TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 MARTIN HUME
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNiM 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 1' 
 
 /
 
 
 TREASON AND PLOT
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE GREAT LORD BURGHLEY 
 
 A STUDY IN 
 ELIZABETHAN STATECRAFT 
 
 With Frontispiece. Demy 8vo, 5s. net 
 
 " In Major Hume's volume we have at last an 
 adequate biography of Lord Burghley." — Spectator. 
 
 "An able, thoughtful, and stimulating biography of 
 the founder of the house of Cecil." — Speaker. 
 
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 Treason 
 
 AND Plot 
 
 STRUGGLES FOR jr jr 
 CATHOLIC SUPREMACY 
 IN THE LAST YEARS OF 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH jt^ 
 
 MARTIN a"^. S. HUME 
 
 editor of the calendars of spanish state papers 
 (public record office) 
 
 ^ 
 
 ILontion 
 JAMES NISBKT i^ CO., LIMITED 
 
 21 BERNERS STREET 
 1901
 
 PA 55^ 
 
 Priated by Ballantyne, Hanson &* Co. 
 At the Ballantyne Press
 
 TO 
 
 THE MANY UNKNOWN^ FRIENDS IN ENGLAND 
 
 AND AMERICA WHOSE WELCOME LETTERS 
 
 OF APPROVAL HAVE SWEETENED MY 
 
 LABOURS IN A GRUDGING AND 
 
 TOILSOME FIELD 
 
 MARTIN A. S. HUME.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The adoption of the Reformation by England was 
 an event which did not alone concern the nation 
 itself, but threw out of balance the whole edifice 
 of European power, built upon traditional alliances 
 and international policies that had survived for 
 centuries. However much it may have suited the 
 temporal ends of Spanish monarchs to incite their 
 subjects to religious exaltation, it was not crusading 
 zeal or spiritual fervour which impelled them for half 
 a century to lavish the blood and substance of their 
 countries, and to exhaust every expedient, from 
 marriage to murder, for the purpose of bringing 
 England back to the Catholic fold. A Protestant 
 England and a divided Germany inevitably meant 
 the decadence and final ruin of the great Spanish 
 empire which the " Catholic sovereigns " had reared 
 upon a base of bigotry. 
 
 Without a close alliance with England, and the 
 certainty of efficient support from Germany, Spain 
 found herself with a jealous rival, France, on each 
 flank. On the one hand, her dominions in Italy, 
 only held by the right of the sword, would sooner 
 or later be lost to her ; and, on the other hand, 
 Flanders and Holland, shut off by land if the
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 Italian dominion passed away, could not be reached 
 from Spain even by water, unless England held the 
 Channel and England were friendly. 
 
 When the spread of the Reformed doctrines in 
 Holland drove the Burghers to shake off the yoke 
 of intolerant Spain, and Protestant England, for her 
 own national safety, found it necessary to aid the 
 insurgents, it became no longer a matter of future 
 policy, but of vital and immediate necessity, for 
 Philip II. to persuade or force England into alliance 
 or benevolent neutrality. The need was still further 
 increased when the Huguenot power in France bade 
 fair to overcome the Catholic supremacy there, and 
 thus to leave Spain isolated without the possibility of 
 alliance either with England or France : for it must 
 be remembered that Spain could not afford to deal 
 on equal terms with a Protestant power, because 
 the admission of any question as to the supremacy 
 of the Church, in all its rigidity, would have struck 
 at the power by which Spain held together her 
 mixed and recently reconciled populations, and have 
 invalidated the exclusive right she claimed over the 
 whole of the New World. It was, therefore, a matter 
 of national life or death for her that England, by 
 some means, should be made Catholic. 
 
 On the other hand, the circumstances which sur- 
 rounded the birth and accession of Elizabeth were 
 such that an acknowledgment on her part of the 
 l^apal supremacy would have branded her as a 
 bastard, and would have deprived her of her here-
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IX 
 
 ditary right to rule. Whilst this was the case with 
 her, there is no doubt that her personal leanings 
 were to a great extent in favour of a ceremonious 
 form of worship, and of the authority and dignity 
 which belonged to the ancient Church ; and it was 
 equally important for England as it was for Spain 
 to prevent the Flemish dominions of the latter 
 power from ever falling into the hands of France. 
 It will be understood, therefore, that, although 
 the religious problems between England and Spain 
 were opposed and irreconcilable, their national 
 and traditional interests still to a great extent 
 coincided ; and it was this latter circumstance which 
 enabled Elizabeth and Lord Burghley, through a 
 long series of years, to play their consummate 
 game of balance and chicanery, which paralysed 
 Spain for harm, whilst England was growing in 
 potency and wealth. 
 
 The imminence of the succession of a Huguenot 
 to the throne of France, which threatened an 
 approximation of French religious interests with 
 those of England, at length compelled Philip to 
 abandon a temporising policy with Elizabeth. If 
 he could not force England to be Catholic before 
 Henry of Navarre ruled France as a Protestant and 
 made common cause with Elizabeth, then indeed 
 had the star of Spanish power sunk to rise no 
 more. But, as was usual with all his resolutions 
 of action, Philip adopted his policy too late ; and 
 the defeat of the Armada exhibited to a scoffing and
 
 X PREFACE 
 
 envious world a nation already in decadence, not only 
 in material strength, but in the moral forces which had 
 previously been the principal secret of her success. 
 
 But though her Armada was defeated and Spain 
 was riddled with corruption, her national necessity 
 to make England sufficiently Catholic to be a fit 
 ally for her ends remained unchanged. Her dreams 
 of greatness, moreover, continued to loom large in 
 her uneasy slumbers long after the decay of her 
 potency had set in. The Catholic interests in 
 England were many, and, for a multitude of reasons, 
 devotional, sentimental, and mundane, a consider- 
 able portion of the people would have welcomed 
 the return of a Catholic dispensation. But the long 
 years of antagonism and informal warfare which 
 the circumstances just mentioned had produced 
 between England and Spain, had before the last de- 
 cade of Elizabeth's reign given birth to a new pride 
 of country in the breasts of most Englishmen, and 
 a determination that a people who had shown their 
 inability even to hold their own against England 
 on the sea should not gain dominion over the land 
 by means of religion or otherwise. It was this 
 new patriotism that divided the Catholic forces 
 in England, and the knowledge, then general, of 
 Spain's selfish objects that divided them abroad ; 
 and, as a consequence of the changed position, the 
 struggles to impose Catholic supremacy upon Eng- 
 land that followed the catastrophe of the Armada 
 differed entirely from those that preceded it.
 
 PREFACE xi 
 
 The story of these straggles up to 1588 has been 
 told fully by Froude and many other historians ; 
 but it has usually been assumed that with the 
 defeat of the Armada the strenuous attempts to 
 bring England again into the circle of the Roman 
 Catholic Church and to a close alliance with Spain 
 came to an end. That this was far from being 
 the case will be admitted by those who honour 
 me by reading these pages, in which I have en- 
 deavoured to set forth, as fully as the limits of 
 one volume would permit, the continuous efforts 
 made by the various Catholic elements, English 
 and foreign, to establish the supremacy of their faith 
 in England from 1593 to the accession of James 
 in 1603 ; which latter date marks the final extinc- 
 tion of their hopes. 
 
 Much of the material from which the story is 
 written is now used for the purpose for the first 
 time, especially the Spanish MSS. transcribed by the 
 present writer at Simancas, and abstracted in the 
 last volume of the Spanish Calendar of Elizabeth. 
 I have also drawn upon the calendared and un- 
 calendared Irish State papers, the latest volume of 
 the Venetian papers, the Hatfield papers, calen- 
 dared and uncalendared ; and, for the story of the 
 Lopez conspirac}^ I have been permitted to make 
 abstracts of some interesting manuscripts in the 
 possession of Lord Calthorpe, and also some un- 
 published papers in the x\rchives Nationales, Paris. 
 I have endeavoured to set forth the historical facts
 
 xii PREFACE 
 
 in all simplicity, and with absolute detachment so 
 far as regards their religious aspect ; and in every 
 case where I have ventured to draw a deduction 
 of any sort, the evidence upon which I have de- 
 pended is placed before the reader, in order that 
 he may judge for himself how far my conclusions 
 are justified. This book does not claim to be a 
 contribution, however small, to religious contro- 
 versy, but is a diligent attempt to add something 
 to the knowledge of historical fact, and to set 
 forth, by the light of modern research, one phase 
 of the important last ten years of the reign of 
 Elizabeth ; a decade which, for various reasons, 
 has been inadequately treated by recent English 
 historians. 
 
 MARTIN A. S. HUME.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Change in the European situation caused by the defeat of the 
 Armada — The Jesuits and the English Mission — The unmask- 
 ing of Philip's designs — The influence of England's new 
 maritime strength — Spain's renewed preparations for the 
 struggle I 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Intrigues of the Scottish Catholics with Spain — James's share in 
 them — The "Spanish blanks"— The Parliament of 1593 — 
 Fears of a new Spanish invasion — John Cecil's mission from 
 Scotland to Spain — The influence of Father Persons — The 
 Spanish mission to the Scottish Catholic Lords — John Cecil's 
 betrayal of the cause 23 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Appeal to Spain of the Irish Catholics — Meeting of the Chiefs in 
 Donegal — The Archbishop of Tuam's mission to Spain — James 
 sends another envoy to Spain — The battle of Glenlivat — 
 Walter Lindsay in Madrid — Suppression of the Catholic 
 Lords in Scotland — Their renewed appeal to Philip — Its 
 failure, and the reason for it 50 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The condition of the Catholics in England — Disagreement between 
 the Jesuits and Seculars — Party politics in the English Court 
 — Real and pretended plots against the Queen — Father Young's 
 confessions — The irreconcilable English refugees — The con-
 
 xiv CONTENTS 
 
 fessions of Webster — Polwhele's and Collen'a plots — Daniel's 
 and Cahill's confessions — Arrest of Father Henry Walpole — 
 The doubtful evidence in support of most of the so-called 
 plots 80 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The conspiracy of Dr. Lopez — The confessions of Yorke and 
 Williams — The alleged connection of the Spanish Ministers 
 with the murder plots 115 
 
 Appendix to Chapter V 162 
 
 CHAPTEE VI 
 
 The complete separation of the two sections of English Catholics 
 — Alarm in England at the Spanish armaments — Drake's last 
 voyage — Tyrone's declaration — Promise of Spanish aid — Irish 
 emissaries to Spain — The expeditions of Captains Cobos, 
 Medinilla, and Cisneros to Ireland — Their description of Ire- 
 land — Breakdown of the Spanish Administration — Essex's 
 attack upon Cadiz 165 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Mission of Lindsay to Eome — Father John Cecil and Fury Ogilvie 
 in Rome— Their voyage to Spain — Address of the English 
 Catholic irreconcilables to Philip — The advice of Father Per- 
 sons — Preparations in Lisbon for the Irish expedition — 
 Strength of the armament — Failure and return to Spain — 
 Meeting of the Irish chiefs with Cobos in the Monastery of 
 Donegal — A new truce with Tyrone 201 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Fears of a Spanish invasion of England — English preparations — 
 Essex's voyage — Lopez de Soto's letters — Strength of the Ade- 
 lantado's fleet (1597) — Its inglorious return to Spain — Re- 
 newed appeal of the Irish rebels to Spain — Tyrone's discontent 
 with the Spaniards — Another truce with Tyrone , , , 242
 
 CONTENTS XV 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 PACE 
 
 The two sections of English Catholics and the succession — Arabella 
 Stuart versus the Infanta — Lord Beauchamp — Party conflicts 
 in England with regard to the peace with Spain — The aims of 
 the Jesuits — Paralysis of the Spanish naval administration— - 
 Renewed alarm in England— Its groundlessness — Parleys with 
 Tyrone — His renewed appeals to Spain — Critical condition of 
 the English rule in Ireland — ^The battle of Armagh . .271 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Letters of John Colville— James intrigues with the Catholic Powers 
 — The " Wisbech Stirs " — Recriminations against the Jesuit 
 faction — The mvirder plot of Squire and Rolls — Father Wal- 
 pole's connection with it — The desire of the Archduke for 
 peace with England — Successes of the Irish rebels — Discontent 
 of Essex — His government in Ireland — The march through 
 Munster — His parley with Tyrone — His disobedience and re- 
 turn to England — His arrest . . . . . . .310 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 The aspect of the succession question in England — Cecil and Essex 
 — Negotiations for j^eace with Spain — Renewed alarm of 
 Spanish invasion in England — Measures for defence — Pro- 
 bable intentional exaggeration of the fears for political reasons 
 — James continues to intrigue with the Catholics for support 
 — The Pope's offer to him — Fitzhei-bert's address to Philip re- 
 specting the Scottish advances — Lord Semple's mission to 
 Madrid — The future religion of England trembling in the 
 balance 361 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Essex in disgrace — ^His attempts at reconciliation — Small Spanish 
 help to the Irish rebels — The mission of Mateo de Oviedo, 
 Archbishop of Dublin, and Martin de la Cerda to Ireland^ 
 Resolution in Spain to aid Tyrone actively — Irish envoys to 
 Spain— Helplessness of Philip and discouragement of Tyrone
 
 xvi CONTENTS 
 
 PAOB 
 
 — Father Persons' appeals to Philip to take a decided course 
 on the English succession— Discussions in the Council of 
 State on the subject — Father Creswell's efforts in Madrid — 
 The projects of the Earl of Bothwell — Essex and James. Abor- 
 tive peace negotiations with Spain — Essex's rebellion and 
 execution . . . . . . . . . -391 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 The change in the succession question in consequence of the death 
 of Essex — The secret understanding between James and Cecil 
 — James's new attitude towards the Catholics — Lord Montjoy 
 in Ireland — Occupation of Derry — Disappointment of Tyrone 
 and O'Donnell with Spain — La Cerda's mission to Ireland- 
 Preparations for a new Spanish expedition to Ireland — Carew 
 in Muuster — Sailing of the expedition — O'Sullivan Beare — 
 The Spaniards in Kinsale — The siege — The Spaniards isolated 
 in Kinsale, Castlehaveu, Dunboy, and Baltimore — Defeat of 
 Tyrone — Capitulation of Kinsale — The O'SuUivans and Dun- 
 boy — O'Donnell in Spain — Death of O'Donnell — Exodus of 
 the O'Sullivaus, pardon of Tyrone, and the pacification of 
 Ireland 438 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Mission of Thomas James to Spain — The policy of Philip III. to- 
 wards the English succession — Discussion in the Council of 
 State — The new policy adopted too late— Cecil's conduct — 
 Dynastic intrigues in England — Arabella Stuart's strange 
 behaviour — Suggested explanation — Lord Beauchamp — 
 Attempted flight of Arabella — Death of Elizabeth — Cecil 
 triumphant — Extinction of the last hope of establishing 
 Catholic supremacy by means of foreign intervention . .478 
 
 INDEX 
 
 5"
 
 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 Change in the European situation caused hy the defeat of the Armada 
 — The Jesuits and the English Mission — The unmasking of 
 Philip's designs — The influence of England's new maritime 
 strength — Spain's renewed preparations for the struggle. 
 
 With the flight of the great Armada, beaten and 
 demoralised, into the wild equinoctial gales of the 
 northern seas, the political and religious problems 
 of Europe underwent a change, which, like most 
 far-reaching changes, was only very gradually and 
 imperfectly realised by those immediately concerned. 
 For a hundred years Spain had imposed herself upon 
 the world to an extent entirely unwarranted by her 
 native resources and the numbers of her population : 
 she had discovered, subjected, and organised a vast 
 continent : the commercial and mineral wealth of 
 both East and West had been proclaimed as her 
 monopoly ; and throughout the world her arrogant 
 claim to superiority, and to the leadership of 
 orthodox Christianity, had been humbly conceded 
 by all but a few who were regarded as little better 
 than blasphemers for their denial of Spanish, 
 supremacy. 
 
 A
 
 2 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 What was the secret that had carried this bundle 
 of antagonistic racial and political units, only 
 nominally a nation, irresistibly through Europe 
 and America, and had in one leap raised Castile 
 to the first place amidst the powers of the world? 
 Not the wealth of the Indies alone ; for, thanks to 
 a vicious fiscal system, the gold and silver of the 
 mines enriched every nation of the earth more than 
 they did Spain. Not natural gifts of energy, intellect, 
 or valour ; for these were not specially conspicuous in 
 the Spanish people either before or after the fleeting 
 period of their country's greatness. Not the impetus 
 of a united nationality stirred to patriotic ambition 
 by the consciousness of strength derived from com- 
 munity of soil, race, and institutions ; for such a 
 feeling could have no place amongst peoples varying 
 in origin, tongue, traditions, and national history, 
 who were loosely bound together with the monarch 
 for their only tie. 
 
 The cause of Spain's sudden greatness, as of her 
 inevitable fall, must be discovered in the circum- 
 stances of her unification. Unity of some sort was 
 vitally necessary if the ambitions of her successive 
 rulers were to be fulfilled ; and, failing the slow 
 process of racial amalgamation, for which they could 
 not wait, Ferdinand the Catholic and his immediate 
 successors deliberately forged in the fires of the 
 Inquisition the weapon with which they were to 
 conquer half the world. The Spanish nation was 
 bound together by the spiritual exaltation which 
 came of the religious persecution of the minority 
 by the majority. The Inquisition was popular, 
 powerful, and revered by Spaniards at large, because
 
 INTRODUCTORY 3 
 
 it flattered their pride with the idea that their faith 
 alone had divine sanction, and that God had en- 
 dowed them with the exclusive right of imposing 
 that faith upon the rest of the world. They were 
 a chosen people, spiritually superior to others ; and 
 in the sacred cause for which they were specially 
 ordained to fight, cruelty, rapine, and blood were 
 praiseworthy and gracious in the sight of the Lord. 
 Mystic fervour and a belief in their mission to 
 exterminate, at any cost, those who had strayed 
 into the service of the devil, gave to Spaniards in 
 the sixteenth century the unity necessary for their 
 rulers to use them as a solid weapon for mundane 
 ends. Much as they might hate each other nation- 
 ally, they were all knit together in the fierce assur- 
 ance that they were a divinely favoured people with 
 a mission. This was the spirit which explained 
 their burning enthusiasm and carried the ferocious 
 men-at-arms of Charles and Philip victorious through 
 the world. Their fervour and confidence dazzled 
 the eyes of other nations to the weakness of 
 material resource which lay behind their haughty, 
 cool assumption of unquestionable superiority. 
 Such claims would have been resented generally, 
 as they were by a few in England, but for the 
 absolute conviction of every individual Spaniard 
 that he was on the side of God ; and that, as a 
 consequence of this solidarity, all other men were 
 as mire beneath his feet. The moral effect of such 
 a conviction was incalculable. 
 
 The first staggering blow dealt at this source of 
 power fell upon Spanish hearts with the defeat of 
 the Armada. All that spiritual superstition, all
 
 4 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 that frantic devotion could do for the supposed 
 invincible fleet had been done. Prayers for its 
 success had been offered up by millions ; sacred 
 relics and bones of saints enough to stock a 
 cemetery had been carried forth in processions 
 innumerable ; Pope and cardinals had blessed and 
 sprinkled ; kings, princes, and peoples had fasted 
 and sacrificed ; all Spain and Portugal were aflame 
 vrith religious exaltation and the positive assurance 
 of an easy victory over God's enemies. For such an 
 expedition on such an errand defeat was surely im- 
 possible, and in that firm belief the soldiers, at 
 least, on the fleet went forth to liberate a yearn- 
 ing people held captive by a small minority of 
 heretics. 
 
 But even as the Armada, under its craven admiral, 
 hustled powerlessly up the Channel in the six days' 
 running fight with foes that eluded and harassed 
 it, the first sinister cry went up from hearts already 
 disillusioned and well-nigh broken: ''God has 
 forsaken us;" and when the battered wrecks of 
 the ships that were left of the panic-stricken fleet 
 slowly crept back to Santander with the few famished 
 and plague-stricken survivors of their gallant com- 
 panies, the loss of material power, great as it was, 
 that the country had suffered, was the smallest part 
 of the disaster. For the conviction of divine aid^ 
 the certainty of being on the right side, which had 
 been the secret of Spain's strength for a hundred 
 years, was wounded now beyond surgery, and 
 Spaniards, if they fought at all, must in future 
 fight on an equality with the rest of mankind with 
 worldly weapons and skill.
 
 INTRODUCTORY 5 
 
 The disillusionment came home but slowly to the 
 mass of the Spanish people. The first wail of 
 sorrow that went up was mingled with a cry for 
 vindication and revenge. The towns of Spain, one 
 after the other, offered new contributions, ruined 
 and desolate as the country was, in order that a 
 more powerful expedition than before should at 
 once be fitted out under other commanders and 
 teach a lasting lesson to the insolent heretic, before 
 whom Medina Sidonia had fled helplessly. But as 
 the winter wore on, and the extent of the catastrophe 
 was better understood, the gloom darkened. One 
 of Philip's own confessors boldly told him, that 
 "though his prayers and processions were very good 
 things, yet it was certain that God gave ear to other 
 voices before his," ^ and all prayers on account of 
 the xirmada were publicly ordered to be discontinued 
 (22nd October). "The better informed," we are 
 told, " begin to think that if all these ships are 
 lost it will be impossible to make another expedi- 
 tion next year" (22nd October). And so with 
 dismay the Spanish people gradually realised — as 
 their king had done from the first — that they them- 
 selves were in danger of attack, and that, far from 
 thinking of inflicting punishment upon England, 
 they must strain every nerve first to defend their 
 own coasts and commerce from devastation. " If 
 Drake should take the sea," wrote the Venetian 
 ambassador, " and meet the Peruvian fleet or make 
 a descent on the shores of Spain, he would find no 
 obstacle to his depredations, and he might even 
 burn a part of the ships that have come back, for 
 
 ^ Lippomano to the Doge, October i, 1589. Venetian Papers.
 
 6 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 they are lying scattered without troops to guard 
 them, as all the soldiers reach home sick and in 
 the bad plight I have reported." ^ 
 
 " If Drake were to go to the Azores now," wrote 
 the same authority, " he would not only ruin the 
 whole of the Indian trade, but could quite easily 
 make himself master of the islands." " Philip put 
 as brave a face upon it as he could, and talked 
 about selling his silver candlesticks to arm for an 
 attack upon England ; but he knew full well now 
 that before he could hope to prevail over his foe 
 he must learn the lesson to which he had been 
 deaf for years, and must face the English with 
 ships as mobile and sailors as skilful as their 
 own. For, thanks to Drake and his school, the 
 ship was henceforth a fighting entity of itself, not 
 only a machine for carrying fighters into the fray. 
 A new maritime power indeed was born of the 
 knowledge. England had the start, and only by 
 patient work and slow degrees could Spain hope to 
 change her material and tactics to meet the new 
 departure. 
 
 With his laborious stolidity Philip turned his 
 hand to the creation of a new navy. He was 
 desperately impecunious ; the Pope had scornfully 
 refused the subsidy he had promised to the Armada, 
 and the Cortes, failing to understand the need for 
 the laying down of the new ships, of which the 
 construction would occupy years, haggled over their 
 voluntary subsidy. But to Drake and the English 
 seamen, at least, the position was as clear as it was 
 
 ^ Lippomano to the Doge, October 22. Venetian Calendar. 
 2 Ibid., December 8.
 
 INTRODUCTORY 7 
 
 to Philip : Spain was no match for England upon 
 the sea until her ships and tactics were radically 
 altered. It was seen that religious exaltation and a 
 belief in a monopoly of divine protection, however 
 good in their way as aids, were bad substitutes 
 for the ordinary m.undane precautions for securing 
 victory. Thenceforward, therefore, the material 
 aspect of the attempt of Philip to impose Catholi- 
 cism upon England by force of arms assumed an 
 entirely new condition, and for years to come Spain 
 was forced to stand upon the defensive to save her 
 world-wide commerce from utter destruction. A 
 direct attack upon England itself was out of the 
 question. 
 
