after
Mary Stuart, her son being excluded by his heresy.
At last, in 1583, Philip instructed his ambassador in Paris to hint
discreetly at his claims to the English crown. If he was to keep in
close alliance with England, which was necessary for him, it is
difficult to see what other course he could have taken. James was out of
the question now as a successor to his mother, and Elizabeth’s action in
allowing her suitor Alençon to cross over from England to Flanders, and
under her auspices receive the investiture of the sovereignty of
Philip’s patrimonial domain, proved finally that reconciliation with her
personally was impossible. Mendoza, Philip’s ambassador in England, had
been implicated in Throgmorton’s plot, and was ignominiously expelled
from the country. Thenceforward for twenty years all direct diplomatic
relations between the two countries ceased, and a state of war
practically existed. Slowly the idea of the invasion of England grew
under the influence of the English exiles, but the Scottish Catholics,
the Guises, and the papacy were unwearied in their attempts to alter the
plan. James himself, seeing how matters were drifting, again feigned a
desire to become a Catholic, and sent fervent protestations to Philip
and the pope, whilst Guise continued to urge his plan for a landing in
Scotland and an invasion of England over the Border under James. The
English exiles declared that, if such a course were taken the English
Catholics themselves would resist the invasion, as they were determined
the Scots should not rule their country. At last Philip had seriously to
warn the pope that, if the English affair was to be effected, it must be
done by Spain in a very powerful way, and with large money aid from the
pope, Guise being told from Rome that he must not leave France, where he
might serve the Catholic cause better than elsewhere. To aid in this
Philip took care to promote religious disturbance in France, which would
paralyse Henry III. and the Huguenots from helping Elizabeth, and Guise
from promoting the interests of his kinsman James.
Sixtus V. was elected pope as the result of a secret intrigue, after the
nominees of Philip and the French had both been set aside. He was
therefore not a humble instrument of the Spanish policy, and was a wise,
frugal, and moderate pontiff, ambitious to signalise his reign by some
great religious service, but not desirous of serving Philip’s political
ends. The College of Cardinals was divided into three parties: those who
were strongly in favour of the French view, which aimed at an
arrangement with Elizabeth and James, and desired to exclude Spanish
influence from England; those who were for Philip through thick and
thin; and the “politicals,” who went with the stronger party.
Olivares, the ambassador, and the Spanish cardinals were bold and
untiring in forwarding Philip’s wishes; but the pope was to be carefully
kept in the dark with regard to his intention to claim the English crown
for himself. The cause of religion was invoked as being his only motive,
inconvenient points were left indefinite, with the certainty that
Caraffa, the secretary of state, would take a pro-Spanish view when the
time came. It was to be hinted to the pope that Philip could not
undertake the invasion to benefit the heretic James, and that the cause
of religion demanded that a sovereign whose orthodoxy was undoubted
should be substituted for him as Mary’s successor; but, if the pope
asked questions as to who was indicated, only vague answers were to be
given to him. At last, partly by cajolery, partly by threats, Olivares
contrived to obtain a written pledge that the pope would give the
investment of the English realm to the person to be nominated by Philip,
and would subscribe 1,000,000 gold crowns to the enterprise, the first
instalment of which was only to be paid after the landing on English
soil. Sixtus was only brought to this after infinite haggling and
misgiving, for Olivares represents him in most insulting and
undiplomatic language to Philip, as a silly, miserly, petulant,
garrulous old man, which probably meant that the pontiff did not meekly
accept the orders of the arrogant minister, at all events without some
slight hesitation. Philip was told that the pope did not dream that the
crown of England would be claimed by him, but that when he learned the
truth he would certainly oppose it. To this the invariable reply was
that he must be shown how necessary it was for a good Catholic to be
chosen to succeed Mary, and, if he mentioned the name of any particular
person, he was to be reminded that he had agreed to abide by Philip’s
nomination.
In the meanwhile Allen and the English pensioners continued to propagate
the idea of Philip’s own right by birth to succeed Mary owing to the
heresy of James, and this view was forced upon Mary herself by Mendoza
and her confidants in Paris, who were all in Philip’s pay. At length she
was convinced, and in June 1586 she wrote to Mendoza in Paris, giving
the important news that by her will she had disinherited her son in
favour of the King of Spain.
Just previous to this, Ballard had called upon Mendoza in Paris, and
said he had been sent by certain Catholic gentlemen in England to say
that they had arranged to kill Elizabeth, either by poison or steel, and
they begged for Philip’s countenance and reward after the deed was done.
This was the first word of the Babington plot, and after the reception
of Mary’s important letter by Mendoza, Gifford arrived in Paris, and
gave full particulars of the widespread conspiracy for Philip’s
information. By this time too many people were concerned in the affair
to please Philip’s stealthy methods. Mendoza’s zeal had already outrun
his discretion; he had written a letter to the conspirators hotly
approving the design as one “worthy of the ancient valour of
Englishmen,” and promising them ample support from the Netherlands when
the deed was done. He proposed, further, that they should kill Don
Antonio and his adherents, Cecil, Walsingham, Hunsdon, Knollys, and
Beal. Philip was not squeamish, but even he disapproved of the proposal
to murder Cecil, who, he said, was “very old and had done no harm.” His
approval of the rest of the plan is very characteristic of him. “The
affair is so much in God’s service that it certainly deserves to be
supported, and we must hope that our Lord will prosper it, unless our
sins be an impediment thereto.” He for his part will do all that is
asked of him “as soon as the principal execution is effected. Above all,
_that_ should be done swiftly.” But he blamed Mendoza for his incautious
letters, and expressed fears that they might be betrayed. He himself was
so careful of secrecy that he even kept the matter from Farnese. He sent
two letters for him to Mendoza, the first simply instructing him to
prepare the forces, and the other only to be delivered after the queen’s
murder, giving him final instructions as to their destination. This was
in September 1586, and before Mendoza received the letters Walsingham’s
heavy hand had fallen on the conspirators. It was all confessed, the
letters had been intercepted, the great conspiracy was unmasked, and
Mary Stuart’s doom was sealed, whilst Mendoza’s proved complicity still
further embittered Elizabeth against Philip.