 The altered conditions of warfare springing from 
 the defeat of the Armada almost coincided in point 
 of time with a political event of still greater mag- 
 nitude, namely, the discovery of Philip's real aims. 
 Long before the rulers of Spain had dreamt of 
 raising a vast empire on a basis of religious bigotry, 
 it had been an article of faith that a close alliance 
 was necessary, in the interests of both parties, be- 
 tween England and the possessor of the Flemish 
 seaboard ; and when the crowns of Castile and 
 Aragon passed to the House of Austria-Burgundy, 
 this vital necessity passed with it. Spain with a 
 friendly England could always hope to hold France 
 in check ; but with England against her, and in 
 close union with France, Spain's main road to 
 Flanders was closed ; and France, free from suspi- 
 cion of her neighbour across the Channel, was able to 
 oppose the objects of Aragon in the Mediterranean 
 and Italy. This had been the reason that Charles V.,
 
 8 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 champion of Catholicism though he was, had not 
 dared to quarrel with Henry VIII. or Edward VI., 
 notwithstanding the Protestant reformation and the 
 repudiation by Henry of his lawful Spanish wife. 
 This was the reason for Philip's marriage with his 
 elderly and unprepossessing cousin, Mary of Eng- 
 land ; and this was the reason why the Catholic 
 King for thirty years left no stone unturned to win 
 without war Elizabeth and England to the Catho- 
 lic side, or at least to neutrality. In vain had his hot- 
 headed councillors alternately prayed and hectored 
 at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, and urged that 
 the Catholic majority in England should be aided 
 to throw off the yoke of the heretic Queen. In vain 
 did ambassador after ambassador try to force the 
 King's hands by fomenting treason in England and 
 openly advocating war. Philip knew better than 
 they that he dared not openly break with Elizabeth 
 whilst jealous France was on his flank and his own 
 Netherlands were in full revolt against him. So he 
 had meekly to see his commerce ruined, his treasure 
 stolen, his subjects hanged by English pirates, and 
 his coasts and colonies violated for thirty years 
 before he decided to risk everything on the issue 
 of an invasion. Religion was his stalking-horse, 
 and an effective one ; but he would never have 
 gone to war with England on religious grounds for 
 the sole purpose of making her Catholic. It was 
 necessary for him that she should be Catholic 
 because he needed her friendship and a cessation 
 of her aid to the Protestant Netherlanders ; and 
 when it became evident, even to his slow mind, 
 that, for all her dexterous balancing and religious
 
 INTRODUCTORY 9 
 
 coquetry, Elizabeth meant to stand permanently to 
 the Reformed doctrines and her own supremacy, he 
 was forced to fight or to throw up the sponge. Philip, 
 both from character and on principle, loved to work 
 in the darkness ; and it was the first condition of 
 success in the use of his religious instrument that 
 his agents should not be aware of the political 
 objects he had ultimately in view. During all the 
 years they had paltered with treason and murder in 
 England they had chafed and marvelled at their 
 master's cold irresponsiveness to their activity. With 
 hardly an efi'ort in the beginning of Elizabeth's 
 reign he might have turned the scale, and have 
 made England at least as Catholic as Henry VIII. 
 left it when he died. What his agents failed to 
 understand was, that whilst it was desirable for 
 Philip that England should be sufficiently Catholic 
 to be friendly with him and to refrain from helping 
 his discontented subjects, it was infinitely better 
 for his ends that she should remain heretic and 
 neutral than that she should become Catholic and 
 French; for if Elizabeth fell, the next heiress to 
 the English crown was Mary Stuart, practically a 
 French princess under the control of ambitious and 
 capable kinsmen of the same nation. So for years 
 before he struck his blow the King's crafty intri- 
 gues went on to make Mary Stuart a subservient 
 tool, and to pledge and subsidise the Guises for 
 the promotion of their ambitions in France, in order 
 that they might not interfere with Spanish aims in 
 England. 
 
 During the period that Mary was captive the 
 religious position in England underwent a complete
 
 lo TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 change, and at the time of her death the contending 
 elements on both sides were finally ranged. The 
 mass of the English people, except in London and 
 the eastern counties, were Catholics ; but the doc- 
 trines and practice of the Romish Church had 
 remained more or less in a fluid state until the 
 publication of the Trentine decrees in 1564. The 
 cautious compromise devised by Elizabeth and Cecil 
 had conciliated many, and for the first few years of 
 the reign the population at large, although they 
 might regret the avowedly papal regime of Mary 
 Tudor, outwardly conformed to the established wor- 
 ship, and, but for the action of extreme parties on 
 both sides, would probably have ended in complete 
 conformity. Like Philip himself, Elizabeth and her 
 chief adviser were influenced in their action by poli- 
 tical rather than religious considerations ; but the 
 English Protestant clergy and laymen, who in the 
 days of the Marian persecution had found shelter 
 and hospitality in Switzerland, came back to the 
 land of their birth burning with zeal to purge the 
 worship of their Church of all traces of Rome. To 
 them political considerations were nothing. In the 
 days of their exile they had seen simplicity and 
 adherence to the very word of Scripture made the 
 test of holiness by communities and men whom they 
 knew to be good, and they were rebellious and im- 
 patient to see that the Protestant English Church, 
 for whose establishment they had yearned and 
 prayed, included in its practice much which savoured 
 of their Romish persecutors. Vestments, lights, 
 incense, and images to them were anathema in any 
 circumstances, and Protestant nonconformity was
 
 INTRODUCTORY 1 1 
 
 born of the determination of earnest men to prefer 
 religious purity to political expediency. Violence 
 and rancour on the one extreme were answered by 
 violence and rancour on the other. The laymen of 
 Catholic leanings, offended at the Puritanism of 
 many of the Reformed clergy, began to absent them- 
 selves from church, and sought again the ministra- 
 tions of priests of the old faith. The country was 
 flooded by ardent young missionaries from Allen's 
 Seminary at Douai, who, in disguise and at the risk 
 of their lives, went from one Catholic house to 
 another, exhorting and encouraging Englishmen to 
 stand firm to the faith of their fathers. Their first 
 mission was unquestionably religious alone, but 
 unfortunately in some instances, as was the case in 
 the Northern rebellion, they were too useful as mes- 
 sengers and instruments, or too zealous, entirely 
 to avoid participation in treason. In 1579 the 
 activity of the Seminarist missionaries aroused the 
 jealousy of the young, vigorous, militant organisa- 
 tion whose especial province was propaganda, and 
 the Jesuits, much to the annoyance of the secular 
 priests, insisted on taking a leading part in the Eng- 
 lish mission.^ They, too, came at first on a purely 
 
 1 The disturbances in the English College at Rome, an offshoot of 
 Allen's Seminary at Douai, if they were not deliberately fomented by 
 the Jesuit interest, at least gave the Society its opportunity for cap- 
 turing the Seminaries, and for intruding itself into the English Mis- 
 sion. It was not without hesitation, however, that the ruling Jesuits 
 allowed Persons and Campion to start on their mission to England. 
 Even before they left, the English seculars were in fear that the Jesuit 
 fathers would assume an authority out of proportion to their numbers, 
 and would meddle in state affairs. To calm this fear, the rules for 
 guidance of the Jesuits of the English Mission (1580) strictly laid 
 down that "they must not mix themselves with affairs of state, nor 
 in England must they speak, or allow others to speak in their presence,
 
 12 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 religious errand ; but one at least of them, Father 
 Persons, soon changed his plans, and thencefor- 
 ward until her death every plot for the liberation 
 of Mary Stuart was directed and managed by Jesuits 
 under the direction of Persons, whose masterful 
 energy and zeal drew Allen along the same path. 
 Their treason and disloyalty were punished by pro- 
 scription and persecution.^ The Jesuits saw plainly 
 after the fate of the Duke of Norfolk and the collapse 
 of the Northern Earls that Elizabeth would never 
 be overturned except by the aid of a foreign force. 
 Whence could such a force come ? Not from 
 France, for there the religious divisions were more 
 acute even than in England ; and Catharine de 
 Medici only kept her footing by preventing either 
 Catholics or Huguenots from monopolising the 
 national power. The Pope might thunder excom- 
 munications, but he could send no galleys out of 
 
 against the Queen, except perhaps in company of those whose fidelity 
 has long been steadfastly proved " (quoted by Law from Simpson's 
 transcripts, 1085, Brussels Archives). Campion certainly confined 
 himself to his reliL;ious mission, which he considered invincible, and so 
 went to martyrdom. But Persons soon convinced liiniself that one 
 Jesuit political missioner could do more than a hundred of Allen's easy- 
 going spiritual priests ; and notwithstanding the solemn oath he took 
 to the Catholic Synod, which he secretly convened in Southwark (July 
 1580), that the Mission "was purely spiritual, and had no concern or 
 knowledge of aft'airs of state," he soon took the direction of all politi- 
 cal plots in England. Thenceforward the Jesuits, very few in number 
 at any time in England, constituted themselves a sort of aristocracy of 
 missioners, who looked upon the purely religious secular priests as 
 underlings, and treated them accordingly, to the indignation of the 
 Litter, as will be seen in the course of this book. (On these points see 
 Simpson's " Campion ; " T. G. Law's " Jesuits and Seculars ; " " Dod," 
 edited by Tierney ; Knox's "Life and Letters of Cardinal Allen;" 
 "The Archpriest Controversy" (Camden Society), &c.) 
 
 ' In 1585 it was made high treason for any priest ordained abroad 
 to enter England.
 
 INTRODUCTORY 13 
 
 the Mediterranean, and, moreover, was sparing of 
 his money ; so to Philip alone could the extreme 
 Catholics and the Jesuits of England look for the 
 liberation of their country from Protestantism. 
 But at what cost ? Philip clearly would not incur 
 the risk of invading England for the purpose merely 
 of placing upon the throne a half-French princess, 
 whose son might, for aught he could foresee, be 
 more heretical and inimical to Spain than Eliza- 
 beth ; and who, in any case, would transfer with 
 his crown to England the ancient Scottish tradition 
 of close alliance with France. So the Jesuits set 
 to work to overcome this difficulty at the expense 
 of England's independence ; and for the last few 
 years of the unfortunate Mary's life they carefully 
 enmeshed her in the toils, until she had solemnly 
 disinherited her son for heresy and made Philip 
 of Spain her heir. Cautiously, too, Persons and 
 his satellites in Flanders, Rome, and Spain spread 
 the idea of Philip's own descent from Edward III., 
 in order that in due time he might claim to succeed 
 Mary to the English crown. But when the execu- 
 tion of Mary forced the Spanish king to some extent 
 to show his hand, and to unmask his political aim, 
 there came the inevitable parting of the ways be- 
 tween loyal and disloyal English Catholics. The 
 extraordinary intrigues by which Pope Sixtus V. 
 was hoodwinked as to English succession until it 
 was too late for him to withdraw his promised 
 support to the Armada, has been told by me else- 
 where,^ and when at last the expedition failed, joy 
 and contentment, rather than sorrow, were expressed 
 
 1 Introduction to the Calendar of Spanish State Papers, vol. iv.
 
 14 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 by the Pope and cardinals at the Catholic defeat.^ 
 For years Philip had endeavoured to keep in the 
 background, even from his confidential agents, his 
 political design to subjugate England to Spain ; 
 but long before the Armada sailed the Scottish 
 Catholics at the Vatican, jealous of their king's 
 right to the English succession, the French car- 
 dinals, apprehensive of a Spanish dominion over 
 England, the Welsh priests, led by Owen Lewis, 
 Bishop of Cassano, and most of the English seculars, 
 Carthusians and Benedictines, none of whom had 
 any love for the pushing Jesuits, were busy with 
 plans that should make England a Catholic country 
 without submitting her to a foreign yoke. 
 
 When the Armada suffered catastrophe, the secret 
 was out for all the world, and Philip could work 
 in the dark no longer. Thenceforward it was 
 evident that any direct attempt of his against 
 England would probably meet with the open or 
 covert opposition, not only of Protestants, but of 
 the Papacy itself and of all Catholics but the 
 Spaniards, the Jesuits, and the more extreme of 
 Philip's English refugee pensioners ; for the Pagets, 
 Morgan, Hesketh, the Treshams, and many others 
 who had lived on his bounty, declined to sell their 
 country for their mess of pottage. Whilst the death 
 of Mary Stuart and the defeat of the Armada thus 
 laid Philip's real designs open to the world, two 
 other events shortly afterwards still further altered 
 the possibilities of his action against England. The 
 arrogant ambition of Guise, secure as he was of 
 Spanish support and money, drove Henry HI. into 
 
 * Spanish and Venetian Calendars, 1588-89.
 
 INTRODUCTORY 15 
 
 the arms of the Huguenots. The next heir to the 
 French throne was Henry of Navarre, the Protestant 
 prince, bound close in alliance and friendship with 
 Elizabeth. If France and England became allied 
 Protestant powers, then indeed were Spain and 
 Catholic supremacy in Europe doomed ; and the 
 danger to Philip in France was infinitely more 
 pressing than in England. Money, support, and 
 material aid were consequently forthcoming in 
 plenty to enable the Holy League to crush the 
 Huguenots once for all, though Spain and the 
 Indies were bled almost to the last doubloon. 
 Again circumstances tore away the screen behind 
 which Philip always chose to fight. The screen 
 in this instance was Guise's love of the Catholic 
 Church; but the murder of Guise (December 1588) 
 forced Philip into the open, and the assassination 
 of Henry III. (August 1589) completed the ex- 
 posure. Spain found herself in the position which 
 for centuries she had avoided, namely, that of being 
 at war with France with England also against her. 
 It was a mere necessity of her continued existence 
 as a great power that the Protestant faith should 
 not be officially established in France ; and yet 
 Philip dared not employ all his national resources 
 in a war without ensuring some sort of stability 
 for the objects for which he was making such great 
 sacrifices. It was clear that the weakly ambitious 
 and shifty Mayenne, the figure-head of the League 
 now that his brother Guise was dead, could not be 
 depended upon. Navarre would surrender no part 
 of his birthright ; and the Spanish king was obliged 
 to fight openly either for the Spanish domination
 
 1 6 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 or the dismemberment of France. Henry IV. 
 promptly seized the advantage that such a position 
 gave to him, and assumed the sympathetic rdle of 
 the patriotic champion opposed to the foreign sub- 
 jection of his beloved country, whilst the League 
 had to bear the reproach of fighting against the 
 independence of France with the aid of Spanish 
 pikes ; and Philip himself was forced again into the 
 position he hated, namely, to appear to Christendom 
 as an ambitious prince using religion as a cloak for 
 his greed of territory. 
 
 It will thus be seen that the words with which 
 this chapter opened were justified. Up to the period 
 which followed the defeat of the Armada, Philip, 
 in his attempts to impose Catholic orthodoxy upon 
 England, by diplomacy, by revolution, or by force, 
 had figured as a devout sovereign bent only upon 
 restoring religious unity to the world, and re- 
 establishing the supremacy of the Church of which 
 he was the divinely appointed champion. But from 
 1590 onward it was patent to everybody that his 
 ultimate object was the political subjection of the 
 country, in the interests of the Spanish monarchy, 
 in which he would be opposed by most of Europe ; 
 whilst it was equally obvious that the crusading 
 zeal of his people, which had been a main source 
 of his potency, had received a shock from which 
 it was not likely to recover. The attempts, there- 
 fore, of the Catholics to regain supremacy in England 
 divide themselves into two distinct periods — the 
 first, from the accession of Elizabeth to the end of 
 1589; and the second, from 1590 until the death 
 of the Queen in 1603. The events of the former
 
 INTRODUCTORY 17 
 
 of these periods have been described fully and 
 frequently : the participation of Mary Stuart in 
 the various conspiracies for her benefit has been 
 discussed ad nauseam; the Spanish intrigues to 
 regain by any means, fair or foul, Philip's hold 
 upon England are well known ; the efforts of the 
 English Catholics themselves to impose their views 
 upon Elizabeth and Cecil in the early years of the 
 reign have been dealt with exhaustively ; ^ and the 
 long series of juggles by which Elizabeth's marriage 
 was utilised for similar ends have also been recently 
 detailed." But the story of the final struggles for 
 Catholic supremacy in the new set of circumstances 
 which has just been explained from 1590 to 1603 
 has never yet been fully told by the light of modern 
 research ; and it is the object of this book to set 
 forth in some detail the abortive series of intrigues 
 by which, during the last ten years of Elizabeth's 
 reign, various sections of Catholics — English, Scot- 
 tish, and Irish — endeavoured to avail themselves of 
 foreign support for the objects they had in view. 
 
 These intrigues were on more than one occasion 
 in this period dangerously promising of success ; 
 but the vigilance of the Queen's Government, the 
 growing strength of the Protestant party in the 
 country, the repugnance to Jesuit methods and to 
 foreign domination on the part of most English 
 Catholics, seculars, regulars, and laymen, together 
 with the disillusionment and exhaustion of Sjjain 
 and the wonderful good fortune of Elizabeth, ended 
 
 ^ By Camden, Hollingshead, Froude, Lin^ard, the present writer 
 (in the Spanish State Papers and Life of Burghley), and many others. 
 2 " The Courtships of Queeu Elizabeth,'' by Martin A. S. Hume. 
 
 I)
 
 1 8 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 by frustrating them all, and finally made England 
 a Protestant country. 
 
 The changed position of Philip towards England 
 caused by the circumstances preceding the year 
 1590 was accompanied by a no less important 
 variation in the attitude of Elizabeth's Govern- 
 ment towards Spain. Drake and the newer school 
 of seamen had always proclaimed, and had them- 
 selves demonstrated, the hollowness of Spain's tra- 
 ditional claim to overwhelming power. Seconded 
 by the liberal, or Protestant, element in the English 
 Council, they had never ceased to urge the Queen 
 to cripple her foe, boldly and decisively, by means 
 of large national operations against his own country 
 or fleet. But they had against them the Queen's 
 parsimony, Burghley's love of compromise, and the 
 traditional dread and respect of Spain, England's 
 ancient ally, which inspired the more conservative 
 councillors of the Cecil party. The latter were 
 content with the punishment inflicted on the Ar- 
 mada and with the loss of prestige suffered by 
 Spain, and were in favour of limitins^ their future 
 operations to profitable sporadic attacks upon Span- 
 ish commerce. The failure of the English attack 
 upon Portugal in 1589, in the interest of the pre- 
 tender, Don Antonio, was unjustly laid to the fault 
 of Drake. In any case, the Queen was deeply 
 ofi'ended at the result of the expedition, and for 
 the rest of his life the great seaman lived some- 
 what under a cloud ; whilst the cautious, old- 
 fashioned statesmen endeavoured to avoid a renewal 
 of the national war with Spain, and the more 
 adventurous spirits were content to reap such ad-
 
 INTRODUCTORY 19 
 
 vantage as they might by plundering Spanish 
 galleons and fighting the King of Spain under 
 the banners of Henry of Navarre or the United 
 Provinces. This unenterprising, indirect warfare 
 gave to Philip the opportunity he so sorely needed 
 of creating a navy of a more mobile type than he 
 had previously possessed. It was seen that, for the 
 purpose of attack or evasion, swiftness and handi- 
 ness were his first desiderata ; and whilst his ports, 
 both home and colonial, were relatively safe from 
 attacks during Drake's disgrace, they were busy 
 turning out vessels of a newer type with which the 
 commerce of the Indies might be safely conducted ; 
 and, when opportunity oflfered, England herself might 
 be attacked.^ Fast sailing " galley-zabras," armed 
 
 ^ That this was still Philip's ultimate object is seen from the 
 instructions he gave to Commander Moreo, his representative to the 
 Princes of the League (May 1589), Paris, MSS. National Archives, 
 Spain, K. 1449:— "As tending also to the promotion of the Catholic 
 faith, you will accept in the form which appears most convenient the 
 offer made to me by the Duke of Mayenne to give me ports and other 
 facilities for my Armada on the coasts of Normandy and Brittany to 
 operate against England, with the power of drawing shiis, seamen, &c., 
 for the Armada from those coasts." In September of the same year 
 1589 Mendoza wrote to Philip from Paris advocating the purchase of 
 Boulogne from Epernon, who, he says, is willing to sell the place for 
 40,000 crowns ; or otherwise that it should be captured by force. He 
 says : "With these two ports (Boulogne and Calais) at your Majesty's 
 command, the enterprise (against England) could be effected very 
 rapidly, even in the winter ; and at a very much smaller cost than the 
 fitting out of a fresh Armada in Spain next summer or autumn." 
 From Philip's cool reply to this it is evident that his eyes were still 
 fixed upon Brittany, and that the collection of a Spanish fleet in 
 Boulogne to attack England was no part of his plan at that time. In 
 January 1590 Diego Maldonado sent an elaborate report to Philip 
 with regard to the possibility of fitting out a fleet on tlie Brittany 
 coast. This led to the seizure shortly afterwards of the port of Blavet, 
 which continued to be the Spanish naval b ise in France until the 
 signature of the peace of Vervins in 1 598 (Spanish Calendar).
 
 20 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 treasure-ships, were built in Havana in considerable 
 numbers. Lisbon, Cadiz, Santander, and Ferrol 
 contributed galleons built from English and Flemish 
 designs, and armed not infrequently by English 
 bronze cannon smuggled into Spain by Scottish, 
 German, and other ships.^ In the meanwhile hired 
 squadrons of armed merchantmen were organised 
 to protect the communications between Spain and 
 Flanders by the Channel; and by the year 1592 
 Philip once more was in possession of a royal navy, 
 less pretentious and splendid in appearance than 
 the Armada, but much more effective for the 
 service required of it.^ These preparations did not 
 escape the notice of the English spies in Spain, or 
 diminish in the telling; and periodical scares, with, 
 as we see now, but small justification, kept English 
 sailors on the alert for a possible descent upon the 
 coasts of Great Britain ; the Spanish base upon the 
 Brittany coast giving ever-present point to the 
 alarm. Plawkins's great preparations in the winter 
 of 1589 to attack the returning Indian treasure 
 fleet were rendered useless because the Queen in 
 a panic forbade the expedition from leaving the 
 Channel. If Drake's and Kalegh's policy had been 
 followed, the English fleet would have sailed to 
 Corunna and have destroyed the Spanish naval 
 
 ^ Richard Horton writes thus from Madrid, April 1591 (Hatfield 
 Papers, part 4) : — " Aqui recibimos cada dia en quantidad artilleria de 
 Ingleterra, por via de Lubeck, Einbden, Bremen, y Hamburgo ; y la 
 llevan los mercaderes de alia sin sospecha con navois cargados con 
 carbon. Todo hace el dinero I " 
 
 2 At the period in question (1592) there were 75 ships ready for sea 
 in tlie King's service, of which 23 were fine new galleons of 700 to 
 icxx) tons each ; besides 40 more of such galleons in course of con- 
 struction (Ciirbett, " Drake and the Tudor Navy ").
 
 INTRODUCTORY 21 
 
 armaments there collected ; but the defensive and 
 commerce -harrying tactics of the more cautious 
 spirits prevailed, and the opportunity v^^as missed : 
 the only result of the sailing of the fine English 
 fleet under Havt^kins and Frobisher in 1590 being 
 to frighten the treasure fleet of Spain into re- 
 maining on the other side of the Atlantic all the 
 vrinter. The English were, it is true, thus in com- 
 plete command of the sea, and the detention of the 
 treasure hampered Philip's progress ; but the timid 
 policy that now prevailed in Elizabeth's council 
 left his focus of activity untouched, and thus gave 
 plausible ground for a renewal of the alarm which 
 his preparations caused in England. The effect of 
 the policy was seen in the following year, when 
 Howard and the bulk of the English navy, cruising 
 off the Azores to intercept the delayed Indian 
 flotillas, was surprised by the appearance of a much 
 stronger Spanish force under Bazan, of fifty-five ships 
 with 7200 men, before which the English were 
 forced to abandon their expected prey and seek 
 safety in flight — all except the Revenge, in which 
 Grenville rashly bade defiance to them all and went 
 to voluntary destruction. Though Bazan's squadron 
 suffered heavily from a storm on its way home, 
 its strength partially convinced the English queen 
 of the growing danger she had to fear from the 
 reconstructed navy of Spain. But still, instead of 
 striking at the root, Elizabeth and Burghley endea- 
 voured to meet the danger, of which their spies 
 constantly warned them, mainly by helping the 
 French king to keep the Spanish forces fully 
 occupied in France, and by urging Henry to special
 
 2 2 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 activity in Brittany, where her own forces under 
 Sir Henry Norreys were also fighting the League. 
 The loss of the Revenge, too, and the failure of 
 Howard to tackle Bazan's fleet, as well as the 
 Queen's annoyance with the rash perverseness of 
 Essex, now the leader of the Protestant or war 
 party, gave to the Cecils and their adherents the 
 upper hand ; and caution and plunder reigned 
 supreme as a policy until the spring of 1593, when 
 the rehabilitated naval power of Spain was too 
 evident and threatening any longer to be trifled 
 with. It is at this juncture that we propose to 
 take up in detail the story of how the continued 
 attempts to make Great Britain Catholic were met 
 and frustrated.
 
 CHAPTEll II 
 
 Intrigues of the Scottish Catholics with Spain — James's share in them — 
 The "Spanish blanks" — 'Ihe Parliament of 1593 — Fears of a new- 
 Spanish invasion — John Cecil's mission from Scotland to Spain^ 
 The influence of Father Persons — 'I"he Spanish mission to the 
 Scottish Catholic Lords — John Cecil's betrayal of the cause. 
 
 As early as the end of 1586, whilst the preparations 
 for the Armada were still far from complete, one of 
 Philip's most able officers, Bernardino de Mendoza, 
 sent to the King a most convincing state paper, 
 strongly advising that England should not be attacked 
 by a naval invasion, but by a force crossing the Scot- 
 tish border ; and the dangers and difficulties which 
 Mendoza foretold in the case of a direct attack by 
 sea were precisely those which caused the failure of 
 the attempt.^ The origin of this advice was the 
 offer of the Earl of Huntly and the other Scottish 
 Catholic Lords to secure and deliver to Spain two 
 ports near the English border in which a Spanish 
 force might be received ; and in return for Philip's 
 support to the Catholic cause, they also professed 
 their readiness to aid him with their own forces, and 
 to compel James to become a Catholic." At that 
 time, however, Philip's main plan of invasion was 
 laid ; and although he sent money and fair words in 
 plenty to the Scottish Lords, in order, at least, that 
 
 ^ Mendoza to the King, December 24, 1586. Spanish Calendar, 
 vol. iii. 
 2 Ibid. 
 
 23
 
 24 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 James might be prevented from helping the English, 
 he had long ago made up his mind that the King of 
 Scots would be no fit instrument for him. 
 
 The persistent intrigues of the Scottish and French 
 Catholics, after the Armada, to bring about a com- 
 promise founded upon the conformity of James to 
 Catholicism — intrigues to which the King of Scots 
 himself was usually a party — confirmed Philip's de- 
 termination to exclude James altogether from his 
 operations against England. Fortified by the opinions 
 of the Jesuit party, voiced by Persons, he was con- 
 vinced that the jealousy of Englishmen against the 
 Scots would lead them to prefer even a Spaniard to 
 a Scotsman as their king ; and the Pontifi" himself 
 was lectured and rated like a schoolboy by the in- 
 solent ambassador, Olivares, for his efi"orts to bring 
 about a settlement ^ by means of the conciliatory 
 policy of which the great majority of the English 
 Catholics now approved. Philip, however, was still full 
 of expressions of sympathy for the Scottish Catholics ; 
 for, with the growing difficulty of a direct naval 
 invasion of England, for reasons set forth in the last 
 chapter, the possibility of having some of the ports of 
 Scotland open to him, if he needed them, was a tempt- 
 ing one. Huntly, Errol, Angus, and the rest of them, 
 therefore still appealed to the Spanish King to aid 
 their party ; and James played his tricky double game 
 
 * See Olivares' letters to the King, in Spanish Calendar, vol. iii., 
 in which the Pope is spoken of most disrespectfully, and details given 
 of the ambassador's rudeness to him. To such an extent was this 
 carried that, when Henry IV. 's approaches to the Pope and his desire to 
 conform wwe benevolently listened to by Sixtus, not only did Olivares 
 insult the Pope grossly, but Spanish friars denounced him as a. heretic 
 (Tempesti, Vie de Sixtus V.).
 
 CATHOLIC SCOTS APPEAL TO SPAIN 25 
 
 of taking secret part in the Catholic conspiracies 
 against his own Government, in order to keep both 
 parties in hand. When, in 1589-90, he was obhged 
 to content Elizabeth and the Protestants by going 
 through the pretence of punishing the Catholic Lords 
 whose accomplice he was, and, during his absence 
 in Denmark, entered into negotiations for the for- 
 mation of a great Protestant league of Scotland, 
 England, the Northern Powers, and Henry IV. (who 
 had not yet " gone to Mass "), the Scottish Catholics 
 took fright in earnest, and sent a humble emissary, 
 one Charles Boyd, to Spain to pray for Philip's 
 assistance to a new confederation, which was evi- 
 dently pledged to the removal of James, ^ As usual 
 with him, Philip wanted "further information" 
 before he would pledge himself to anything ; but 
 this opening was more promising than previous 
 approaches from the same quarter, as in this case 
 it was evident that James himself was left out of 
 the calculation. However this may be, Elizabeth's 
 Government were fully informed of the plot, and 
 whilst Boyd was still in Madrid awaiting Philip's 
 answer, Elizabeth, in her own hand, thus wrote to 
 James on his return to Scotland from his wedding- 
 trip to Denmark in May 1590: "I hope you wyl 
 not be careles of such practisis as hathe passed from 
 any of yours without your commission, spetially such 
 attempts as might ruin your realme and danger you. 
 If any respect whatever make you neglect so ex- 
 pedient a worke, I am affraide your careles heed 
 will worke your unlooked danger." The Queen in- 
 dignantly closes by saying that she knows her former 
 
 1 Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. p. 582.
 
 26 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 letters of warning have been shown by James to the 
 Catholics ; and if she sees her admonitions dis- 
 regarded for the future, " I wil hireafter wische al 
 well, but counsel no more at all." ^ 
 
 James was not long before he again got his own 
 hand into the plot. Scotland was now flooded by 
 priests and Jesuits who had fled from the severity of 
 Elizabeth's penal enactments or had been sent from 
 abroad for missionary work," and they laboured on 
 fertile soil in the discontent aroused, especially in 
 the King and nobles, by the parliamentary establish- 
 ment in 1592 of the Presbyterian Church Govern- 
 ment. This time it was Lord Balgarys and Graham 
 of Fentry who took the lead (for Huntly, by his 
 recent unprovoked murder of young Murray, was 
 extremely unpopular), and Balgarys openly defied 
 the Presbyterj^^ But the ministers were strong in 
 their numbers and in Elizabeth's support ; and the 
 Catholic nobles, this time with the full co-operation 
 of the King, decided to send to Spain an ambassador 
 of more importance than Charles Boyd or Robert 
 
 1 Elizabeth to James, May 1590 (Camden Society). 
 
 ^ Pope Clement VIII. liad recently sent James a present of 40,000 
 ducats by an envoy, promising him a regular subsidy of 10,000 ducats 
 a month if he would protect the Catholics. 
 
 ^ The Church Sessions obtained a warrant for Balgarys' arrest and 
 had excommunicated certain persons who had dined in his house. The 
 Sessions were gathered for the purpose of appointing a person to 
 execute the warrant, when Balgarys went with his followers to the 
 place of meeting and made all the ministers present beg his pardon 
 and dine with him, they giving for tlie purpose the meal prepared 
 for themselves, "which is usually very splendid." They had also to 
 promise never to molest any one again on his account. " He had gone 
 thither for the purpose of killing them all, but contented himself with 
 their submission at the request of his clansmen who accompanied him " 
 (Report of a Scottish Catholic emissary to Spain late in 1592). Spanish 
 Calendar, vol. iv.
 
 JAMES VI. AND THE CATHOLICS 27 
 
 Bruce of Bemie/ The person chosen was George 
 Ker, brother of Lord Newbottle, who carried many 
 letters of recommendation from Catholic nobles, and, 
 like Robert Bruce in 1586, three blank sheets 
 signed and sealed by Huntly, Errol, and Angus 
 respectively, which were to be filled up when he 
 was safely out of reach of the Protestants. He was 
 to ask for a body of 30,000 Spanish troops to be 
 landed in Scotland, to join with 15,000 men pro- 
 vided by the Catholic nobles ; the avowed purpose 
 being the seizure of James and the establishment of 
 the Catholic religion in Scotland and subsequently 
 in England. Ker was caught," thanks to the 
 vigilance of the English agents, and though his 
 blanks told but little, under threat of torture the 
 messenger was more communicative, and the story 
 was divulged. But not all of it was made public ; 
 for he carried with him a secret paper which, until our 
 own day, has been hidden "to save his Majesty's 
 honour." This extraordinary document is endorsed, 
 "Copy of the Scotch King's instructions to Spain, 
 which should have been sent by Powry Oge,^ but 
 
 ^ Full details of the mission of Robert Bruce to Spain in 1 586 will 
 be found in tbe Spanish Calendar, vol. iii. 
 
 - He was actually apprehended by Andrew Knox, minister of 
 Paisley, with a number of students of Glasgow University, at Cumray, 
 a small island in the mouth of the Clyde, just as he was taking ship for 
 Spain, on the 27th December 1592. The conspiracy, so called, of the 
 " Spanish Blanks," has been vehemently denounced by many Scottish 
 Catholics, and by the present Marcjuis of Huntly in his " Memorials of 
 Aboyne," as a mystification got up by the Protestant party to discredit 
 the Catholics. This contention will no longer hold water in view of 
 the original document, transcribed by the present writer, in the 
 Simancas Archives, and summarised in the Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. 
 p. 603. and others in vol. iii. of the same Calendar. 
 
 ^ This was Pury Ogilvie, to whose mission to Spain on behalf of 
 James in 1 596 I shall have to refer in a subsequent chapter.
 
 28 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 thereafter were concredit to Mr. George Ker, and 
 withdrawn at his taking for the safety of his 
 Majesty s ho7iour." It is in the form of a balanced 
 statement of both sides of the question, such as 
 Lord Biirghley was in the habit of making on all 
 important subjects of discussion. " This enterprise 
 is one of the greatest that ever was, since it is to 
 conquer England, partly by foreign force, and partly 
 by some amongst themselves. But since all great 
 enterprises ought to be suddenly and resolutely 
 prosecuted, this ought to be executed at furthest in 
 harvest next." 
 
 This is the statement of the case to be decided, 
 and the arguments for and against are set forth 
 with the wordy pedantry so dear to James. After 
 reciting the readiness of preparations in Scotland, 
 and the danger of Elizabeth's learning the secret if 
 the execution is delayed, fear is expressed that in 
 the meantime also Philip " might dip with her for 
 his own particular, which, if it so fell out, would 
 disappoint the whole enterprise." ^ The result 
 of James's deliberation was, nevertheless, finally 
 against present haste. "Wherefore my opinion is 
 that it die down, as I said before. In the mean- 
 time, I will deal with the Queen of England fair 
 and pleasantly for my title to the crown of England 
 after her decease, which thing, if she grant it, as it 
 
 ^ The approaching reconciliation of Henry IV. to the Catholic 
 Church made a rapprochement between Elizabeth and Philip distinctly 
 probable at the time, and the air was full of rumours to that effect. If 
 the Cecil party had been able to have their way an agreement would 
 probably have been made. This would once more have grouped the 
 powers on the old lines of national rather than religious interest, and 
 the union of England and Scotland under James would then have been 
 extremely unlikely.
 
 JAMES VI. AND THE CATHOLICS 29 
 
 is not impossible, however unlikely, we have then 
 attained our design without stroke of sword." ^ This 
 secret instruction gives us the key to James's other- 
 wise incomprehensible action in the matter. The 
 Catholic nobles had only told him half the truth, or 
 less, and instead of making use of them, he was their 
 dupe. It was not to gain the crown of England for 
 him, so much as the control of affairs by the Catholic 
 faction, that they sought Spanish aid. When the 
 communications finally reached Philip, little indeed 
 was heard of James's claim to the English crown, and 
 much of the desire of the Catholic Earls to hold him 
 prisoner as a tool of their party for the destruction 
 of the Reformed doctrines in Scotland and England. 
 The exposure of the plot by the capture of Ker and 
 Fentry drove Huntly and his friends into open re- 
 bellion ; but James, by his dour attitude towards 
 the Protestants who had discovered the conspiracy, 
 and his tenderness to the Catholic rebels, clearly 
 demonstrated his annoyance at the frustration of his 
 own crooked plans. Fentry, the least culpable of the 
 conspirators, it is true, was executed ; but the power- 
 ful Earls, who were far more guilty than their accom- 
 plice, as James knew, were allowed to return to their 
 strongholds unpunished. What Elizabeth thought 
 of the tergiversation of the King of Scots, she her- 
 self set forth in a vigorous autograph letter to him 
 sent by the hand of her ambassador Bowes at the 
 end of January 1593 : " AVonders and marvelles do 
 so assail my conceatz, that the long-expected answer 
 to matters of such waight as my last letter needs 
 not seame strange. Yet suche I see the eminent 
 
 ^ Hatfield Papers, vol. iv. p. 215
 
 30 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 danger and wel-ny ready approache of your state's 
 ruin, your live's peril, and your neighbour's wrong, 
 as I may not, to kepe you company, neglect what 1 
 should, though you forget that which you ought. I 
 am sorry 1 am driven from warninge to heed, and 
 from too much trust to seek a true way how your 
 deeds, not your wordz, may make me assurance that 
 you be no way guilty of your own decay and other 
 danger. Receive therefore, in short, what course I 
 mynd to hold. . . . Since you first breathed I re- 
 garded alwais to conserve hit (^.e. her regard for 
 him) as my womb hit had bine you bare. Yea ; I 
 withstode the hands and helps of a mighty king to 
 make you safe, even gained by the bloud of many 
 my deare subjects' lives. I made myself the bul- 
 wark betwixt you and harm, when many a wyle was 
 invented to steale you from your land, and make 
 other posses your soile. When your best strong- 
 holds were in my handes, did I keep them'? Nay ; 
 I both conserved them and rendered them to you. 
 Could I endure that foreigners had a footing in your 
 kingdom ? No ; I never left till all the Frenche 
 that kept their lives parted from your soile. . . . 
 Let me remember you how well I was thanked or 
 he rewarded that once brought all the letters of those 
 wicked conspirators of the Spanish faction, even the 
 selfe-same that still to your eminent peril you have 
 conserved in their estates. Was I not so much 
 doubted as hit was thought to be an Italian inven- 
 tion to make you holde me dearer, and contrived of 
 malice not due by cause ? , . . See what encourage- 
 ment I received for many wakeful cares for your 
 safety. . . . Now of late, by fortunate good hap, a
 
 ELIZABETH'S INDIGNATION 31 
 
 lewd fellowe hathe been apprehended with lettars 
 and instructions. I pray God he be so wel han- 
 deled as he may confess all his knowledge in the 
 Spanish conspiracie, and that you use not this man 
 as slightly as you don the ringleaders of this treason. 
 I vowe if you do not rake it to the bottome you wyl 
 verefie what many a wise man hathe (viewing your 
 proceedings) judged of your guiltiness of your 
 own wreck ; with a whining that they wyl you no 
 harme in enabling you with so rich a protector {i.e. 
 as Spain) that wyl prove in the end a destroyer. I 
 have beheld of late a strange dishonourable and 
 dangerous pardon, which, if it be true, you have 
 not only neglected yourself but wronged me. ... I 
 require, therefore, to all this a resolute answer, 
 which I challenge of right ; " and then the indig- 
 nant Queen demands that sudden retribution shall 
 fall upon the conspirators ; and ends with a semi- 
 apology for the justified heat of her " too long 
 skribling." ^ 
 
 This letter was followed in a few wrecks by the 
 despatch of Lord Borough to James from Elizabeth 
 to urge him to decisive action against the Catholic 
 Lords, instead of the make-believe pursuit of them 
 which the King was undertaking;" and simul- 
 taneously the Catholics sent a fresh envoy to inform 
 Philip of all that had passed. Huntly and Bal- 
 
 ^ Elizabeth to James (Camden Society). 
 
 2 James wrote to Elizabeth at this juncture (Hatfield Papers, vol. iv. 
 p. 296) promising her emphatically " tliat they never shall have dwell- 
 ing under him who are guilty of so foul a treason, but the Queen's 
 helpful hand must be had thereto." He tells her, however, that she 
 is quite as much interested as he in excludini,' the Spaniards from 
 Scotland.
 
 32 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 garys, they told him, had compelled the burgh of 
 Aberdeen to deliver to them the person of the Papal 
 envoy, and that " seeing how little they can hope for 
 from their King," they had employed the Pope's 
 subsidy to pay their clansmen in arms.^ 
 
 The two rival organisations of spies, serving the 
 interests respectively of the Cecils and Essex, kept 
 Elizabeth well informed of all these approaches to 
 Spain. Colonel Sir William Semple was known to be 
 resident in the Spanish court, always ready to urge 
 the case of the Scottish Catholics, and the coming and 
 going of the Scottish messengers were fully reported. 
 The violent book just published by Persons against 
 Elizabeth's government and spread broadcast over 
 Europe, and the strong position held by Spain on 
 the Brittany coast, joined with the Scottish intrigue 
 in exciting alarm in England ; and this was still 
 further exacerbated by the war party headed by 
 Essex, who were for ever discovering or inventing 
 fresh Spanish plots. The result of all this was a 
 recrudescence of the severity against the recusant 
 
 1 In the same report (Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. p. 590) there is a 
 curious account of a '' mii-aculous " victory by Huntly with 37 clans- 
 men over Ar.Liyll with 1 500 soldiers, 500 of the latter beinL? killed, 
 without the loss of a single man on the Catholic side. The victory is 
 ascribed to the intervention of St. Laurence, Huntly having chosen 
 that saint for his patron during the ensuing year (in accordance, it is 
 asserted, with an old Scottish custom). Another miraculous story is 
 told in the s:irae report about the Earl of Morton, who was a Caiholic, 
 but had coni'ornied to the Presbyterian Churcli. When he was about 
 to s\'j,n the Articles an angel appeared to him and foretold disaster to 
 him if he did so. The Earl was alarmed, and "again put on a gold 
 c'ucifix -ind an Agnus Dei" that he used to wear round his ut-ck. He 
 allowed himselt sulisequently to be persuaded to sign the Articles ; and 
 shortly afterwards in an att'ray with the Johiistones met witn tlie end 
 the an^el had predicted, his right hand being smitten ott" liy Johnstone 
 himself.
 
 THE PARLIAMENT OF 1593 33 
 
 English Catholics. No distinction was made be- 
 tween those of the Jesuit party and the great mass 
 of English Catholics, who were proud of the new 
 potency of their country under the "wise government 
 of Elizabeth, and would now have been content, as 
 a last resource, with toleration for their faith. Uni- 
 formity of doctrine and practice was made a test of 
 loyalty, and both Catholics and Puritans equally felt 
 the lash. The Cecil party had thus against them 
 the extreme men on both sides, and resorted to 
 rigid severity in order to hold the middle way. 
 
 In this excited condition of aftairs in England 
 it was necessary for a large sum of money to be 
 spent to place the country into a state of defence. 
 No Parliament had been held for four years, but the 
 expenses of the wars in France and Holland, and 
 her advances to Henry IV., had depleted Elizabeth's 
 treasury, and a fervent appeal to the patriotism of 
 the Commons had to be made in the spring of 1593. 
 The Queen's speech was read by Lord Keeper 
 Puckering. It sounds somewhat curious to modern 
 ears, for the members were warned that it was " Her 
 Majesty's pleasure that the time be not spent in 
 devising and enacting new laws, the number of which 
 are so great already as it rather burdeneth than easeth 
 the subject; but the principal cause of this Parliament 
 is that Her Majesty might consult with her subjects 
 for the better withstandins: those intended invasions 
 which are greater than ever before heard of. And 
 where heretofore it hath been used that many 
 delighted themselves in long orations, full of ver- 
 bosity and vain ostentation, more than in speaking 
 things of substance, the time that is precious should 
 
 c
 
 34 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 not be thus spent . . . and the good hours not be 
 lost in idle speeches." "The Queen," he said, "was 
 desirous of the advice of her loving people con- 
 cerning the defence and preservation of herself, 
 her realms and subjects, from the power and oppres- 
 sion of a foreign enemy. This enemy was the King 
 of Spain, whose malice was increased by his loss and 
 shame received in 1588. His resolution was still 
 to invade this kingdom, as plainly did appear by 
 his building and getting together many ships of 
 less bulk and better fitted for service in our seas 
 than those greater galleons and galliasses were in 
 1588. That he desired some nearer place from 
 vi^hence to invade England, and therefore at this 
 time was labouring to plant himself in Brittany. He 
 had also raised factions in Scotland and conspiracies 
 against the King there, finding him an enemy to his 
 ambitious designs ; " and Puckering, for the Queen, 
 then reproached the Commons with the difficulty 
 of collecting the supplies voted in past Parliaments, 
 and urged them to liberality and a reformed inci- 
 dence, so that the wealthy classes should pay their 
 full share. ^ The Speaker (Coke), when his turn 
 came, fully fell in with the Queen's humour, and 
 scoifed at ''Elephantine Leges." Wherefore, to 
 make more laws might seem superfluous, and he 
 might ask, " Quid causa ut crescunt tot magna 
 volumina legis ? " and answer, "In promptu causa 
 est crescit in orbe malum," and much more to the 
 same courtly effect. But when, according to custom, 
 he prayed the Queen to grant her faithful Commons 
 free speech, freedom from arrest, and access to her 
 
 ' Digges, " The Proceedings in the Last Four Parliaments of Elizabeth."
 
 THE PARLIAMENT OF 1593 35 
 
 person, he got a very harsh and grudging answer ; 
 for Elizabeth still remembered and resented the 
 talk about the succession, which had offended her 
 in the last Parliament. The Queen's formal reply 
 to the address of the Commons struck the same 
 note of defiance to Spain. " I fear not all his 
 threatenings," she said ; " his great preparations and 
 mighty forces do not stir me ; for though he cometh 
 against me with a greater power than ever was his 
 Invincible Navy, I doubt not, God assisting me, 
 but that I shall be able to defeat and overthrow him. 
 I have great advantage over him ; for my cause is 
 just." She had heard, she continued, that certain 
 English people resident on the coast had fled inland 
 on the approach of the Armada, leaving their towns 
 unprotected. " But I swear, by God, if I knew 
 those persons, or any that shall do so hereafter, I 
 will make them know and feel what it is to be so 
 fearful in so urgent a cause." In the subsequent 
 speeches in the House, the most was made of the 
 Scottish intrigues with Spain ; and Sir Robert Cecil 
 especially magnified the danger whilst praising 
 to the skies the King of Scots' attitude. " The 
 King of Spain's malice," he said, " thus daily 
 increaseth against us, and seeketh also to stir up 
 sedition amongst us by his instruments. The num- 
 ber of Papists also daily increaseth, or, at leastwise, 
 be more manifested." With only a dissenting voice 
 from Francis Bacon, for which the Queen frowned 
 upon him for many a day to come, a large subsidy 
 was voted to cover four years' supply, and a fero- 
 cious new set of penal laws was enacted against 
 recusants and Catholics. But directly a few of the 
 
 /
 
 36 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Puritan members dared to talk about the succession, 
 they were incontinently clapped into prison, and 
 the House was dissolved in a hurry. 
 
 Ralegh's speech on the Spanish plans is inter- 
 esting, as confirming the information then being 
 constantly sent to Philip by his spies in England, 
 namely, that the great fear of the English was of the 
 new form of Spanish galleys. It will be recollected 
 that the galleys in the Armada had broken down 
 and failed utterly. And it is now generally seen 
 that the day for galley warfare in the open sea had 
 gone by ; but contemporaries had not yet fully 
 mastered the fact. It was understood that mobility 
 was the secret of success, ; and the new type of 
 galley-zabra, which employed both sail and sweeps 
 as needed, seemed to onlookers to provide this 
 desideratum, together with a seaworthiness not pos- 
 sessed by the old galleys.^ Ralegh, after setting 
 forth the wide ramifications of Philip's activity, 
 continued: "He (Philip) hath so corrupted the 
 nobility in Scotland that he hath promised them 
 forces to assist the Papists, that were ready to join 
 with any foreign forces that would make them 
 strong. ... In his own country (Spain) there is 
 all possible preparing ; and he is coming with sixty 
 galleys, besides other shipping, with purpose, if he 
 goes forward and hath good success. We must 
 then, if he invade us, have no ships riding at anchor, 
 but all will be little enough to withstand him. At 
 bis coming he fully resolved to get Plymouth, or at 
 
 ^ Although huilt on <,'alley lines, these vessels were mainly for sailing ; 
 but the piisses.sioii of sweeps greatly added to their eflectiveness in war. 
 They uliinialely develnj)Ld into the frigate or cruiser.
 
 ALARM IN ENGLAND 37 
 
 least to possess some of the havens this summer 
 within our land, and Plymouth is in most danger." 
 And then Ralegh again advocated for the hundredth 
 time the policy of Drake and the seamen to meet 
 and defeat the enemy before he approached England. 
 "Now the way to defeat him was this — to send a royal 
 army and supplant him in Brittany, and to possess 
 ourselves there ; and to send a strong navy to sea, 
 and to lie with it on the Cape, and at San Lucar, to 
 which places come all his ships with riches from all 
 places ; and then we may set upon all that comes." 
 
 How far the alarm expressed by the members of 
 the Government of a direct Spanish invasion of 
 England was real, it is difficult at this time to say. 
 It was the fixed policy of the Essex party to keep 
 alive distrust and hatred of Spain in order to pro- 
 mote a decisive national war which should give 
 final supremacy to the pronounced Protestant party. 
 But at this juncture the Cecils and their friends 
 were quite as alarmist as the Puritans. And yet 
 Lord Burghley was perfectly well aware, from the 
 reports of his spy, Chateau Martin, and others in 
 Spain, that the naval preparations of Philip in the 
 spring of 1593 could hardly be directed to an in- 
 vasion of England.^ There were at that time twenty- 
 
 ^ The pretext for the alarm was the numerous avowals of the 
 priests and others captured of the preparations they had heard were 
 being made in Spain for the invasion. Sir William Stanley, it appears, 
 had been summoned to Spain to inspect the ships in Ferrol, of which 
 he said there were thirty-six which were capable of beating the whole 
 English navy. Stanley proclaimeil everywhere that he was to com- 
 mand 10,000 troops for the expedition, and the landing was to take 
 place in Lancashire or at Milford Haven ; and he boasted much, and 
 perfectly without warrant, of the co-operation of his great kinsman 
 the Earl of Derby, hinting also that Arabella Stuart was to be pro-
 
 38 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 eight ships in Lisbon, Seville, &c., destined to go out 
 and meet the Indian flotilla, for the purpose of 
 protecting it on the voyage home. There was also 
 a small squadron, unequipped, at Ferrol, and some 
 other ships scattered in the Biscay ports, intended 
 for the conveyance of reinforcements to Brittany or 
 the south of France, There was, therefore, no pos- 
 sibility of another Armada in that year ; and the 
 expressed alarm of the Cecil party in Parliament, 
 and the subsequent action of the Government, may 
 be partly explained by a recommendation of Chateau 
 Martin to Lord Burghley in April 1593. Writing 
 from Bordeaux, he says that the best way to em- 
 barrass the King of Spain's action, " et lui rendriez 
 pour cette ann^e ses forces inutiles, qui serait un 
 grand remede pour les aifaires d'ici" {i.e. France), 
 will be to spread a rumour that Sir Francis Drake 
 is going to attack Portugal, and the spy offers to use 
 the " artifices " necessary for setting such a rumour 
 afloat. " Mais il est besoin de faire quelque demon- 
 stration d'y vouloir employer le dit Sieur Drac, 
 parce'que d'un bruit seulement qui a couru en 
 Espagne que sa Majestie (i.e. Elizabeth) I'emploiait, 
 et qu'elle lui avait deja delivre ses commissions, 
 I'Espagne en a ^te quelques jours en tres grande 
 alarme ; dont il se peut juger ce que serait lorsque 
 Ton y verrait quelque apparence." ^ 
 
 claimed Queen. The attempt, he announced, was to be made in the 
 spring of 1 593, " before which thej^ hoped to get Brest." No doubt 
 this va])ouring on the part of Stanley was for the purpose of frighten- 
 ing the English Government, and of forcing Philip on the course desired 
 by the En^^lish zealots. This view is confirmed in " The State of the 
 English Fugitives." (See also Reports of Spies in 1592 in State 
 Papers, J^omestic, and Hatfield Papers, vol. iv. 
 ' Hatfield Papers, vol. iv. p. 307.
 
 EXAGGERATION OF THE ALARM 39 
 
 The fact is evident to ns now that Philip was in 
 far more alarm of the possible attacks of English 
 ships upon his treasure fleet, upon his Brittany 
 garrisons, or upon his coasts and colonies, than the 
 English had reason to be of him, so far as a direct 
 invasion was concerned. Don Pedro Valdes, who 
 was just ransomed from captivity in England (March 
 1593), wrote very apprehensively of the preparations 
 in the English ports, and hazarded many guesses 
 at the possible destination of the English ships.^ 
 Philip had his hands more than full in France. 
 He was old, ill, and weary ; and he had probably 
 already decided in his own slow mind that his 
 strength was insufficient, as it obviously was now, 
 to repeat the supreme effort of the Armada and to 
 attempt a direct invasion of England ; though, as 
 usual, he kept his own counsel on the matter. 
 
 It is likely that, so far as the Cecils were con- 
 cerned at least, the scare in the English Parliament 
 and public was deliberately exaggerated, in order 
 that the supplies necessary for the continuance of 
 the English aid to Henry IV. against the Spaniards 
 in the north of France, and for counteracting the 
 Catholic intrigues in Scotland, might be more libe- 
 
 ^ Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. p. 596. Almost every letter at this 
 period, also from the Venetian ambassador in Madrid to the Doge 
 (Venetian Calendar), speaks of the fear inspired and the depredations 
 committed by the large number of English privateers on the Spanish 
 and Portuguese coasts ; and constant references are made as to the 
 intention of the Spanish armaments being defensive. On the 4th 
 April 1593 lie writes: "Although no re.ular fleet has sailed from 
 England, yet thei-e are about fifty English ships in these waters. 
 They are doing most serious damage every day, as the larger part of 
 the Spanish ships are built by private individuals on the security of 
 about six per cent, on all the goods brought by the Indian fleet."
 
 40 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 rally forthcoming. In any case, notwithstanding 
 the exciting speeches in Parliament, little was done 
 in the matter of naval armament beyond the adop- 
 tion of Chateau Martin's recommendation of spread- 
 ing rumours of Drake's new commission for sea ; 
 and Philip was even allowed to send large reinforce- 
 ments to Brittany in the winter of 1593 without 
 molestation from the English. This last event, 
 however, reawakened the fears of the latter, and 
 in the following spring a successful attack was 
 made upon the threatening position of the Spaniards 
 in Brest harbour and other Breton fortresses in 
 Spanish hands. 
 
 Chateau Martin, who was usually well informed, 
 pointed out in April-May 1593 to Lord Burghley 
 that Spanish intrigues in Scotland were still afoot. 
 " lis esperent fort en Espagne une revolte en 
 Ecosse. . . . Le roi d'Espagne a bonne envie d'y 
 former un parti a sa devotion, et d'y aider avec les 
 forces qu'il pourra, s'il y voit tant peu soit-il de fonde- 
 ment." ^ Whilst this was being written, a more 
 serious embassy than any that had preceded it was 
 being sent from the Scottish Catholic Lords to Philip. 
 The active intervention of the Jesuit priests in the 
 Scottish Catholic conspiracy of 1581-82 had not been 
 a success, and in the changed aspect of affairs since 
 the failure of the Armada, the Company — as has 
 been explained — continued to oppose any scheme 
 for the settlement of English affairs which should 
 lead to a compromise, or to the doubtful conversion 
 of James Stuart. Either the Scottish Catholic nobles 
 had now grown reckless, and knowing the jDrice to 
 
 ' Hatfield Papers, vol. iv.
 
 FATHER CECIL SENT TO SPAIN 41 
 
 be paid for Spanish help to their cause, were pre- 
 pared to pay it, or else they had satisfied themselves 
 finally that Catholicism could never depend upon 
 James, and they were determined to sacrifice him. 
 In any case, their new departure was significant, as 
 it brought them in line with the position to which 
 the Jesuits had led Mary Stuart before her death, 
 namely, to complete dependence upon Spain. 
 
 One of the most able and energetic of Father 
 Persons' recruits to his famous English College of 
 St. Alban at Valladolid was John Cecil, a Master of 
 Arts of Oxford, who in 1589 had been sent from 
 Rome, apparently in consequence of the continued 
 squabbles in the English Catholic College there. 
 He had been despatched to England in the spring of 
 1 59 1, and had thence proceeded to Scotland, where 
 he gained the confidence of Huntly, and, disguised 
 as a soldier, was now entrusted with an important 
 verbal embassy to Spain.^ The Catholic Lords had 
 
 * The particulars of this extraordinary man's life up to this period 
 may be gathered from his own letters, under the name of Snowden, 
 at Hatfield, and from the intercepted or stolen letters from Father 
 Persons, respectively to Dr. Barrett and to Cecil himself, also at Hat- 
 field. Although he had been ordained some time before in Rome, and 
 was of mature age, he with others were sent for a year's probation to 
 Valladolid, to prepare, under the direction of Persons, for the English 
 Mission. Persons was very anxious to promote the prosperity of his 
 College, and strove thus to attract zealous men to it, in order that its 
 fame might be spread ; and he gives to Dr. Barrett a glowing account 
 of these missionaries when they were on the point of leaving for 
 England (Hatfield Papers, vol. v. p. 69). Fathei's Younger, Blunt, 
 Dudley, Lockwood, Rooke, Salloway, Walford, and Almond were sent 
 to England from various Spanish ports (1591), Cecil and Fixer, to 
 whom a special political mission was given, being despatched from 
 Lisbon. This mission was no other than to sound Lord Derby and 
 his son as to their willingness to accept the Pretendership to the 
 English crown. Father Persons' instructions to them whilst they 
 were still at Lisbon are now at Hatfield, having been doubtless handed
 
 42 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 been detected on each occasion that they had sent 
 either written communications or blanks to Spain. 
 Eobert Bruce, too, had played them false and be- 
 trayed their secrets, and on this occasion, at Whit- 
 suntide 1593, "the disguised one," as they called 
 Cecil, carried his intelligence in his head instead of 
 in his wallet ; bearing only a pre-arranged token of 
 confidence to his old rector at Valladolid, Robert 
 Persons, who, it was known in Scotland, was Philip's 
 principal guide in the affairs of England. Ruffling 
 in doublet and trunks, with a great Flemish rapier 
 on his thigh, " a strange garb for his profession," as 
 he says, Cecil came to Valladolid in July 1 593, and, 
 having told his story to Persons, was instructed to 
 draw up a statement of his mission in writing for 
 submission to the King. The document is an in- 
 structive one, because, amongst other things, it 
 explains why Father Persons had suddenly^ been 
 
 to Lord Burghley ou their arrival, as both Cecil (under the name of 
 Snowden) and Fixer offered their services to him as spies at once. 
 Cecil appears to have gone to Lancashire and thence to Scotland, but 
 does not seem to have had any information to give to his namesakes at 
 that time, for the honourable reasons .uiven in his Snowden letters to 
 Cecil, though he bore a token from them which proved that he was 
 secretly in their interests (Hatfield Papers, vol. iv.). There is also a 
 most unflattering contemporary account of Cecil in Cardinal Vaughan's 
 Archives at Westminster (vol. viii. p. 71). He was subsequently one of 
 the most active appellants against the Archpriest's authority in Eng- 
 land, to which controversy a further rfference will be made on a subse- 
 quent page. Although he had entered the Jesuit College at Valladolid, 
 it is evident that Cecil continued to share the repugnance of most of 
 the English scholars in Rome to the Jesuit teacliings and methods. 
 
 ^ According to Dingley's confession (State Papers, Domestic, August 
 1592), Sir W illiam Stanley had been toid by Persons, when he was in 
 Spain in the previous year, that " the King had at last yielded to his 
 (Persons') advice to attempt first against England." This refers to the 
 proposed descent on the Lancashire coast, which, as I have already 
 pointed out, could never have been seriously entered upon in 1592,
 
 SCOTTISH INTRIGUES IN SPAIN 43 
 
 brought to smile on the Scottish project. Cecil 
 gives a long account of events in Scotland following 
 on the abortive mission of Ker, and states, for the 
 guidance of the Spanish King, how all the nobles 
 and country stand afiected to the cause, both in the 
 Highlands and the Lowlands. There is much 
 abuse of the ministers and other Protestants, who 
 are said to be unpopular and in a minority, and 
 Philip is assured that " the nobles and people are 
 sick of this tyranny and are yearning for a remedy, 
 and they look to his Majesty {i.e. Philip) for his 
 help to restore the Catholic faith." James is re- 
 presented — truly enough — as weak, mean, and 
 untrustworthy, possessing " no religion or fixed 
 purpose ; " and it is evident all through that this 
 plot, at all events, was being conducted over the 
 Scottish King's head. The demands of the Catho- 
 lics was that 3000 foot-soldiers should be sent from 
 Spain or Brittany, arms for as many more, and 
 stores for two months. They were assured a safe 
 harbour and a welcome in Lochryan ; and a sum 
 of 100,000 ducats was requested for the payment 
 of the Scottish clansmen. The plan was at once to 
 seize the King and capture Edinburgh and Glasgow, 
 *' which they think will be very easy." " They 
 
 especially as Lord Derby was not even sounded as to his co-operation 
 — without which a descent upon his country would have been lolly — 
 until late in 1593. The fate of the unhappy Ricliard Hesketh, when 
 he did broach the subject to the Earl, conclusively pruved to all 
 concerned that Sir William Stanley had made too free with his great 
 kinsman's name. Whatever Persons may have thought, even thing 
 tends to show that Philip had by this time lost hoi^e of conquering 
 England by an attack on the coast, t'uough he would naturally en- 
 deavour to secure a diversion by a feint attack by sea, and by arousing 
 the English Catholics to co-operate with his attack from Scotland.
 
 44 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 would then reduce the rest of Scotland, and expel 
 or capture the principal heretics, and fortify the 
 castles, which are all now utterly unprovided. After 
 this they would make ready to resist the forces of 
 England." They recommended, too, that the traitor 
 Sir William Stanley should be sent with his regi- 
 ment of Irish and English Catholics from Flanders, 
 and a diversion is also suggested by a simultaneous 
 descent of the rebel Earl of Westmorland and 
 Lord Dacre on the east coast of Scotland at Lord 
 Seton's port near Leith, All this had been offered 
 to Philip before, and had met with no ready re- 
 sponse. But there was this difference on this 
 occasion, that instead of suggesting, as before, that 
 James might be forced or persuaded to hecome a 
 Catholic, Father Cecil says : " Finally, these gentle- 
 men are sure that, with his Majesty's help, they will 
 capture the King at once, and will deal with him as 
 his Majesty orders." ^ 
 
 Persons sent "the disguised one" with his state- 
 ment to see Idiaquez, the King's secretary. " He is 
 a good man," he tells him, " who has suffered for the 
 cause, and full credit may be given to him." "With 
 regard to the special business about which he 
 comes," the writer reminds Idiaquez, "I have fre- 
 quently said that Scottish and English affairs might 
 advantageously be taken in hand jointly. The 
 difficulties ivhich have previously presented them- 
 selves to this will he solved by the message of this 
 pi^iest." And then Father Persons grows quite 
 enthusiastic about the " plan," which, he says, will 
 trouble Elizabeth more than anything else in the 
 
 1 Spaiiisli Calendar, vol. iv.
 
 THE JESUITS AND SCOTLAND 45 
 
 world. We shall not be wronging the memory of 
 Father Persons by suggesting that his sudden liking 
 for the Scottish Catholics' plan ^ arose from the fact 
 that their amended programme was intended to shut 
 the door for ever to the Scottish domination of 
 England, and to the doubtful " conversion " of James 
 Stuart. Father Cecil saw Idiaquez at night in 
 Madrid, and pressed him to move Philip to send the 
 expedition in the ensuing winter ; but no rapid 
 
 1 Persons had been ceaseless in his ellbrts to frustrate any plan 
 emanating from the Scottish Catholic party, or intended to get English 
 affairs out of the hands of the Jesuits. The Carthusians had been 
 specially active in seeking a modus vivendi for English Catholics, and 
 had gained the powerful support of the Duke of h^avoy and his wife, 
 the Infanta Catharine, Philiij's second daughter. They sent the Car- 
 thusian prior, Dr. Arnold, to Madrid in 1589 to enli.st Philip in a 
 proposal to work in Scotland through Chisholm, the Carthusian Bishop 
 of Dunblane, and his nephew, the Bishop of Vaison. They professed 
 to be able to bring James to the side of Spain, by force if necessary, 
 and to kill the Chancellor, Maitland. 'llie Bi^hop of Cassano (Owen 
 Lewis), and the other non-Jesuit English and Scottish priests in 
 Italy and France, were at the bottom of the intrigue, which included 
 the obtaining of a cardinal's hat for Lewis and tlie sending of Savoy and 
 his wife to Flanders instead of Parma, giving them the management 
 of the English plans. This would have checkmated the Jesuits 
 entirely, and it is not surprising that Persons promptly upset the plan 
 by persuading Pliilip that the only person who would benefit would 
 be James. At a somewhat later date a more promising plan with a 
 similar object was nearly successful, as it had the active approval of 
 Allen, and most of the English malcontents in Flanders. The pro- 
 posal on this occasion was to replace Parma in the government of 
 Flanders by the extreme Catholic J)uchess of Feria, an Englishwoman, 
 who would direct the English Mission from Brussels. Persons frus- 
 trated this plan also, violently denouncing it as a plot devised by 
 Thomas Morgan and the English Government, which it certainly was 
 not. As a result, Morgan was imprisoned in Brussels as a spy, and 
 was not released until after Parma's death. The priest Dingley, in his 
 confession when captured in England (1592), said, " Per-ons is re illy 
 the only man to be feared by England, for he travailleth the King so 
 constantly. If Persons were removed there would be no more trouble." 
 (See Spanish Calendar, vol. iv., and State Papers, Domestic, 1592.)
 
 46 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 decision could be obtained from the slow-moving old 
 recluse, whose " leaden foot " allowed every oppor- 
 tunity to Heet past him uncaught ; and Father Cecil, 
 pray as he might, was not sent back until the winter. 
 Persons, who knew the King's mode of pro- 
 ceeding, suggested from the first that, if more 
 information was needed, a confidential person 
 speaking English should be sent back with Cecil 
 to Scotland, to report on his return the true condi- 
 tion of afi'airs. Persons suggested William Boden- 
 ham, a member of a well-known Catholic English 
 family settled in Seville ; but his suggestion for 
 some reason was not adopted. There happened, 
 however, to be in Madrid at the time one William 
 Eandall, a native of Weymouth, who had long been 
 settled in Philip's town of Dunkirk, there busying 
 himself mainly in the conveyance of priests and 
 Catholics backwards and forwards from England to 
 the Continent. He was a skilful old pilot, who 
 knew every creek on the south and east coasts of 
 England ; and when the English and Huguenot 
 ships were together in Dieppe harbour in 1591, 
 at the time that Henry IV. and Essex were be- 
 sieainsf Rouen, Randall was the main worker in 
 the plot to burn the combined fleets by " poisoned 
 fireballs," the compounding of which he had learnt 
 from "a lame old villain " at Dunkirk. His services 
 had been enlisted in this plot by the little group 
 of extreme English exiles in Flanders who favoured 
 the policy of personal violence, namely, the Jesuits 
 Holt and Archer, Sir W. Stanley, Captain Jaques, 
 and their accomplices, and it is probable that 
 Randall's visit to Madrid in the summer of 1593
 
 FATHER CECIL'S RETURN 47 
 
 was for the purpose of forwarding in some way the 
 views of this section. At all events, it was he who 
 was deputed to accompany Father Cecil and a 
 Spanish officer named Forres to the west of Scotland, 
 in order to report respectively on the harbour 
 accommodation offered to Fhilip, and the military 
 resources of the Catholic nobles, to whom assurances 
 of Spanish aid were sent by Cecil and Forres on 
 condition of their keeping in arms against the Pro- 
 testants. The envoys sailed from Spain in a Breton 
 barque, and appear to have been accompanied by 
 three missioners from the College at Valladolid. 
 The barque was beset by tempests in the Channel, 
 and forced to take refuge in Flymouth Harbour, in 
 January 1594. This was indeed running into the 
 lion's mouth, for Sir Francis Drake himself was 
 in command of the town, and he had a short way 
 with Spanish emissaries who fell into his hands. 
 What became of the missioners we know not; pro- 
 bably, like others of their kind by scores, they 
 languished and died in prison ; but Father Cecil, 
 who travelled as a Scotsman, was able to satisfy 
 Drake and his colleagues that he was known and 
 trusted by his powerful namesake in Loudon, and 
 both he and Randall were separated from their 
 companions, and kept in private custody until 
 orders came from London. Cecil was then allowed 
 quietly to go on his way, with the Spanish officer as 
 his servant, whilst William Randall, who was kept 
 in ignorance still of Cecil's real character, was sent 
 to the Gatehouse prison, hard by the Abbey of 
 W^estminster, there by slow degrees to have his 
 black secrets wrung out of him by the rack and
 
 48 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 the ingenuity of the amiable Topcliffe, and so dis- 
 appears from the scene. 
 
 It will be noticed that every step in each 
 conspiracy was perfectly known to the English 
 Government as it was taken ; and Father Cecil, 
 with the Spaniard Porres, met the Scottish nobles 
 with the full connivance of Elizabeth's Ministers, 
 who had been informed weeks before that Ilnntly, 
 Errol, and Angus had made their peace with James, 
 and had promised him to submit to the Kirk.^ Thus, 
 at this juncture, Elizabeth was far better informed 
 than James, and she kept in her hands the thread 
 of the intrigue, of the true object of which he was 
 in ignorance. The scathing letter she sent to him 
 by the hand of Lord Zouche, in reply to James's 
 intimation that he had become reconciled to the 
 Earls,^' therefore assumes for us a deeper meaning 
 than it had before. "To see so much," she begins, 
 " I rue my sight, that views the spectacle of a 
 seduced king, an abusing council, and a wry-guided 
 kinijdom. I doubt whether shame or sorrow had 
 the upper hand when I read your last lines to me. 
 . . . There is no prince alive, but if he show fear 
 or yielding, shall have tutors enough, though he be 
 out of minority. And when I remember what sore 
 punishment those lewd traitors should have, then I 
 read again, lest at first I mistook your mind. But 
 when the reviewing granted my lecture true, Lord ! 
 what wonder grew in me that you should correct 
 them with benefits who deserve much severer cor- 
 rection. Could you please them more than save 
 their lives and make them shun the place they 
 
 1 James's letter to Elizabetli, December 7, 1 593 (Camden Society). 
 
 2 Pi'iiited in extenso in 'I'ytler's " History of Scotland."
 
 FATHER CECIL IN SCOTLAND 49 
 
 hate (i.e. the Court) . . . and yet as much enjoy 
 their honours and livelihood as if for sporting 
 travel they were licensed to visit other countries? 
 Call you this banishment ! — to be rid of those 
 whom we fear and let them go to those they love? 
 Now when my eyes read more, then smiled I to 
 see how childish, foolish, and witless an excuse the 
 best of either three made you ! with their items ! of 
 expenses, lacking but one billet, which they best 
 deserved, an item for so much for the cord whose 
 office they best merited. ... I never heard a more 
 deriding scorn ; and I vow that if but this alone, 
 were I you, they should learn a short lesson. For 
 your own sake play the king, and let your subjects 
 see you respect yourself, neither to hide or to suffer 
 danger or dishonour." But in her letter Elizabeth 
 said nothing to indicate her knowledge that, even 
 as she wrote, the Scottish Catholic Earls were 
 pledging themselves to Cecil and Porres to take 
 up arms again, and hand the two realms over to 
 the Spaniards ; for what she wanted to learn was 
 whether James the Shifty had managed again to 
 introduce his own finger into the pasty. It behoved 
 her to watch him carefully, for a powerful Scottish- 
 Spanish force crossing her northern border, where 
 Catholicism was strongest, might well mean the 
 destruction of her glorious life-work and of Pro- 
 testant England. What she with all her keenness 
 failed to see, because she could not follow Philip's 
 mind as we can who have his secret papers before 
 us, was that the moment James himself joined in 
 the Catholic plans, all danger to England from Spain 
 over the Scottish Border disappeared. 
 
 D
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Appeal to Spain of the Irish Catholics — Meeting of the Chiefs in 
 Donegal — The Archbishop of Tuam's mission to Spain — James 
 sends another envoy to Spain — The battle of Glenlivat — Walter 
 Lindsay in Madrid — Suppression of the Catholic Lords in Scot- 
 land—Their renewed appeal to Philip — Its failure, and the 
 reason for it. 
 
 Whilst the intrigue described in the last chapter 
 was in progress, with the intention of bringing 
 Catholicism and the Spanish subjection of England 
 across the Scottish Border, a far more promising 
 plan was ripening elsewhere. The constant efforts 
 of the whole of the Catholic elements in Europe, 
 except the Spanish Jesuitical party, to discover a 
 solution of the difficulty by the conversion of James 
 Stuart ; and the insincere coquetting of the King 
 of Scots with both sides, had made Philip, with 
 the Jesuit Persons at his ear, distrustful and reluc- 
 tant to accept any plan for the English subjection 
 which depended upon Scottish pledges. We have 
 seen that his doubts were only partly overcome 
 when the King of Scots himself was entirely ex- 
 cluded from the conspiracy ; and we shall have 
 occasion to remark that Philip again cooled towards 
 the Scottish plans as soon as James had once 
 more wormed himself into the heart of the Catholic 
 intrigue. 
 
 But no such misgivings assailed Philip the 
 Prudent's mind with regard to Ireland. There
 
 THE IRISH CATHOLICS 51 
 
 there was no king finessing to obtain the reversion 
 of the English crown, no large native Protestant 
 element to dispute for the Government if once the 
 English garrisons were overcome. The English were 
 practically supreme only within their Pale and in 
 the walled cities ; and the introduction of the 
 English, as opposed to the native Irish, rule of 
 succession had caused the existence of at least two 
 claimants to nearly every great estate and chieftain- 
 ship. This, whilst it gave rise to perpetual weaken- 
 ing tribal warfare, and secured to the English the 
 adherence of at least some members of each of the 
 princely families, with their sub-lords and following, 
 who w^ere glad to have their lands confirmed to 
 them by the English crown, provided also a rallying 
 point to native discontent to those who claimed 
 and held their lands by old traditional tenures 
 which every Irish kern understood. The hand of 
 the old Irish chieftain had been sorely hard upon 
 his tenants and under-lords, but at least he stood 
 in the newer order of things under Elizabeth, for 
 Irish feeling and tradition, and for the Irish 
 Catholic faith, against foreign governors, whose 
 rule might and did mean greater material pros- 
 perity, security, and independence for each indi- 
 vidual, but who, after all, were not Irishmen and 
 not Catholics. 
 
 The Munster rising in 1579-80 had clustered 
 around such a feeling as this when it was voiced 
 by James Fitzmaurice-Fitzgerald. At that time 
 Philip had not decided upon open war with Eliza- 
 beth, and the aid he sent to the rebels was timid 
 and tardy, intended to embarrass Elizabeth, not to
 
 52 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 dominate Ireland. The intervention of foreigners 
 on that occasion was Papal rather than Spanish, 
 and it was mainly the Nuncio's prayers and Dr. 
 Sanders' religious enthusiasm that drew Philip into 
 the matter at all.^ In any case, the whole Papal 
 force was slaughtered, and the last Desmond rebellion 
 was suffocated in blood. The boy-son of the un- 
 happy Earl, who had been dragged into the rising 
 against his own interests, was being bred up a 
 prisoner in the Tower of London, and the Catholic 
 kin of James Fitzmaurice were living on the bounty 
 of Philip in Lisbon, whilst the broad domain of the 
 Geraldines was forfeit to the crown of England. 
 
 Thus matters in Ireland remained until 1592. 
 The English-bred Earl of Tyrone had held his chief- 
 tainship of Ulster under the Queen for some years, 
 quarrelling occasionally with his neighbours and 
 vassals — sometimes even bickering with the Vice- 
 roy — but holding the north fairly peaceful without 
 much interference." But in 1592 relations were be- 
 coming strained. Tyrone had become too masterful 
 to remain either a good neighbour or a good vassal, 
 and constant complaints were heard against him. 
 His young son-in-law, Hugh Roe O'Donnell, heir 
 of the great chief of Tyrconnel, was a prisoner in 
 Dublin Castle for his turbulence, and Tyrone made 
 suit almost fiercely for his liberation, but without 
 
 1 For proof of this see original letters in British Museum, MSS. 
 Add. 28,420, and Spanisli Calendai-, vols. ii. and iii. 
 
 2 It should be noted that Tyrone had no right to the chieftainship 
 other than the Queen's grant. Tirlough Lenogh O'Neil was the chief- 
 tain under the Irish rule, and was recognised as such. The son of 
 Shan O'Neil, who had a better title to succeed to the chieftainship than 
 Tyrone after the death of Tirlough, was killed by Tyrone,
 
 O'DONNELL THE RED S3 
 
 effect. In the summer of 1592 O'Donnell succeeded 
 in escaping from prison and hurried down to his 
 country of Donegal, where he took upon himself 
 the chieftainship, notwithstanding the fact that his 
 father was still alive. Leading his clansmen against 
 the English force that occupied his lands, he drove 
 them out with considerable loss, and then stood 
 upon the defensive. In vain the Viceroy threatened 
 and remonstrated ; in vain the Queen herself wrote 
 to Tyrone warning him that he must keep his 
 warlike son-in-law in order or punishment would 
 fall upon them both. O'Donnell the Red stood his 
 ground and defied the Government. Tyrone knew 
 the English better than O'Donnell did, and was less 
 hot-headed. He was not ready yet to brave the 
 whole force that England could send, and began 
 cautiously to cast about for allies whilst professing 
 lip-service to the Queen. Macguire of Fermanagh, 
 Avho claimed his lands by the Irish law, had 
 defied the Viceroy to displace him. MacMahon of 
 Monaghan was in similar case. Brian O'Rourke 
 of Connaught — he of the Battleaxes — Oxford 
 scholar though he was, was discontented because 
 Elizabeth refused to confirm him as successor 
 to his father — that fine old chieftain, Brian of 
 the Ramparts, whom James of Scotland had 
 dishonourably surrendered to Elizabeth only a 
 year or two before, to be hanged and ripped on 
 Tyburn tree. So, as will be seen, there was plenty 
 of discontent upon which to work in the north of 
 Ireland. During the depth of the winter of 1592, 
 when the English troops were snug in their canton- 
 ments, the chiefs of the north and west met in
 
 54 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 conference with seven Irish Catholic bishops, upon 
 one of whom, M'Gavrau, Archbishop of Armagh, the 
 Pope had just conferred the Primacy of the Irish 
 Church. There, in the wilds of misty Donegal, for 
 three days much eloquence and fervour were ex- 
 pended, and vague hopes were counted upon as 
 certainties. We know thus much, though no 
 report exists of the meeting, because a spy of 
 Bingham brought him the news,^ and we can see 
 now, as Bingham could not, how much was true 
 and how much was otherwise. " They have made 
 some great dispatch of certain letters which shall be 
 sent out of hand by Bishop O'Healy (of Tuam) to 
 the Pope and the King of Spain." This much was 
 true, but the new Primate must have drawn strongly 
 upon his imagination if he vouched for the further 
 information attributed to him, namely, that he had 
 accompanied the King of Spain into France^ with 
 
 ^ State Papers, Irish, January 1593. Sir G. Bingham to Sir K. 
 Bingham. 
 
 - Archbishop M'Gavran had recently come from Rome by way of 
 Spain ; he was accompanied by another Irish bishop, Cornelius O'Neil 
 of Killaloe, who remained at Lisbon. Whilst tlie Arciibishop w;is 
 staying in Madrid (June 1 591) the suggestion of an expedition from 
 Ferrol against England, to which reference has already been made on 
 page 37, appears to have been under discussion. The lihh regiment 
 under Sir William Stanley was to have had a larije share in the busi- 
 ness, and the Archbishop appears to have thought that the liberation 
 of Ireland was one of its objects. Writing to Captain Eustace in 
 Flanders from Madrid in June 1591 he says, " I hope in God it will not 
 be long ere we be discharged and delivered from the cruelty of those 
 people {i.e. the Saxons). And although the clergy upon further con- 
 sideration have let (i.e. hindered) the Catholic King about ihese busi- 
 nesses, I doubt not but the people and soldiers that were disposed 
 to succour that poor island, so long time in thraldom, will be ready ere 
 long." He speaks of Philip and his officers as being slow, and says that 
 a Spaniard is to have supreme command of the expedition (Hatfield 
 Papers, vol. iv.). In previous jmges I have shown how unlikely it was
 
 THE MEETING AT DONEGAL SS 
 
 his daughter, the Infanta, who was to be married 
 to the Duke of Guise. Also " that the King of 
 Spain had determined to send two armies next 
 summer, the one to England, the other to Ireland. 
 The army for Ireland should come by Scotland and 
 land in the north (of Ireland) ; but their (i.e. the 
 Spaniards) only want was to have some great man to 
 be, as it were, their leader or general, and they have 
 now thought that Hugh Roe O'Donnell would be the 
 fittest man." Alas ! for Irish hopes. Philip 11. was not 
 in the habit of making up his mind thus rapidly. His 
 thirst for information and for pledges binding others 
 before he bound himself meant many weary voyages 
 backwards and forwards for years to come, and Irish 
 hopes, sanguine as ever, were doomed to many dis- 
 appointments before armies and fleets were possible. 
 It was, moreover, as we have seen, by no means easy 
 for Philip, overburdened with debt and demands as 
 he was, to muster and provision large forces in a 
 poverty-stricken country like Spain, almost without 
 roads and cursed with such a cumbrous administra- 
 tion as his. If the alarmist reports of Irish spies were 
 to be believed, the whole matter was settled, and a 
 powerful invasion of England by Spain was already 
 being prepared on the first cry for help from the 
 Ulster chiefs. This, as we know now, was far from 
 being the case, and we must turn to the State Papers 
 at Simancas to see what really happened. 
 
 Archbishop O'Healy does not appear to have 
 
 that the preparations in Ferrol in 1592 were ever seriously intended by 
 Philip for an attack in force upon England, although it was his policy 
 to keep the English in alarm by pretending that it was, and the vapour- 
 ing of Stanley and the Irishmen in Flanders was doubtless encouraged, 
 to cjive additional strength to the rumour.
 
 56 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 sailed from Ireland until the beginning of April, 
 and probably went first to Rome, as he did not 
 arrive in Madrid before August 1593.^ The note 
 of his mission is struck by a letter he carried from 
 O'Donnell to the exiled Geraldines, Viscount Baltin- 
 glas, and other Irish Catholics in Lisbon.^ The 
 letter was forwarded to the exiles on the arrival 
 of the Archbishop in Madrid, and runs thus : — 
 "Donegal, 8th April 1593. — You will have heard, 
 my dear friends, how I have contrived to escape the 
 jail and fetters in which I lay ; and how, after great 
 travail and difficulty, I came to my own lands, where 
 I found an English personage, a minister of the 
 Queen, Avith many soldiers, whom, by the divine 
 grace, I have killed and cast out of my land in a 
 very short time, and the English have returned no 
 more ; not for want of will to destroy me and do 
 all the harm they can. But I, and the others who 
 joined with me, although we are doing the best we 
 can to defend ourselves, can hardly hold out against 
 the great power of England, unless we get help 
 
 ' It is curious, as showing the duplicity of Tyrone, and the equally 
 sanguine and unfounded hopes of prompt S2:)anish aid being sent, 
 that the earl, writing to the Lord-Deputy of Ireland in May 1593 
 (two months before the Archbishojj of Tuam even arrived in Madrid), 
 informs him, as one of the reasons for not meeting the Lord-Deputy 
 as requested, that " The traitorous bishops have assured upon letters 
 which some have lately received, that the Spaniards will be here by 
 the 20th July at farthest, and so they give out, with every show of 
 joy" (Irish State Papers, May 1593). 
 
 2 Standin, an English Catholic in the Spanish service, who became 
 a spy-aj,'ent for Essex, wrote that a week before he left Madrid in 
 April 1593, Baltinglas and John of Desmond, with eight Irish follow- 
 ers, had arrived there I'rom Lisbon, presumably to ur^ie Philip to in- 
 tervene in Ireland. A man from Ireland was known to have been 
 closeted with the King a few weeks before, and it was suggested, 
 though questioned, that he had offered to l)etray to the Sjjaniards 
 the town of Galway (Birch).
 
 IRISH MISSION TO SPAIN 57 
 
 from his Catholic Majesty. With the common 
 consent of them all, therefore, we have thought 
 well to send the Archbishop of Tiiam (much as we 
 need him here) to treat with his Majesty of this, 
 and to carry to you, gentlemen, who are there, our 
 letters, begging you all to come and help us to fight 
 God's battle, and win back our lands. It is meet 
 that we should understand each other well, and 
 help one another in this matter. I myself will do 
 my part to the death, with the help of the succour 
 I hope from his Majesty, and with your presence 
 and help. God be with ye ; and, pray, hurry the 
 Archbishop back with an answer. From Donegal, 
 this 8th April 1593.— Ardh. O'Donnaill." ' This 
 letter reached Lisbon on the 3rd September, and 
 on the following day the courier was speeding back 
 again to Madrid with fervent letters from Sir Maurice 
 Fitzgerald" and the Bishop of Killaloe to the King 
 of Spain, beseeching him to send aid to the 
 Catholics of Ireland. That of the Irish exiled 
 gentleman is worth transcribing. "Maurice Geral- 
 dine, heir of the Earl of Desmond, and the other 
 Irish gentlemen in your Majesty's service here, have 
 received letters by the xVrchbishop of Tuam, who is 
 now in your Majesty's court, from the most power- 
 ful Catholics in Ireland, saying that they are con- 
 certing a war against the Queen of England, and 
 they beg us to supplicate your Majesty to send them 
 succour with the utmost possible speed. We know 
 that these gentlemen are Catholics, and are at the 
 present time the most powerful people in Ireland ; 
 
 ^ Simancas MSS., Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. 
 
 2 Sir Maurice Fitzgerald and Sir Thomas Fitzgerald had been 
 salaried officers, unattached, on the Armada.
 
 58 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 and seeing that they voluntarily risk their lives to 
 serve God and your Majesty, we have decided to 
 beseech your Majesty, for the love of God, and 
 with the utmost earnestness of which we are cap- 
 able, to favour us all by looking down upon their 
 need and sending them such aid as may be con- 
 sidered advisable. We also beg to be allowed to 
 go with it, to defend and support the enterprise ; 
 and we trust, with the divine favour, that your 
 Majesty will be victorious, and coriquer for yourself 
 the realm of Ireland, and then hy this means enter 
 into England. It would be a great pity for these 
 gentlemen to be lost for lack of succour, as the 
 Earl of Desmond was when he rose like these. 
 We trust in God that your Majesty will consider 
 well the advantage that will ensue to Christendom 
 from this business. The conjuncture is favourable, 
 the cause is just, and all are disposed to do good 
 service. If promptness be displayed, the Queen 
 must withdraw the contingents she keeps in Flan- 
 ders and France, and there will be fewer English- 
 men on the coasts of Spain. We humbly beg your 
 Majesty to favour the enterprise. We ourselves 
 are ready to do anything. — Lisbon, 4th September. 
 Don Maurice Geraldine." Before this, and a similar 
 letter from the Bishop of Killaloe,^ who was also in 
 Lisbon, arrived in Madrid, the Archbishop had gone 
 through the usual process of sifting from the King's 
 secretary, Don Juan de Idiaquez, in order that the 
 latter might discover, for his master's guidance, how 
 much " foundation," as he was wont to call it, there 
 
 ^ This bishop, Cornelius O'Neil, had saved and forwarded to 
 Scotland many of the men wrecked from the Armada on the Irish 
 coast.
 
 IRISH MISSION TO SPAIN 59 
 
 was in the Irish revolt. It must be noted that not 
 a word is said throughout the Archbishop's docu- 
 ments about Tyrone. He was working still in the 
 background ; and in the statement finally handed by 
 the Archbishop to Philip II. the revolted nobles are 
 named as O'Donnell, Macguire, and Brian O'Rourke. 
 The Archbishop in his conference with the King 
 ascribed to himself the principal merit of the rising. 
 "For years past," he said, " he had used great efforts 
 both publicly and privately to unite the Catholics of 
 Ireland, with the object of their taking up arms for 
 the faith, and in your Majesty's service, against the 
 English heretics. His enterprise has succeeded, and 
 the most powerful chiefs of the north of Ireland 
 have now agreed, and have risen against the Queen, 
 with the tacit consent of many other Catholics, who 
 would like to do the same." He then prayed that 
 prompt Spanish aid should be sent. " The gentle- 
 men who had risen," he assured the King, " have 
 in their territories good harbours and troops at 
 their command, and any help sent to them would 
 render the Queen of England powerless for harm. 
 O'Donnell, he told Philip, had sixty Irish miles 
 of land on the sea-coast, with splendid harbours 
 capable of sheltering the greatest navies afloat. 
 He could raise 3000 men of his own vassals, and 
 his kinsmen in Scotland would help him with more. 
 Macguire had forty miles of land, and could raise 
 2000 of his kerns, whilst Bernard (i.e. Brian) 
 O'Rourke, " whose father on his way to Scotland 
 for help was unfortunately captured by the English 
 and decapitated,"^ could "raise 1000 men, and no 
 
 ' It was decidedly cool of young Brian of the Battleaxes to make
 
 6o TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 more, because the English after killing his father had 
 devastated his lands. The lands of the three chiefs 
 together can furnish 600 horse." But the Arch- 
 bishop seems to have attached most importance to 
 the raising of Munster by the two exiled Geral- 
 dines, Maurice and Thomas, in Philip's pay, and 
 a similar call to arms of Leinster on the part of 
 Viscount Baltinglas and Sir Charles O'Connor, who 
 were also pensioned exiles in Spain ; " and this 
 would be easy with but few men, as the country is 
 easily defensible, and particularly one valley, which 
 a few soldiers could hold against the world," The 
 Burkes of Connaught, too, the sanguine Archbishop 
 thought, would supply 1000 men to the combined 
 forces : " and finally, nearly all Irishmen are against 
 the English, and wish to get rid of such evil 
 neighbours." The armed contingent requested was 
 from 5000 to 10,000 soldiers, as many as possible ; 
 and the chiefs promised to welcome them with at 
 least 6000 Irish foot and 600 horse. 
 
 When the Archbishop left the King's chamber 
 from the conference this is what Philip scrawled, 
 in that appalling hand of his, on a note attached 
 to the Irish letters and statements. The note was 
 to the secretary Idiaquez — "Here are the letters 
 and notes that the Irish Archbishop has just given 
 me. And if what they say is true it would be a 
 great pity not to help them. What they demand 
 in one of the letters is very much, and would be 
 so if it were less than it is. You (Idiaquez) talk to 
 
 this a subject for grievance. He wrote to the Privy Council (April 3, 
 1592) only a year before saying that his father had been fittingly 
 punished for his fractiousness. Brian's real grievance, like that of 
 Macguire, was that Elizabeth liesitated to confirm his chieftainship.
 
 PHILIP AND THE IRISH 6i 
 
 him and get to the bottom of it all/ and then we 
 will see what is the very smallest aid that will be 
 needed. If it be so small that we can give it, it 
 will be well to help them. Let Don Cristobal [i.e. 
 De Moura, the other secretary) know what you do 
 in the matter." It is evident from this hesitating 
 note that the great armies and fleets which Philip 
 was to send to Ireland and Scotland at this time 
 (September 1593) were conjured up mainly by the 
 hopes of conspirators who knew little of the Spanish 
 King's methods, or by the eagerness of spies to 
 justify the expenses they incurred. Whoever else 
 may have been deceived, the Cecils and Queen 
 Elizabeth certainly were not. Father Cecil was in 
 Madrid at the same time as the Archbishop of 
 Tuam, and we may be perfectly sure that he knew 
 and conveyed to England pretty accurately the par- 
 ticulars of the Irish demands and the reception of 
 them by Philip.^ The efficient French spy Chateau 
 Martin in Bayonne, moreover, continued to send to 
 Lord Burghley correct accounts of Spanish arma- 
 
 ^ One of the results of the conference between Idiaquez and the 
 Archbishop is seen in a note from the former to the King (Simancas 
 MSS., Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.) saying that " The Irish Archbishop 
 says that it will be of great importance for the success of the con- 
 federacy of Irish Catholics that your Majesty should write very 
 afifectionately to the Earl of Tyrone, whose name is O'Xeil, to induce 
 him to enter openly into the confederacy. He already belongs to it 
 secretly, and he should be assured that your Majesty's aid shall not 
 fail them. The Archbishop consequently begs your Majesty to order 
 a letter to be written to the Earl to that effect." This admission would 
 be quite sufficient to cause Philip to delay action until Tyrone's 
 open adhesion was gained. 
 
 2 As early as the i8th September, an Irish merchant, J. Byrne, of 
 Drogheda, who had just returned from Spain, reported to Bingham 
 that " O'Healy, a priest or bishop, had arrived in Spain to solicit forces 
 to maintain Macguire in his rebellion."
 
 62 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 ments and their destinations, mainly the coast of 
 Brittany and the south-west of France ; and to 
 describe the prostration and feebleness of Philip. 
 To such a depth of impotence, indeed, had Spain 
 already fallen, that approaches were made in October 
 by Philip's authority to Lord Burghley, through 
 Chateau Martin, offering as a basis for peace nego- 
 tiations between the countries that the English 
 should have full liberty to trade in all the Spanish 
 dominions, if the depredations of the English cor- 
 sairs upon Spanish shipping should cease. But 
 Burghley saw and noted that commerce was no 
 longer the main subject at issue. Any negotia- 
 tions that did not exclude Spain from Holland and 
 Brittany were foredoomed to failure, and the sug- 
 gestion came to nothing.^ But the fact that it was 
 made shows how wide of the mark the alarmist 
 reports of the spies were at this juncture." 
 
 1 Hatfield Papers, vol. iv. 
 
 2 For instance, Orme reports to Lord Burghley, 15th December 1593, 
 that he had recently heard at Rouen " from Shelton, a papistical rebel, 
 that the Spanish Armada would be ready to sail fifteen days previ- 
 ously, but whether for Brittany, Ireland, or Scotland was unknown " 
 (Domestic S. P. of the date). From other sources we now know that 
 the only armament Philip had at the time ready or in preparation, 
 except for defence, were sixteen ships at Pasages, intended to carry re- 
 inforcements of 2000 men, three-quarters of whom were recruits, and 
 building materials for fortifications, the destination being Blavet, in 
 Brittany. A few weeks later (January 1594) the spy Moody, at 
 Brussels, wrote (Hatfield Papers, vol. iv.) that since the wars with 
 France began the Spanish army was never so great as it will be in three 
 months' time : " so great as we here do not see how they will be em- 
 ployed except it be for England." He adds that 5000 Spaniards had 
 lately landed in I'jrittany (which was untrue), and that fifty sail, with 
 10,000 men, had arrived near Bordeaux, "which are to go to Scotland." 
 " I assure you the expectation for England was never so great as at this 
 present." Tlie English Catholic refugees in Flanders seem, indeed, to 
 have principally amused themselves by exaggerating the power of 
 Spain and the danger of England, wliich suitud Philip exactly.
 
 THE IRISH CONSPIRACY 63 
 
 As soon as the Geraldines in Lisbon had news of 
 the position of affairs in Ireland by the Archbishop's 
 letters, they sent a follower of theirs, one John 
 Slatimor, to report on the feeling in Munster and 
 Leinster towards the revolt. But an Anglo-Irish 
 spy in Bilbao — one Patrick Comerford — was able 
 to send particulars of his mission to Ireland before 
 Slatimor sailed, and the footsteps of the latter were 
 dogged with a warrant for his arrest wherever he 
 went. He was, however, fortunate in being able to 
 elude his pursuers, and returned to Spain before the 
 Archbishop of Tuam left, giving Philip a vivid 
 picture of the determination of the Irish Catholics, 
 and the confusion and ineptitude of the English 
 attempts to crush the budding revolt. There were, 
 he said, 4000 Irishmen in arms against the Queen 
 in Ulster, of whom 1000 w^ere harquebusiers ; and 
 the English forces had been rendered powerless by 
 dissensions. The response of the Irish contingents 
 to the English summons had, moreover, been dis- 
 appointing, and the Viceroy stood upon the defen- 
 sive until fresh troops came from England. "The 
 principal gentlemen of Munster have sent to Sir 
 Maurice and Sir Thomas Geraldine to say secretly 
 that they are ready to rise against the English at any 
 moment, if the exiles will come to their aid ; " and 
 a similar message was sent to Viscount Baltinglas 
 from his friends and allies, notably Feagh M'Hugh 
 (O'Byrne), " who can do great harm to the English, 
 as he has some strong places on his lands ; especially 
 one famous valley, where fifteen soldiers with plenty 
 of ammunition could hold the place against the 
 world." "Our people," Slatimor reported to the King,
 
 64 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 "are anxiously awaiting the reply (i.e. of Philip), 
 and are full of hope and energy. The aftairs of 
 Ireland are now in such a condition that if his 
 Majesty wdll send prompt and powerful aid, great 
 effect will be produced. The Queen will be kept 
 busy at home, with small cost to his Majesty. 
 In order to keep the war alive it will be well 
 to send at once some arms and ammunition, 
 especially harquebuses and powder ; and one of 
 the Irish gentlemen in his Majesty's pay should be 
 sent thither to animate them with his presence." 
 The Archbishop of Tuam was also warned that the 
 English were on the watch to intercept and arrest 
 him on the voyage home.^ Whether they succeeded 
 in this is unknown. The Archbishop sailed in the 
 winter for Ireland, with encouraging messages and 
 promises to the chiefs in arms, and a flattering letter 
 from the King himself to Tyrone ; but no more was 
 ever heard of him, and neither the prelate nor his 
 letters ever reached Ireland. In the meanwhile the 
 King of Scots was making desperate attempts to 
 regain touch of the Spanish intrigues of his Catholic 
 nobles. Father Cecil and Torres found on their 
 arrival in Scotland, early in 1594, that James's diplo- 
 macy or his sympathies had already attracted to his 
 side again many of the Catholics. The treason of 
 Bothwell (who at the time was called a Protestant 
 and an English partisan, though he shortly after- 
 wards changed sides and joined Iluntly) in seizing 
 and holding the King in durance in the autumn, 
 had led James again to surround himself with 
 
 1 Slatimor also reports that the English have discovered and are 
 working a rich silver mine near Wexford. Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.
 
 JAMES AGAIN IN THE PLOT 65 
 
 Catholics and enemies of the Stuart faction. In 
 December 1593, we are told by a gossip at the 
 English court, that there was much talk of James 
 going to Mass ; and that " Lord Hume, a remark- 
 able Papist of the realm, lay in that King's pallet." ^ 
 But the presence of Lord Zouche in Scotland and 
 Elizabeth's constant pressure had so far prevented 
 the complete reconciliation between the King and 
 the three great rebel Catholic Earls, whose promised 
 submission to the Kirk was still unfulfilled. He 
 was drawn closer to them soon after the coming of 
 Father Cecil and Porres by another bold attempt 
 of Bothwell to seize his person ; and the Earls, 
 encouraged by the promises — and, it is asserted/ 
 also money — sent to them by the hand of Porres, 
 assumed an increasingly threatening attitude to- 
 wards the Protestants,^ once again mustering their 
 followers, in accordance with the message sent to 
 them from Spain, and bidding defiance to the ex- 
 communications of the Scottish Church, the sentence 
 of confiscation and death passed upon them by the 
 Scottish Parliament, and the real or pretended ful- 
 minations against them by the Scottish King. 
 
 ^ Antony Standen, Bircli's " Memoirs of Elizabeth." 
 
 ^ Robertson. 
 
 3 Dr. Morrison, the Eatl of Essex's agent in Scotland, wrote in 
 November 1593 that credible intelligence had just arrived that the 
 King of Spain was preparing vast armaments for next spring. The 
 King of Scots, he continued, had so strong a desire to avenge himself 
 upon Bothwell, that he gave himself no rest. But finding that all 
 persons wished well to Botliwell except the Papists, the King was 
 obliged to make use of the latter, who were extremely glad of his 
 Majesty's confidence, and, under that pretence, pursued their own 
 interests and those of Popery (Birch). It was probably not so much 
 James's desire for vengeance against Bothwell, as to insinuate himself 
 into the Spanish scheme again that drew him to Huntly and his friends. 
 
 E
 
 66 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 James must have been fully informed by this time 
 of the mission of Father Cecil to Spain, and his 
 counter-stroke was to send an envoy of his own to 
 Madrid, and to make a great show of negotiation with 
 Philip, in order to prevent any action being taken 
 in Scotland over his head. " II y'a grande com- 
 munication entre les rois d'Ecosse et d'Espagne," 
 writes Chateau Martin in March 1594, and a few 
 days later he repeated the information to Burghley. 
 Elizabeth was extremely indignant to hear this, and 
 wrote, in her vigorous way, to James : " I do avowe 
 that if you do aught by forainers ; which I do know 
 in end worse for yourself and country, hit shall be 
 the worst aide that ever king had, and I fear may 
 make me do more than you will call back in haste." ^ 
 But the money she promised to James to help him 
 to put down the Catholic Earls and hold his own 
 without Spanish support might have been spared 
 
 1 Elizabeth to James, May i8, 1594 (Camden Society). There is 
 no doubt that the belief that James had opened cnmmunicaLions 
 with Spain was true, although it is clear that his approaches would 
 never have moved Philip. R. Douglas, writing froni Wliitting- 
 hame, 8th June 1504, to his uncle, Sir Archibald Douglas, the Scots 
 ambassador in England, refers to a rumour that a barque liMd come to 
 Scotland from Spain with a money subsidy. " As concerning the gold 
 which was thought to have come to our (rebel) Lords, I have been 
 curious to know the truth thereof ; but ye shall believe me there was 
 no such thing ; for in the bark there were only three passengers, a 
 Spaniard, a Scotsman, and an English priest, who I hear has gone to 
 England by our borders. The Spaniard had a message to the King 
 with large otters ; but has not appeared, seeing the time not proper; 
 and large promises he has made to these Lords of money and any other 
 help tliey can crave against that country {i.e. England). Tliis is all I 
 can learn of the matter." It is not certain whether this refers to the 
 arrival of Cecil and Porres in the country some months previously, or 
 to the mission of Colonel Semple, who went from Spain to Scotland 
 about this time with some handsome presents from Philip to James 
 and his wife, but the intelligence proves the general belief that James 
 was intriguing with Spain at, the .same time as the Catholic P]ai'ls.
 
 THE BATTLE OF GLENLIVAT 67 
 
 (as in the end it probably was, but for other reasons) 
 if the English Queen had known how complete an 
 antidote was James himself to the intrigues in Spain 
 of the Scottish Catholics. Whatever else might 
 happen, it was quite certain that Philip would never 
 spend a ducat or sacrifice a trooper to benefit him. 
 This was perhaps the reason why, although Huntly 
 and his friends were in open rebellion, and had thus 
 fulfilled the conditions upon which Spanish support 
 was to be sent to them, month followed month and 
 still no aid from Spain came, though the Catholics 
 depending upon Philip looked for it from day to 
 day.' 
 
 James was powerless with his own forces alone 
 to put down the rising, even if he was really inclined 
 to do so ; but by the autumn he could no longer 
 resist the pressure of England and his Protestant 
 subjects, and was obliged to make a show of bring- 
 ing the rebels to obedience. The Campbells and 
 the Forbeses had old tribal feuds with them, and 
 to those clans James gave his commission to invade 
 the lands of the Catholic peers. Young Argyll, a 
 boy of eighteen, commanded the Protestant army of 
 7000 men, and met the small force of 1500 Gor- 
 dons and Lowlanders under Huntly and Errol at 
 Glenlivat in October 1594. 
 
 1 Foulis writes from Edinburgh to Antony Bacon (Birch's " Eliza- 
 beth"), in July 1594. urging the need for Elizabeth to help James with 
 money. " It is necessar}' that he {i.e. James) be satisfied . . . and in 
 time, for the Papists begin to show themselves. The three Earls have 
 six or seven hundred men in the field, and expect to receive forces from 
 Spain very soon. It is thought that lo or 12 sail (i>. of Spa iards) are 
 already at sea. The King (James) had troops enough to keep the Earls 
 quiet, but wanted money."
 
 68 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 " Maccallura More cam' f rae the west 
 Wi' mony a bow and brand ; 
 To waste the Rhinnes he thought best, 
 The Earl o' Huntlie's land. 
 He swore that nane should him gainstand 
 Except that they were fey, 
 But a' should be at his command 
 That dwalt by north o' Tay." 
 
 But alas ! for the young chieftain's boasting ; for, 
 as the ancient ballad tells with tedious minuteness, 
 the "Gay Gordons," with their little force, had cannon, 
 of which the wild Campbell Highlanders knew but 
 little, and they routed Argyll completely,^ 
 
 "Now I hae you already tauld 
 Huntlie and Errol's men 
 Could scarce he thirteen hundred called, 
 The truth if ye would ken. 
 And yet Argyll and his thous^and ten 
 Were they that took the race ; 
 And though that they were nine to ane, 
 They caused them tak' the chase. 
 Sae Argyll's boast it was in vain, 
 (He thocht sure not to tvne ^), 
 That if he durst come to the plain, 
 He would gar every nine 
 Of his lay hold upon ilk man 
 Huntlie and Errol had ; 
 And yet for uU his odds he ran 
 To tell how ill he sped." 
 
 1 With regard to this, Elizabeth wrote to .lames as follows in October 
 1594 (Letters of Elizabeth and James, Caindin Soc.) : "You see . . . 
 what danger it bredes a king to glorify too liie and too soudainly a boy 
 of yeres and conduict, wliose untimely a^'e for discretitm bredes ra>ch 
 consent and uiidesentacti(ms. Such sj)eke eie they weigh, and attempt 
 ere they consider. The weight of a kingly state is of more poix than 
 the shalownes of a rasche yong man's hed can waigh." 
 
 2 i.e. to lose.
 
 CECIL RETURNS TO SPAIN 69 
 
 It was clear to the Catholic Lords that, although 
 they had beaten Argyll, they could not continue un- 
 assisted to stand if James attacked them in earnest 
 with the aid that Elizabeth would surely lend him in 
 such circumstances. Two months before the battle 
 they had sent Walter Lindsay, Lord Balgarys, to 
 Madrid, fervently praying Philip to fulfil his promise 
 to them ; ^ and on the day following their victory 
 they decided to send back Father Cecil with the 
 Jesuit, Father Gordon, Huntly's uncle, to represent 
 their desperate position to the King of Spain. 
 Eventually, Father Gordon was unable to make the 
 voyage, and was replaced by Hugh Barclay,' who 
 accompanied Cecil to Spain, and in addition to the 
 almost despairing letters of credence and exhortation 
 which they carried, Angus — who appears to have 
 been a good Spanish scholar — wrote to Philip 
 placing himself absolutely at his service, without 
 reservation of any sort. " In this unhappy country," 
 he said, " we have no other hope than the aid of 
 your Highness ; and in the name of the rest of the 
 Catholics here, I supplicate your Highness to help 
 heartily a cause so just, meritorious, and necessary, 
 in conformity with the statement which will be made 
 to you by Father Cecil, who is the bearer of this. 
 As regards my own person, I beg your Highness to 
 favour me by giving me this consolation in all my 
 troubles, namely, to place me amongst the number 
 of your favoured loyal servants, and to dispose 
 entirely at your will of all I have and all I am."^ 
 
 * Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. 
 
 ^ Angus in his letter to Idiaquez introducing him says, "He has 
 fought for the faith until he had a rope round his neck." 
 ^ Simancas MSS., Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.
 
 70 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Before Cecil had started on his journey (November 
 1594), Lord Balgarys saw Philip at the Escorial 
 (October 20), and presented the demands of the 
 Catholic Lords. To those who know the Spanish 
 King's methods and principles, it is sufficient to 
 read Balgarys' statement of demand to see at once 
 that his mission was destined to fail. Philip missed 
 most of the opportunities of his life through his 
 insatiable desire to force pledges and conditions 
 upon others whilst remaining only vaguely engaged 
 himself. It must have been a novel sensation for 
 him to find that the Scotsmen, though they were 
 pleading to him as suppliants, were at the same 
 time trying to bind him down to all manner of 
 things beforehand. The first condition presented 
 by Balgarys would have been sufficient to stay all 
 aid from Philip, even if it had stood alone. '* That 
 his Majesty should grant him a patent, assuring them 
 (the Scots) their liberties, and that the war should be 
 declared to be undertaken to restore the Catholic 
 religion. That for the entrance into England, the 
 command should be given either to the Cardinal 
 Archduke Albert or his brother the Archduke Ernest. 
 Either of them would be welcomed by Scotsmen. 
 That for the war in Scotland itself, his Majesty . . . 
 should select for command a Catholic Scottish noble 
 during the time the King (James) remains a heretic ; 
 and, indeed, even if he change his opinions, as his 
 conversion cannot be believed in ; and that his 
 Majesty (Philip) should confer some dignity upon 
 the general so selected. That a fleet should be sent 
 to protect them, and an army to march into England. 
 That twenty small ships should be granted to them,
 
 FRESH APPEALS TO PHILIP 71 
 
 with 1000 jjood horses, and money to arm and 
 pay 24,000 Scotsmen, as well as arras for the 
 Scottish priests ; for their own — which were their 
 books — have been burnt by the heretics. That the 
 Spaniards, both in the army and the fleet, should be 
 pious and willing to mix with Scotsmen, so that 
 they should form one army under a single general. 
 It is left to his Majesty's discretion what steps 
 should be taken to restore the Catholic faith. That 
 priests should be sent with full authority to check 
 the license of the soldiery as much as possible. 
 That the money sent from Spain should be destined 
 to certain definite uses, and not be applicable to 
 any other purposes. There should be a written 
 undertaking to this effect given to the King. That, 
 with the exception of the soldiers necessary for the 
 defence of the fleet, the rest of the army should 
 enter England without delay, as otherwise war 
 might break out in Scotland itself, which would 
 embarrass the expedition and render the result 
 doubtful. No delay will arise from the Scots, as 
 they are ready to obey orders." In addition to this, 
 his Majesty is asked to found a college, where the 
 sons of the principal Scots may be educated and 
 taught letters, " as well as the reverence they owe 
 to the King of Spain, which should be obligatory 
 on their successors in Scotland," All this was very 
 different in tone from the first message sent in the 
 previous year by Father Cecil. There was no more 
 talk about "dealing with" James, as the King of 
 Spain might order ; and the absence of all reference 
 to the future sovereignty of England seems to indi- 
 cate that the renewed kindness between James and
 
 72 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 his Catholic subjects had not been without influence 
 upon the plans of the latter/ At all events, the 
 new conditions presented to Philip by Balgarys left 
 the door open for the assertion of James's claims 
 under Spanish auspices, on the easy condition of his 
 " conversion." But this was not at all in accordance 
 with the views of Philip and his Jesuit advisers, and 
 thenceforward the charming of the Scottish Catho- 
 lic nobles fell upon deaf ears in the Spanish court. 
 Bland assurances of sympathy they got in plenty 
 from the King and his secretaries and confessors, 
 sometimes even vague, noncommital promises, suffi- 
 cient to ensure their employment as a diversion if 
 necessary ; but Philip's short-lived trust in Scotsmen 
 withered from the time that Balgarys saw him at 
 the Escorial in October 1594. 
 
 Father Cecil arrived in Madrid in December 1594,^ 
 and added his prayers to those of Balgarys ; and 
 
 ^ It must not be forgotten that Philip's claim to the English crown 
 depended mainly upon the " heresy " of James ; the alleged informality 
 of the marriages of his parents and of his paternal grandparents being 
 an afterthought of small importance. The reconciliation of James to 
 the Catholic Church in Scotland, however half-hearted it might be, 
 would therefore have entirely altered the position of Philip and his 
 daughter the Infanta with regard to the English succession. This was 
 the principal reason why any solution depending upon the reconcilia- 
 tion of James was so vigorously opposed by Philip and the Jesuits. 
 It would have suited Spanish views ])erfectly if the Catholic Scottish 
 nobU'S had captured James and killed him, but for them to capture 
 and convert him was the last tiling desired. 
 
 '^ The Venetian ambassador in Madrid wrote to the Doge at this 
 time (loth December 1594): " Two Scotch gentlemen came here this 
 month on pretext of private affairs. They have had various inter- 
 views with the King ; and in the name of the King of Scotland they 
 have ex])laiued that his Majesty is afraid of treachery on the part 
 of some of his powerful Catliolic vassals. He is afraid to make an 
 open enemy of the Queen of England, otherwise he would declare 
 himself a Catholic ; both because he is so inclined and in order to
 
 PHILIP IS IRRESPONSIVE 73 
 
 early in 1595 the Laird of Ladyland also came from 
 vScotland with the last despairing cry of the Earls. 
 Heartsick of the cool procrastination of Philip, 
 which, of course, they failed to understand, for they 
 could not look at the King's hand as we have 
 the privilege of doing, the three envoys addressed 
 a letter to Philip (in May ?) which set forth the 
 hopeless position of Huntly and his friends. "Sire," 
 they wrote, "the Scottish nobles, who with their 
 blood have fulfilled all that in their name was 
 promised to your Majesty by the priest John Cecil ; 
 and not alone by their firm profession of the Catho- 
 lic faith, but also by their devotion to your Majesty's 
 service, have risked their lives, estates, goods, and 
 reputation, and liave risen in arms against the 
 united forces of England and Scotland, gaining the 
 glorious victory they did in October (i.e. Glenlivat) 
 over the English troops sent from Ireland and the 
 Scottish troops paid by the English Queen : on 
 which occasion they captured the King's standard, 
 and his commission ordering the expulsion of all 
 Papists, Seminarists, Jesuits, and other confederates 
 of Spain. They now humbly pray your Majesty 
 to send them promptly the aid promised to them in 
 your Majesty's name by Serjeant Porres and John 
 Cecil. In full dependence upon your Majesty's 
 
 save his person from tliese treacherous attacks. At first the (Spanish) 
 Mini>ters were suspicious of this mission, thinking that it might cover 
 some ruse of the Queen df England, especially as it is known that the 
 English intend to attack the Indian fleet next year. Finally, they 
 resolvt-d to send a private emissary to Scotland, as was done last week, 
 to speak to the King, and to throw more light on the matter" (Venetian 
 Calendar). Whether this refers to the mission of Cecil and Barclay, or 
 to other envoys simultaneously sent bv James to circumvent them, is 
 nut clear ; but the latter is probably the case.
 
 74 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 promise, the said nobles have placed themselves 
 in the dangerous position already described, re- 
 fusing all offers of agreement made to them on 
 behalf of the Queen of England, to the effect 
 that they should have full protection and liberty 
 for their faith within their own territories, if they 
 would undertake not to treat with Spain. It is 
 now about two years ago since your Majesty sent 
 Serjeant Porres and gave them hopes of succour, 
 and Baron Balgarys has been here for the last seven 
 months pleading for them. They have now des- 
 patched Baron Ladyland and John Cecil as the 
 last messengers they will be able to send on this 
 business. Your Majesty is already informed of the 
 need for sending prompt aid to these gentlemen ; 
 and how greatly such aid would serve the cause 
 of God and your Majesty. In all other things 
 they submit themselves to your Majesty's orders ; 
 and only supplicate your Majesty, if possible, to 
 fulfil your royal word. If this be impossible, they 
 pray for a reply and dismissal.— John Cecil. Bal- 
 thasar (i.e. Walter) de Balgarys. Ladyland."^ A 
 
 ^ Rolstoii, Essex's spy at Fuentarrabia, writes under date of January 
 31, 1595 : " The Scots gentleman has now got his despatch and will be 
 here in twenty days. For this reason it will be proper to give orders 
 on the coast of Norfolk to finger him in his way if it be possilile. He 
 calleth himself Walter Lindsay, and the master of the ship is Thomas 
 Sutherland of Aberdeen. It is oj)enly said at Fuentarrabia that he was 
 sent to Spain by seven Earls of Scotland, of wliom the Karl liothwell 
 and Earl of Huntly be the chiefs. What despatch he obtained I know 
 not till he cometh to Fuentarrabia. All I can learn is thattliose Eails 
 had sworn to make war against the Queen of England if the Kin',' of 
 Spain would help them" (Birch). In March 1595 the Earl of Mar 
 wrote to the Earl of Essex : "As to the negotiation of Lindsay, I think 
 as yet the directors of him have received small or no comfort of his 
 message." In November 1595 Mr. Aston wrote from Edinburgh
 
 DEFEAT OF HUNTLY 75 
 
 further petition of similar date prayed Philip to 
 intercede with the Pontiff, and prevail upon him to 
 grant to the Catholic Lords in arms the subsidy of 
 5000 ducats a month which he had offered to James 
 in June 1594 if he would take up arms against 
 England. 
 
 But it was already too late for Philip to have 
 helped them, even if he had wished to do so. 
 James had, for once in his life, shown some activity 
 and boldness. He had pawned his jewels and 
 pledged what credit he had, and summoning all that 
 was loyal and Protestant of his realm, had com- 
 pletely crushed Huntly and Errol. Driven to their 
 mountain strongholds, their lands wasted and their 
 houses burnt, they humbly begged the King's per- 
 mission to retire beyond the sea. With their exile 
 the Catholic revolt was at an end in Scotland, and 
 the King's position with the Protestant party firmer 
 than ever it had been. In July 1595 he wrote to 
 Elizabeth complaining of her slackness in helping 
 him, and again begging for her aid against the 
 Catholics ; for during the time of struggle into 
 which her railing had driven him she had silently 
 stood aloof. Again he sought to spur her as before 
 with hints at her own danger : " Surelie, Madame, 
 if it shal please you to wey it, ye will find we both 
 are but at a truce and not at peace with the Romishe 
 
 (Birch) that they were in great fear in Scotland of the coming of the 
 Spaniard, and reports — from a letter received from a Scotsman in Spain 
 — of the great preparations being made. "Mr. Walter Lindsay has 
 been honourably entertained in Spain and is made a knight. He has 
 obtained all he desired, both for himself and the banished lords, and is 
 coming to Flanders with the Cardinal " (Archduke Albert). It will be 
 seen that Rolston was mistaken, and that Balgarys remained in Spain.
 
 76 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Spanische practices. These Spanolised rebels of 
 mine that are fledd the cuntrey are but retired to 
 fetch a greater fairde if they may." ^ How far James 
 may have really believed this it is hard to say, but 
 wittingly or unwittingly, he had ruined the hopes 
 of his rebel Catholic Lords by his artful intervention 
 on the same side. It is giving him, perhaps, too 
 much credit for penetration to suppose that he 
 foresaw the exact result of his action ; he probably 
 intended merely to secure for himself the benefit 
 of any Spanish movement, and did not recognise 
 that his participation in Catholic plans would pre- 
 vent a Spanish expedition altogether. How little 
 the Lords themselves still understood this, and how 
 completely James had outwitted them, is best told 
 in the words of the envoy they sent to Spain from 
 Paris after their flight from Scotland. This was 
 Matthew Semple, probably a son of Lord Semple, 
 and CL nephew of Colonel Sir William Semple, who 
 was an officer in Philip's pay. This is the statement 
 handed to the Spanish King by Semple : — " On the 
 5th July Matthew Semple left Paris for Spain, on 
 behalf of the Earls of Huntly and Bothwell,^ and 
 Lord Semple, all of whom left Scotland in conse- 
 quence of the confusion in the news coming from 
 Flanders, hy ivhich the Catholics were made to 
 believe that his Majesty [Philip) ivould do nothing 
 for Scotland except with the co-operation of the 
 King. The King of Scotland was also kept in- 
 
 1 James to Elizabeth, July 1595 (Camden Society). 
 
 - Francis Stuart, Earl of Both well, the ultra- Protestant, who had 
 so often been sheltered by Elizabeth after his attacks upon James and 
 his Catholic advisers, had now joined his former op2ionent>;, and lived 
 for the rest of his life on Philip's grudging charity.
 
 JAMES OUTWITS THE CATHOLICS 77 
 
 formed (i.e. by the Catholics) of what was in 
 progress, and he deceitfully continued on good 
 terms with the Lords. They, however, knew his 
 intentions, and paid no attention to his doings, 
 still hoping that his Majesty (Philip) would not 
 allow so much injustice to be done. But as, con- 
 trary to their expectations, an answer was so long 
 delayed, they began to suspect that the corrupt 
 management of the Scottish King had upset the 
 plan, as he not only contrived this trick in Flanders 
 [i.e. to spread the false intelligence referred to above), 
 but also industriously sought to gain the nobles, 
 either by force or chicanery. At last, as no answer 
 came {from Spain), they concluded that his manoeuvres 
 had succeeded, although the King of Scots wrote 
 to them repeatedly that he was of the same intention 
 as they were, and was himself secretly planning the 
 means (to help them), pending the arrival of aid 
 from Spain. ^ He also said that it was necessary 
 for him to maintain a secret correspondence with 
 them. He said, however, that he must still appear 
 severe publicly, and assured them that he only 
 wanted a show of obedience to him, by two or three 
 of them leaving Scotland for any other country but 
 the dominions of the King of Spain, for as long or 
 
 ' Archibald PrimTose, writing on the yth August 1595 to John 
 Colville (Bannatyne Club, Colville Letters) says that "Philip, by means 
 of his instruments in Sc(jtland, had ottered James a hundred thousand 
 crowns if he would give liberty of conscience to the Catholics in his 
 realm, with promise of further payments when toieration was fully 
 estaV)lislied." Primrose blames the Chancellor and other Ministers of 
 James for his underhand dealings Avith the Catholics, but says that as 
 he (James) was the same " auld man," in his opinion " there is no guid 
 to be expectit at his handis," though he (Primrose) hopes to find a 
 "way to undo the " traffique."
 
 78 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 short a period as they liked. This was written to 
 them secretly and with many expressions of affection ; 
 but there was a public arrangement that many should 
 be ostensibly banished, although only the three 
 named really went. This was agreed to by the 
 Catholics, in order to test the truth of the news 
 from Flanders, spread by idle people there who for 
 years have had no communication with Scotland. 
 The Lords left their lands well guarded by the rest 
 of the Catholics, such as Angus, Herrys, and Errol, 
 who hold the authority of these in their absence. 
 Huntly is at Cologne, and Bothwell and Semple in 
 Paris. Semple first passed through Flanders to test 
 the truth of the reports, but could find no impartial 
 person to inform him, and went on to Paris, where 
 advices were received from Huntly which caused 
 them to despatch Matthew Semple to Spain to learn 
 the true state of affairs, . . . We beg that the 
 resolution arrived at may be prompted by the know- 
 ledge that the love and determination of the Catholics 
 will not waver if his Majesty will treat them in 
 accordance with their deserts ; and they urge his 
 Majesty to act with more promptitude either in 
 deeds or resolutions in writing, and, if promises are 
 punctually fulfilled, he may always count upon the 
 fidelity of the Catholic Lords. — Madrid, August 
 
 1595-'" 
 
 Nothing can be imagined more likely to alienate 
 
 Philip than this. The Catholic Lords confessed how 
 
 ready they had been to fall into the trap, and to 
 
 include in their plans for the future the King whom 
 
 they had formerly proposed to capture and " deal 
 
 ^ Siniancaa MSP., Si)anish Calendar, vol. iv.
 
 FAILURE OF THE CATHOLIC SCOTS 79 
 
 with " as the Spanish King might desire. They had 
 been outwitted in counsel and thoroughly beaten 
 in the field ; and far from being able to help Philip 
 in England,. could not help themselves or their cause 
 in their own country. And yet they made even 
 their affection and steadfastness depend upon the 
 King of Spain's "treating them in accordance with 
 their deserts," and their fidelity to him conditional 
 upon the punctual fulfilment of his promises and his 
 greater promptitude in deeds or resolution. Philip 
 was not accustomed to be addressed in this way. 
 He worked behind an impenetrable veil, and, like 
 the decrees of an inscrutable providence, his deci- 
 sions had to be accepted by all men with bowed 
 heads as the emanations of a divinely inspired 
 wisdom. To make him a party to a bargain, and 
 to measure allegiance to him by his own fulfilment 
 of conditions, was no less than impious in the eyes 
 of those by whom he was surrounded. So the 
 mission of Matthew Semple was as fruitless as that 
 of Balgarys had been, and the man who had won 
 the game, so far, by his cunning was James Stuart.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The condition of the Catholics in England — Disagreement hetween 
 the Jesuits and Seculars — Party politics in the English Court — 
 Real and pretended plots against the Queen — Father Young's 
 confessions — The irreconcilable English refugees — The conft-ssions 
 of Webster — Polwhele's and Collen's plots — Daniel's and Cab ill's 
 confessions — Arrest of Father Henry Walpole — The doubtful 
 evidence in support of most of the so-called plots. 
 
 We have hitherto been concerned mainly in de- 
 scribing the intrigues by which it was proposed to 
 utilise the Catholic elements in Scotland and Ireland 
 for the purpose of subverting the established order 
 in England. We must now glance at the position 
 of the English Catholics themselves in the new 
 circumstances which followed the defeat of the 
 Armada. At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, 
 the general desire for peace, and the lack of authori- 
 tative fixity of the Roman practice, had caused the 
 mass of the people, clerical and lay, to acquiesce 
 without open revolt in the change in the religion 
 of the country. They attended church, it is true 
 with some mental reservation, and not a few of 
 them still secretly observed the old practices ; but 
 a generation that had already seen at least three 
 radical changes effected by law in the established 
 religion of the country was not prepared to risk 
 property and life by going to war with authority 
 to resist the fourth ; and there can be no doubt 
 
 that, if England had been free from outside inter- 
 
 80
 
 THE ENGLISH CATHOLICS 8i 
 
 ference, the end of Elizabeth's reign would have 
 seen the Reformation permanently and peacefully 
 settled in the country by a workable compromise 
 depending upon general consent. The earlier con- 
 spiracies against Elizabeth and Protestantism that 
 took place arose, not amongst the common people 
 or the clergy, but amongst the nobles and higher 
 gentry — the Arundels, Lumleys, Nevilles, Percies, 
 Howards, Dacres, Montagus, and the like — who 
 resented the displacing of the ancient nobility from 
 their commanding position in the councils of the 
 sovereign,^ in favour of the secretarial class and new 
 men who were trusted by Elizabeth. It was with 
 the nobles that the successive Spanish ambassadors 
 from 1559 to 1585 wove their constant plots; but 
 the evil fate that overtook the successive conspira- 
 cies and conspirators had, before the time of the 
 Armada, served as a warning to a class that collec- 
 tively had so much to lose by unsuccessful rebellion ; 
 and although the majority of them remained Catholic 
 in their sympathies, they had grown too cautious 
 to be openly disloyal. 
 
 That a condition of things that threatened to 
 allow Catholicism to die out gradually and peace- 
 fully in England should be accepted without a 
 struggle by the leaders of the Church abroad was 
 not to be expected. A certain number of English- 
 men and Welshmen, who were either too con- 
 scientious or too ambitious and deeply pledged 
 
 1 This was the principal pretext for the rising of the Northern 
 Earls, and was recited in the Pope's Bull of excommunication in 1570 
 as being one of the great misdeeds of Elizabeth which had called for 
 her condemnation. 
 
 F
 
 82 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 to change their faith at the bidding of Queen and 
 Parliament, retired to Catholic countries, where they 
 might enjoy their religion openly without molesta- 
 tion. These men had no more desire, at first, to 
 see their country submitted to the foreigner than 
 other Englishmen ; but they were naturally de- 
 termined, if they could, to see her Catholic. The 
 establishment of Father Allen's seminary at Douai 
 in 1568 answered this wish, by providing for the 
 education of young Englishmen in the Catholic 
 faith. Allen himself was good, gentle, and single- 
 hearted. Whilst yet a layman he had done his 
 best in England to dissuade his fellow-Catholics 
 from attending the Reformed services, and thus 
 gradually lapsing to Protestantism ; and the imme- 
 diate object of his seminary was to furnish a stream 
 of ardent young zealots to preach the same doctrine.^ 
 All sorts of youths flocked to the new school. Lads 
 yearning for adventure, runaway apprentices and 
 students ; even soldiers and serving-men, it is said : 
 Allen's charity was large enough to receive them all, 
 but in such a mixed assembly there could not 
 fail to be many who were but ill adapted to the 
 mission they undertook. From 1574 onward great 
 numbers of Seminarists went to England from Douai 
 and the other colleges that were started in imitation 
 of it." That their ministrations were in the main 
 
 1 The oath taken by a Seminarist, after confessing the signal mercy 
 of God in bringing him out of his own country, so affected by lieresy, 
 pledges him to devote himself entirely to divine service, and "with the 
 divine grace in due time to receive holy orders, and to return into 
 England to convert the souls of my countrymen and kindred, when 
 and as often as it shall seem good to the superiors of this College" 
 (Fuller's "Church History"). 
 
 * Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, wrote in December 1579 to the
 
 THE SEMINARISTS 83 
 
 religious, and, although sometimes ignorant and 
 unwise, not political, is seen by the fact that up 
 to 1 58 1 only three persons lost their lives for 
 Catholicism in England under Elizabeth;^ although 
 from 1570 onward all Catholic propagandists and 
 *' obstinate " recusants were treated as disloyal sub- 
 jects, and imprisoned when caught. Elizabeth and 
 Burghley have been attacked bitterly for what is 
 assumed to be their religious persecution of Catholics 
 who had no direct designs against the State. They 
 certainly made little or no distinction between those 
 who plotted the invasion and subjugation of their 
 native land, and those who, whilst proud of being 
 Englishmen, and of the growing potency of their 
 nation under the rule of the Queen, wished at least 
 for liberty to worship as their consciences or teach- 
 ing dictated. That this was the case may be partly 
 attributed to the ideas of a period when disregard of 
 the uniformity prescribed by law was considered to 
 
 King : " The number of Catholics, thauk God, is daily increasing here, 
 owing to the seminary for Englishmen which your Majesty ordered to 
 be supported at Douai, whence there has come in this past year — and 
 from the college at Rome — a hundred Englishmen who have been 
 ordained there : by which means a great number of people are being 
 converted, generally persons who never heard the truth preached 
 before. These priests go about disguised as laymen, and although 
 they are young men, their good life, fervency, and zeal in the work are 
 admirable. God's grace is clearly witnessed in the way they are led 
 on by His hand in this ministry, and in the joy and fortitude with 
 which they offer themselves for martyrdom whenever they are called 
 upon to suffer it for the Lord's sake. Some have suffered thus with 
 invincible firmness and ineffable content, following in the footsteps 
 of so many of their predecessors. Of the old priests very few now 
 remain, and they are imprisoned strictly " (Spanish Calendar, vol. ii.). 
 
 1 Challoner, " Memoirs of Missionary Priests." This, however, does 
 not include Felton, Dr. Storey, Woodhouse, and Father Plumtree, whose 
 offences were clearly treasonable.
 
 84 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 be a dangerous departure from the obedience due 
 to the sovereign ; but, as Lord Burghley has himself 
 argued in masterly fashion in " The Execution of 
 Justice," it was far more directly traceable to the 
 aggressive action of Pius V., a pontiff remarkable 
 neither for his wisdom nor his learning. At a time 
 when England was in the throes of revolution the 
 Pope thought fit, probably at the suggestion of Dr. 
 Morton, Dr. Webb, and the Bishop of Ross, to throw 
 down the gauntlet, and by a Bull excommunicated 
 Elizabeth and her obedient subjects. She, already 
 a beloved and powerful sovereign, was denounced 
 in coarse and brutal language as an usurper, whose 
 subjects were enjoined to refuse allegiance, and 
 were declared to be absolved from obedience to her, 
 notwithstanding their oaths. Thenceforward those 
 who acknowledged the Pope's supremacy could not 
 acknowledge the Queen's right to the throne, and were 
 constructive traitors ; and Elizabeth, recognising her 
 danger, naturally treated them as such. The Northern 
 Earls were in rebellion ; Ridolfi and the Spanish 
 ambassador were planning the Queen's murder, and 
 Mary Stuart was already seducing from his allegiance 
 the greatest of English nobles with the bait of 
 marriage. That the priests who preached obedience 
 to the Pope and the laymen who believed in such 
 teaching should be put in a place where they could 
 do no harm was therefore a necessary measure of 
 self-preservation on the part of the Government,^ 
 
 1 It should be remarked that, contrary to the opinion expressed by- 
 most English historians, the Bull, very far from being promoted by 
 Philij), greatly annoyed him. The intrusion of Popes and Churchmen 
 into i)olitic3 without his connivance caused him endless trouble. The
 
 THE BULL OF EXCOMMUNICATION 85 
 
 who could not be expected to draw fine distinctions 
 between Catholics and Catholics. With the dis- 
 turbances in the English College at Rome and the 
 participation of the Jesuits in the English Mission 
 (1580), the inevitable division of the Catholics 
 showed itself both in England and abroad. There 
 were a dozen excuses which were good enough for 
 the disregard of the Pope's Bull by those English 
 Catholics who did not want to see their country 
 under a foreign yoke. They had not seen the Bull 
 itself; some, with Aquinas, denied the validity of 
 the excommunication of sovereigns and people en 
 masse, and others questioned the right of the Pope 
 to compel them to expose themselves to risk of loss 
 of life and goods by rebellion. But to those who 
 accepted to the full the Papal authority, and to the 
 extreme Jesuit party, the Bull was an ample warrant 
 for, nay, a direct incentive to, disloyalty ; and from 
 the time when this party obtained a leading share in 
 directing the English Mission it was a war to the 
 death between Elizabeth and the Catholics.^ 
 
 conversion of England was to him a secondary consideration. He 
 wanted either her friendship or her subjection. 
 
 ^ Father Mush, one of Allen's favourite pupils and a most respected 
 seminary priest, thus wrote during the appeal against the authority of 
 the Archpriest : "At their first ingress (into England) the Jesuits so 
 acted as to provoke the Queen and Magistrates to enact most cruel laws 
 before unheard of against the Seminarists. The Fathers interfered in 
 the government of the clergy. One of the Jesuits {i.e. Hey ward) con- 
 ducted himself as if he had been a le.yate ad latere of the Holy See,'' 
 &c., &c. Quoted in Law's "Jesuits and Seculars." 
 
 In the appellant's declaration to the Pope, Clement VII., in the same 
 cause, the secular priests wrote : " Father Persons was the principal 
 author, incentor, and mover of all our garboils at home and abroad. 
 He fled from the Mission like a dastardly soldier, consulting his own 
 safety . . . but safe abroad he writes treason and threats of invasion, 
 which so incenses the English magistrates that they rise up against us
 
 86 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 In an earlier chapter it has been pointed out that 
 the exposure of the ultimate plans of this party 
 by the events of the Armada still further accen- 
 tuated the division between the two sections of 
 the English Catholics. Englishmen, as a rule, 
 disliked and looked down upon Scotsmen, but at 
 least the King of Scots was a descendant of the 
 royal house of England, and spoke English of a 
 sort ; and although the idea of a Scot reigning over 
 South Britain was not a welcome one, it was more 
 acceptable to the mass of the people than that of 
 a Spanish sovereign — ■ a beaten enemy, with the 
 Inquisition and all the old abuses, religious and 
 political, in his train. And so it happened that 
 at the time of which we are now writing (1593-95) 
 the English Catholics, as a body, were not ready to 
 second a Spanish invasion of their country. The 
 English Catholic priests came over still by scores 
 on their Mission, disguised and suffering hardships 
 and dangers untold. They were imprisoned, tor- 
 tured, and, if firm, executed, with all the refined 
 horrors of death, for treason. Wisbech Castle was 
 crammed with Catholic clerics who were less in- 
 volved than some of their brethren, and recusant 
 laymen were harried by ruinous fines, by imprison- 
 ment, and by galling supervision, until they were 
 worried into conformity, exile, or death. 
 
 But withal, they, like the rest of their countrymen, 
 
 and execute tlieir laws. They exclaim that it is not the concern of 
 religion that busies us, but- that undei' that cloak we meddle in politics 
 and practice the ruin of the State" {ibid). It will be seen by this how 
 the inoffensive Catholic priests were thus punished for the reckless 
 and venomous writings of Persons, of which most of them entirely 
 disapproved.
 
 PERSECUTION OF CATHOLICS 87 
 
 who had witnessed in person the growing greatness 
 and wealth of England under the consummate 
 government of the Queen, were freshly quickened 
 with pride and love for the land that gave them 
 birth. Seminarists who came from their foreign 
 schools to England entered, after a few months of 
 contact with their fellow-countrymen, into the same 
 patriotic humour ; and, hard as was the lash that 
 fell upon them by the savage enactments against 
 recusancy passed in the Parliament of i 593, to which 
 reference has been made, few of the Catholics re- 
 sident in England were really traitors to the State. 
 But they suffered for the ignorance and bitterness 
 of those of their countrymen who lived abroad, and 
 were out of touch with the patriotic feeling which 
 had grown up in England during the years of their 
 exile. Persons and his Jesuits were to all intents 
 and purposes foreigners. Allen, Morton, Holt, Sir 
 William Stanley, Sir Francis Englefield, the Duchess 
 of Feria, Dr. Stillington, Hugh Owen, Heighington, 
 and the rest of their party, who posed as the great 
 authorities upon English affairs in the counsels of 
 Philip, had not seen their native land for many 
 years. Before the Armada they had one and all 
 assured the King that a great Catholic England was 
 yearning with open arms to welcome the Spaniards 
 as liberators and friends. " Not our England, but 
 your England," said Persons's Valladolid scholars to 
 Philip, their patron, in their fulsome address to him. 
 Growing more and more bitter with repeated dis- 
 appointment and failure, seeing, as the years sped 
 on, their golden dreams of mitres, titles, and com- 
 mands recede farther from them, whilst their poor
 
 88 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 doles of pensions were irregularly and grudgingly 
 paid by Philip's officers, and the bread of exile grew 
 harder, despairing counsels of a way out by the 
 murder of the Queen or her Ministers alternated 
 now with the schemes of invasion and conquest, of 
 which they talked so freely, and, as we have seen, 
 with so little warrant. 
 
 The various plans for the assassination of Eliza- 
 beth up to this period had been mainly originated in 
 England by nobles and gentry who sought foreign 
 patronage or assistance for their schemes of ambi- 
 tion. This was the case with the Ridolfi plot, the 
 Guise plan of 1583, and the Babington conspiracy. 
 Others, again, like that for which Dr. Parry suffered, 
 and that of Moody and young Stafford, were more or 
 less bogus plots, in which agents-provocateurs were 
 sacrificed to the exigencies of party politics.^ The 
 violent and mischievous talk of the exiles in Flanders, 
 many of them Irishmen belonging to Sir William 
 Stanley's rebel regiment, was now brought to Eng- 
 land, distorted and exaggerated by eager spies, or by 
 starved, half-distracted Seminarists, torn by the rack 
 or terrified by the sight of it to say anything that they 
 thought would for the moment please their captors. 
 Much of such stuff was obviously untrue, or at least 
 untrustworthy, but it was made the most of in 
 '\^ England, for two reasons. Anything that aroused 
 
 1 My reason for this belief is given in the " Great Lord Burghley." 
 Camden's lines reflect the general feeling in England at the time. 
 " Thus did the English fugitives, lewd priests, and lay villains together 
 plot and contrive the ruin of the Queen by all the arts they could use ; 
 and all from a pernicious principle of bigotry rooted in their minds 
 that princes excommunicated are not fit to live ; and the Si^anish 
 Ministers seconded the design and improved their hatred as far as it 
 would go." 
 
 r
 
 THE MURDER PLOTS 89 
 
 horror and detestation of Spain, and of those Eng- 
 lishmen who were assumed to have sold their bodies 
 and souls to her, was useful — as we have seen in the 
 report of the Parliament of 1593 — in keeping alive 
 the patriotism of the country, inciting its liberality in 
 the matter of supplies for defence against so das- 
 tardly a foe, and in attracting to the Protestant side 
 those waverers who declined to continue their identi- 
 fication with a cause which allowed regicide to be 
 used for its ends. 
 
 The other reason why these so-called plots were \ 
 frequently exaggerated unduly must be sought in / 
 the political situation in England itself. Lord 
 Burghley and his party had always stood for 
 moderation and a mutual understanding with 
 Spain, as opposed to the Puritan, Protestant, or 
 war party, now led by Essex. One of the secrets 
 of Burghley ' s great influence had been his elaborate 
 system of spies everywhere, which had given him a 
 monopoly of information, and an unrivalled control 
 over affairs. Essex determined to organise a similar 
 system, which should enable him to countercheck 
 the Cecils. This he had done between 1590 and 
 1594 at great cost to himself. To aid him in 
 his plans he had by his side for a time one of the 
 most plausible, unscrupulous scoundrels in Europe, 
 to whom none of the wiles of statecraft were un- 
 known. Antonio Perez, the absconding Minister 
 of Philip II., was able, as no other man could be, 
 to spread the network of treachery over Europe, 
 with the object of enabling Essex to draw England 
 into war wdth Spain, and so to vanquish the 
 moderate policy of Cecil.
 
 90 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 But the Cecil party could not aflford to be outdone, 
 either in vigilance or in solicitude for the safety of 
 the Queen, and each organisation constantly en- 
 deavoured to " score off" the other by the sensational 
 nature of its discoveries, and at the same time to 
 blacken the character and discredit the bona Jldes 
 of its rival. The spies were necessarily persons of 
 questionable life ; nearly alvi^ays sold both to Spain 
 and England ; and it was usually easy to convict 
 them of treachery. It was, in such case, often the 
 policy of their employers to abandon them rather 
 than seem to countenance men or methods rendered 
 infamous by accusation ; and the agent provocateur, 
 the eager delator, or the vain babbler, was caught in 
 his own lure and sent to rot in dungeons or die a 
 cruel death, whilst his noble paymaster, who knew 
 or could guess the true circumstances, affected horror 
 at so much wickedness. 
 
 This keen competition in the discoveries of treason 
 caused the unfortunate priests or suspects who were 
 caught in or on their way to England to be treated 
 as if each one of them was the emissary of a murder 
 conspiracy or guilty of a design against the State ; 
 and there are in the Record Office (Domestic 
 Papers) many scores of sheets of depositions of such 
 men, telling, under torture or threat, their poor 
 squalid little stories of hardship and suffering, but 
 rarely any more important political secrets than the 
 vague tittle-tattle of the seminaries or the bragga- 
 docio of renegade soldiers and malcontent refugees. 
 
 A typical case of this sort, of which full particulars 
 are available, was that of a priest usually called 
 Dingley, but whose real name seems to have been
 
 "DINGLEY'S" ARREST 91 
 
 James Young, of Eylescliffe, Durham. He had lived 
 abroad in the household of Cardinal Allen, after the 
 death of the Bishop of Ross, whose servant he pro- 
 fessed formerly to have been. When we first hear 
 of him in August 1592, he had been caught some 
 months before by Lord Burghley's pursuivants, and 
 was lodged in the Poultry Compter in the city of 
 London, He was ready at this time, in appearance, 
 to tell all he knew/ He was, he said, a humble 
 person, sent by Cardinal Allen to fetch back two 
 priests, Warford and Almond, who were to be sent 
 elsewhere as spies for Father Persons, and more 
 especially to persuade another priest, named John 
 Fixer, to return to Allen, who promised to make 
 him his chaplain, it having been discovered that 
 Fixer was secretly giving information to Lord 
 Burghley. He was, he said, accompanied from 
 Paris by several English priests, whom he had not 
 previously known, and he had heard the directions 
 given to them by their guide in Paris as to the 
 person they should seek in London, He had little 
 to tell about the English refugees in Flanders, but 
 had heard Morgan (who belonged to the Scottish 
 faction) inveigh against Allen and Persons, and 
 knew of the efforts which he, Morgan, and the late 
 Bishop of Ross had made to convince people that 
 
 ' He had been captured at Easter 1592, and we learn hy the letter 
 of another prisoner, a spy named Beard, to Antony Ashley, Clerk of 
 the Council, that Young had remained obstinately silent, notwithstand- 
 ing the efforts of the justices, until August. Not even his name could 
 be discovered until the spy Beard obtained access to him ; " when 
 within ten days I discovered him altogether" (Hatfield Papers, vol. iv. 
 p. 403). Tlienceforwai'd the prisoner seems to have been only too eager 
 to give information in return for his own safety.
 
 92 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 the Scots King would come over to the Catholic side. 
 Sir William Stanley, on the contrary, had in his 
 hearing breathed fire and fury, and talked at large 
 of the plans for the coming invasion of England. 
 Young ends his first written confession by asking 
 pardon if he has done wrong, pleads youth and 
 evil counsel of others, and promises to divulge the 
 names of all the Seminarists he can discover. 
 
 This was all very well as far as it went, though 
 most of it was untrue. Mr. Justice Young and the 
 spy Beard knew that if so much as this was divulged 
 voluntarily, a good deal probably remained behind. 
 An artful subterfuge then brought to Lord Burghley 
 a long document, written by the prisoner,^ saying 
 that he had already imparted to the Privy- Council 
 as much as his life is worth, and will now make a 
 clean breast of the whole business. He confessed 
 now that he was a priest, and gave his real name 
 and place of education. He had, he said, gained a 
 Queen's scholarship at Durham, and had left that 
 city in 1579 for the ostensible purpose of proceeding 
 to Cambridge University. Lodging in London in 
 the house of Dr. Barrett for two months, he and 
 his host then went to Flanders via Gravesend and 
 Dover, under the pretext of joining the army under 
 the command of Queen Elizabeth's lover 2indi fiance, 
 the Duke d'Alen9on. Once safe across the Channel, 
 he proceeded to Rheims (where Allen's seminary 
 then was), on the advice of one Darbishire, a Jesuit. 
 There he remained for a time studying for the 
 priesthood, but with great repugnance, as he says. 
 Subsequently he was sent to the English College in 
 
 ' Hatfield Papers, vol. iv. p. 403, and State Papers, Domestic, cxlii.
 
 "DINGLEY'S" CONFESSIONS 93 
 
 Rome, where he studied for seven years ; was re- 
 ceived into the priesthood, and preached in Latin 
 before the Pope. He was then destined to read 
 divinity at Rheims ; but before he could leave Rome, 
 Father Persons begged the Rector at Rheims not 
 to send any priests to England in that year (1589), 
 but to let him have some for his new college at 
 Valladolid. Young was accordingly sent thither 
 with four other priests (one of them being probably 
 the Father Cecil of whom I have already spoken), 
 and found, as yet, only four students, though the 
 number rapidly increased to thirty-six. Young has 
 much to say of the manner in which Persons whipped 
 round amongst the Spanish nobility to obtain funds 
 for his new seminary, and the prisoner himself was 
 designated one of six priests who were to proceed 
 to England on a similar mission. The travelling 
 disguise assumed by four of the priests on this occa- 
 sion was that of English galley-slaves captured in 
 the English expedition to Portugal, and now re- 
 leased by the Spaniards, whilst Young and another 
 were to sail in Scottish ships and land in Scotland, 
 whence they were to find their way into England. 
 But Young had enough of it by the time he got 
 into the Downs, and " being unable to bear the 
 seas," he landed at night and trusted to Providence 
 for safety. All that night he lay under a hedge, 
 and his first care in the morning was to change his 
 outlandish Spanish garb for clothes less conspicuous. 
 He had money, apparently, but knew nobody in 
 London. He recollected, however, to have heard 
 Father Persons tell the priests who were sent direct 
 to England as galley-slaves that they were to seek
 
 94 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 a certain Mr. Wiseman who lived at Garnet's Rents, 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields, and in his presence to break a 
 cake as a token. -^ Young accordingly sought the 
 person indicated, and went through the same per- 
 formance, being welcomed, and forwarded to Lady 
 Throgmorton's house at Upton, beyond Stratford, in 
 Essex. In her house he stayed for a month, minis- 
 tering and saying Mass ; but the lady was fright- 
 ened at a new proclamation against harbouring 
 priests, and giving him a change of linen and 
 twenty marks, arranged that he should sleep at an 
 inn in London, taking his meals at the house of a 
 Catholic family named Mompeson, in Clerkenwell ; 
 the excuse for his presence there being his supposed 
 courting of a " young gentlewoman " living there 
 called Mrs. Temperance Davis. Whilst he and 
 another priest were sitting at table in this house, 
 the constables suddenly appeared at the door to 
 search for such quarry. Young fled by the back 
 way, and contrived to run to earth at the hospitable 
 house of Wiseman in Lincoln's Inn Fields ; but the 
 other priest (Patterson) was captured and shortly 
 afterwards was executed. The fugitive was then sent 
 to board at the house of one Cole, " a schoolmaster, 
 at the upper end of Plolborn ; " but he also soon got 
 into trouble, and again Young fled to Wiseman. 
 The latter, however, had to leave town, and the 
 priest went to lodge at the White Swan, Ilolborn 
 Bridge. There was no safety in inns, for they were 
 too well watched, and Young was promptly taken 
 
 1 The Wiseman family, most of whom seem to have lived in Essex, 
 were notable recusants, and some of them suffered severely from the 
 delation of Young.
 
 " DINGLE Y'S' CONFESSIONS 95 
 
 prisoner and lodged in the Compter at Easter, 1592, 
 jnst as he was about to set out on horseback to his 
 native county of Durham, in the hope of finding it 
 "more quiet than this." 
 
 These personal confidences, however interesting, 
 were of less importance to the Government than 
 news of conspiracies. The authorities had already 
 detected Young in many misstatements, and he was 
 pressed further. He was a mere youth, he protested, 
 and had not been admitted into the company of the 
 serious men of his college, but he had heard Allen 
 say that he had dissuaded Ballard as earnestly as he 
 could from the plot for which he suffered (i.e. the 
 Babington plot) ; " but that Ballard was rather ad- 
 dicted to Morgan and Charles Paget." He (Young) 
 had been told, too, that the King of Scots had turned 
 Catholic, and all the Scottish Catholic bishops were 
 to be recalled to their sees, which happy event had 
 been greatly aided by Dr. Lewis, Bishop of Cassano. 
 " Yet after the death of the Queen of Scots both 
 Allen and Persons sought to stir up the Spanish 
 King, who never could be persuaded to attempt 
 anything against England in her lifetime, objecting 
 that he should travail for others. She being dead, 
 the expectation was increased for the last invasion." 
 
 All this was obviously merely the loose gossip of 
 past events by men who were not behind the scenes ; 
 but the supply of it was apparently unlimited. The 
 names of Englishmen ostensibly in the Spanish ser- 
 vice, their movements, salaries, and conversations 
 are given ad nauseam; but as many of these men 
 were actually in Burghley's pay, and sent him 
 regular advices, we can imagine the grim smile of
 
 96 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 the aged Lord Treasurer as he read this vague tittle- 
 tattle of their dangerous plans. Still, as has already 
 been pointed out in a previous chapter, the declara- 
 tions of even this poor sieve of a man and his like 
 were useful and valuable when they repeated the 
 threats of invasion constantly uttered by Persons, 
 Stanley, and others, and exaggerated the great pre- 
 parations that were being made in Spain with that 
 object. Young prayed abjectly for his liberation in 
 return for his abundant declarations. His misery, 
 his long imprisonment, his penitence, and his ar- 
 dent desire to serve as a spy on his fellow-Catholics, 
 were repeated at intervals for many months ; but he 
 had to be squeezed quite dry before they let him go. 
 Lists had to be furnished by him of every Catholic 
 he had ever known, at home or abroad. All those 
 who had sheltered him, and even their friends, had 
 to be denounced. Fellow-priests, who had left Spain 
 or Italy on the English Mission, had to be betrayed, 
 every one of them, before at length the wretched 
 man saw the doors of his prison open, and he was 
 free to carry his craven heart whithersoever he 
 willed, envying till his dying day his firmer brethren 
 who stood steadfast even to death and martyrdom. 
 
 Sometimes the pressure, such as was exerted on 
 Young, gave a clue, even a slight one, to some- 
 thing that seemed to be really important, and in that 
 case it is curious to trace the tortuous devices by 
 which more information was obtained. The clever 
 decipherer and forger, Thomas Phellips, who was 
 ostensibly the collector of customs at Leadenhall, 
 was rarely at a loss for a plan, by means of which 
 fresh avowals could be extracted from unsuspecting
 
 HOW EVIDENCE WAS OBTAINED 97 
 
 accomplices ; and TopclifFe, the examining justice, 
 had a persuasive way with the prisoners themselves, 
 that rarely failed. 
 
 As an instance of how a case was worked up by 
 such devices, the notes of Phellips respecting a 
 Catholic named Bisley are curious. He sets down 
 in his memoranda that he had learnt that Bisley 
 had been sent secretly to England late in the year 
 1 59 1 by Sir William Stanley and Hugh Owen ; ^ 
 and, as he carried letters, he is to be asked, if he 
 can be caught, Avhether he had not a message for 
 a priest named Birket or Burke, who Phellips knew 
 to have been lodging at the house of an Italian who 
 kept a bowling-alley in Bishopsgate Street, on the 
 corner of what is now the thronging Liverpool 
 Street. Bisley was said to have brought letters to 
 be delivered to one Webster, a recusant who had 
 long been a prisoner in the Marshalsea ; but Phellips 
 suspected that Webster was to deliver some of them 
 to Birket ; and Bisley, if he could be caught, was to 
 be charged that this was the case. Bisley on former 
 occasions was known to have brought letters for 
 Webster secreted inside the buttons of his garments, 
 one of which letters, it was said, threatened to kill 
 the Queen, Bisley being promised a pension by 
 Stanley and Owen when he came back to Flanders. 
 This much Phellips had been told by his spies 
 abroad, and the knowledge already in hand was 
 used as a lever to obtain more. The next move 
 was for Phellips's tool, Sterrell, alias St. Main, alias 
 Robinson, a pretended Catholic, who served as a spy 
 to the English refugees in Flanders, and wrote to 
 
 1 State Papers, Domestic, ccxl. 
 
 G
 
 98 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 them only what Phellips dictated, to write in the 
 name of Robinson, as from Liege, to a Catholic 
 named Morice at the Swan in Bishopsgate Without 
 (May 1592), telling him, amongst many other 
 things, at Phellips's dictation, that "the plot in 
 England is to kill the Queen. Stanley has sent in 
 one Bisley of Flushing, sometime a soldier there, 
 a little, short, black fellow with a red face." This 
 letter was of course written for the purpose of 
 being intercepted and shown to Webster, and also 
 to Bisley and any of his companions if they were 
 taken. In their confusion they might blurt out 
 further admissions or confirmation. Webster seems 
 to have denied, probably with truth, all knowledge 
 of Bisley and of the alleged plot. But he was care- 
 fully watched by spies in the Marshalsea, and his 
 every word repeated by them to Mr. Justice Young. 
 Months afterwards, in September 1592, a fellow- 
 prisoner, a spy, was walking in the prison yard 
 with him, when Webster in weariness asked, " Shall 
 we never be released ? " "I fear not," replied the 
 spy. Whereupon Webster said that " ere long God 
 or the devil would fetch her and them that detained 
 them ; then asking him (the spy) to see that no one 
 was looking, Webster went and talked to Snap, the 
 priest, at his chamber window." This was some- 
 thing. It was thought to inculpate Webster in the 
 supposed murder plot, and the spy-prisoner was 
 again set to work. In a few weeks he could inform 
 the Justice that when a prisoner named Brownell 
 was told that a certain man had been committed at 
 the previous Easter for seeking to kill the Queen, 
 he had replied "that many were committed for that,
 
 THE MANUFACTURE OF "PLOTS" 99 
 
 but some one would make an end of her one day, 
 and then all those commitments would be void and 
 all would be well." When the apprentices were 
 unruly and would have broken up the Marshalsea, 
 Richard Webster, another prisoner, said " that they 
 could not agree because they had no head, but if 
 they had one all the Commons would rise, for they 
 all disliked the State and Government." This was 
 another step, and by the 23rd December matters 
 were sufficiently advanced for Webster himself to 
 be again brought before Justice Young for examina- 
 tion with another prisoner named Faux. Webster 
 said the only Bisley he knew was the priest of that 
 name who had married him in the Marshalsea three 
 or four years ago ; but as Young, the magistrate, 
 noted that this priest Bisley had been executed, 
 he was evidently not the man they sought. Both 
 the prisoners denied the truth of the spy's revela- 
 tions about them, and Faux was tortured without 
 result. Webster had already confessed enough to 
 hang him, wrote the magistrate, but he would be 
 put to the torture to obtain more if the Attorney- 
 General decided. The other prisoner Brownell, 
 who had spoken about killing the Queen, was " too 
 sick to be dealt with until he waxed stronger." 
 Whether Webster was put to the torture is not 
 certain, though he probably was from the sequel, 
 for he was afterwards removed to Bridewell and 
 Lord Keeper Puckering took him in hand. To 
 him Webster subsequently wrote a letter (19th 
 January 1593) again solemnly asserting his inno- 
 cence of any crime against the Queen or State. 
 He begs most earnestly that his every act and word
 
 loo TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 may be scrutinised and his innocence made manifest. 
 But the effect of the pressure put upon him is seen 
 in the continuation of his letter. He had probably 
 under torture repeated to Puckering certain treason- 
 able speeches he had heard others pronounce, and 
 had promised to play the spy or agent provocateur 
 upon his friends ; and he made this a reason for 
 begging that he himself might be cleared from the 
 capital offence with which he was charged. "If 
 my innocency be not known," he wrote, " your 
 Lordship may think that I told you of the speeches 
 more for fear of my life than for service to her 
 Majesty or the country. Until this matter of mine 
 be thoroughly sifted I cannot go forward with the 
 great good likely to be procured to the land.'' 
 What eventually happened to him does not appear ; 
 he probably suffered death after thus giving fresh 
 clues to other "plots" which would be worked up 
 like that with which he was charged. Public indig- 
 nation and hatred were in this way constantly kept 
 at fever-heat against a party which was represented 
 as constantly plotting against the life of the Queen, 
 though one loose hint of a spy or an impatient 
 word from a distracted prisoner was evidently a 
 sufficient foundation for the manufacture of a suc- 
 cession of such plots. 
 
 But though many of the so-called murder con- 
 spiracies for which perfectly innocent Catholics 
 suffered were thus elaborated, there were un- 
 doubtedly several that were in some degree 
 dangerous and real. They all emanated from the 
 same small group of extremists in Flanders, with 
 the more or less open connivance of the Spanish
 
 THE MURDER PLOTS loi 
 
 Ministers there — though probably at this jimctiire 
 without the aid of Philip himself. The proposed 
 perpetrators were usually some of the wild, reck- 
 less swashbucklers, English or Irish, who swaggered, 
 drank, and diced in the Flemish cities. There 
 seems to have been no attempt at concealment. 
 We are told that these plots were regularly dis- 
 cussed at a council table at which sat such men 
 as Stanley, Owen, Jacques Francis (Stanley's Bur- 
 gundian lieutenant), and even some of the leading 
 Jesuit priests, such as Holt, Sherwood, and Walpole, 
 are said to have given their approval.^ 
 
 None of these plots ever came near commission, 
 and in the cases where they were not voluntarily 
 confessed the pressure exerted upon the captured 
 persons in prison or the sight of the rack usually 
 brought out the fullest particulars. For instance, 
 one Polwhele was captured on suspicion late in 1593. 
 He had been backwards and forwards to Flanders 
 several times, having served there as page to Sir 
 William Stanley, and afterwards with his lieutenant, 
 Jacques Francis, who really seems to have been a 
 murderous sort of personage and the principal insti- 
 gator of the plots. This was sufficient to warrant 
 the arrest of Polwhele when he appeared in Eng- 
 land, although he had voluntarily come over from 
 Calais, avowedly for the purpose of unburdening his 
 conscience to Lord Burghley of some dark secret, 
 and had sought the aid of Mr. Jefferys, the English 
 Consul there, to enable him to do so. The story he 
 had to tell was that in the summer of 1593 Jacques 
 
 1 See " The Estate of the English Fugitives," an extremely curious 
 contemporary pamphlet giving an account of the lives of the refugees.
 
 I02 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 urged him to go to England and kill the Queen, 
 saying " that no action could be more glorious than 
 cutting off so wicked a member, who is likely to 
 overthrow all Christendom." Soon after this hap- 
 pened, Hesketh ^ was sent to England, and thereupon 
 Polwhele seems to have gone to Father Sherwood 
 and offered to perform the task that Jacques had 
 suggested, if a fit opportunity occurred. " Jacques 
 said it w^as a movement of the Holy Ghost. It 
 could only be done when the Queen went for a 
 walk or to the sermon : then she might be shot or 
 stabbed, as she takes no care. If he could only 
 escape for two or three hours he would be safe." 
 
 1 It will be recollected that when Persons sent Father Cecil to Eng- 
 land from Spain on his first mission in April 1591, he instructed him 
 in covert terms to sound secretly Lord Strange — son and heir of the 
 Earl of Derby — as to his willingness to co-operate with a Catholic 
 invasion. As the nobleman was a descendant of the Duchess of 
 Suffolk, sister of Henry VIII., and one of the possible claimants to 
 the Crown, his countenance would have been of great importance. 
 Father Cecil on that occasion betrayed the cause to Burghley, and 
 found an excuse for not fulfilling his mission ; but in the autumn of 
 1593 a Catholic fugitive gentleman from Over-Darwin, Lancashire, 
 who knew the Earl of Derby, was sent by Sir William Stanley to 
 negotiate with the Earl and his heir as to their acceptance of the posi- 
 tion of Pretenders. Sir William Stanley, in his instructions to 
 Hesketh, strongly hints that he is supported in his proposal by the 
 King of Spain (Hatfield Papers, vol. iv. p. 462). Hesketh performed 
 his office apparently less cautiously than he was instructed to do, and 
 the Earl of Derby, fearing a tiap, immediately denounced him to the 
 Government (October 1 593). Tlie Earl died a day or two afterwards 
 mysteriously, it was said by poison ; but the new Earl followed up the 
 prosecution of Hesketh vigorously, and after much tortv\re and suffer- 
 ing of the prisoner to wring out avowals of supposed murder plots, for 
 which there does not seem to have been a shadow of foundation, the 
 unfortunate emissary was done to death as a traitor at St. Alban's. 
 Standen, an English Catholic spy of Essex's, wrote to another Catholic 
 of similar sort in France in reference to Hesketh's execution, "A 
 worthy piece of work, suitable to the setters on" {i.e. Staidey, &c.), 
 " who of the Catholics here at home are accursed."
 
 POLWHELE'S CONFESSIONS 
 
 103 
 
 He was told first to go to Calais, and from thence 
 to seek the aid of Fortescue or Sterrell/ who were 
 at court to obtain permission to go to England. 
 There he was to obtain access to Lord Burghley, 
 and inveigh violently against Jacques, and in this 
 way ingratiate himself at court. 
 
 Every incentive to the proposed assassin's zeal 
 seems to have been used by Jacques and his friends. 
 He was directed to go to confession and to obtain 
 absolution before he started, and sixty crowns were 
 given him for his journey. At the same time as 
 Polwhele's advent, an Irishman, named John Annias, 
 was also captured coming into England. The first 
 accusation against him was that of intending to set 
 fire to the Queen's ships, by means of the same sort 
 of fireballs with which the former attempt had been 
 made at Dieppe. According to Polwhele's story, he 
 had met Annias and his associate in the former fire- 
 plot, Thompson, at Lille on the way to England. 
 They had fallen into talk about another Irishman, 
 named Patrick Collen, who had recently crossed 
 over to England. Thompson had said that Collen 
 had been sent over to kill the Queen, but that he 
 (Thompson) would do it before he could. ^ He was, 
 
 1 This was walking into the lion's den indeed, for Sterrell was the 
 spy-tool of Phellips. 
 
 - As au instance of the looseness with which suggestions of such 
 plots were made by the fugitives in Flanders, it may be cited that 
 when Annias was under examination he said that " he supposed Pol- 
 whele and Collen came to England to find means to kill the Queen or 
 the Lord Treasurer." When asked why he " supposed " such a thing, 
 he replied that " when any one comes from Brussels to England, they 
 {i.e. the English in Flanders) think it' must be for some service, 
 and some say to kill the Queen or the Lord Treasurer, or the King of 
 Portugal, or some of the secretaries" (Examination of John Annias, 
 January 1594, State Papers, Dom.).
 
 I04 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 be boasted, going to England tben on bis errand, 
 and carried a jewel to present to the Earl of Essex, 
 whose follower be would become/ They, Annias 
 and Thompson, said they were going shares in the 
 reward, which would be very large. The three rogues 
 seem to have known each other's business perfectly, 
 and each one intrigued to get rid of the other two ; 
 and, as they said, to have alone the "honour" and 
 profit of killing the Queen ; but, as it afterwards 
 appeared, to be the first to betray the others. 
 Thompson told Polwhele that Annias meant to rob 
 him, whilst Annias said that Thompson intended 
 to rob and "sell" them both. The end of it seems 
 to have been that Thompson got Polwhele's purse 
 and prudently stayed on the other side of the sea ; 
 whilst Polwhele had to depend upon the charity of 
 the English Consul at Calais to send him over and 
 tell his story. Thenceforward, for months, Polwhele, 
 Collen, and Annias, each unknown to the others, 
 continued to unfold their stories in gaol. First, 
 the plan was to fire the ships, then to kill An- 
 tonio Perez, to assassinate the Queen and Burghley, 
 and what not. Collen really seems to have been 
 hired in the first instance to kill Antonio Perez 
 with a pistol, at the request of Jacques and the 
 Irish Captain Eustace, who, he says, warned him 
 not to undertake anything against England or the 
 Queen. Father Holt at first had discountenanced 
 
 ^ As will be seen later, this bringing in of the name of the Earl of 
 Essex was made the most of by his enemies. Another prisoner under 
 torture was made to say that he had heard Hugh Owen attribute to 
 the Earl aspirations to the crown. Hugh Owen thought it necessary 
 categorically to deny this in a letter to Phellips, who at that time 
 was believed to be attached to Essex.
 
 POLWHELE, COLLEN, AND ANNIAS 105 
 
 the murder of" Perez, but he eventually assured 
 Collen that he might lawfully undertake anything 
 for the King's service. Holt at the same time 
 expressed to him his sorrow that he, a Church- 
 man, had been told the exact nature of the proposed 
 enterprise. But he nevertheless gave to Collen 
 absolution and his blessing. The assassin Collen. 
 having received ;^30 in gold for the voyage, seems 
 to have felt some conscientious scruples ; and on 
 his consulting another priest, an Irishman named 
 Thomas, he had been told that it was unlawful to 
 commit murder in any circumstances. Annias, on 
 the other hand, testified to having heard Captain 
 Eustace and Collen himself say that the latter 
 had gone, not to kill Antonio Perez, but the 
 Queen, "the highest Antonio of them all," and 
 that the order for doing so had come from Spain 
 through Esteban de Ibarra, the Secretary of State 
 for War then in Flanders. 
 
 Whilst these two villains were swearing against 
 each other as to whether the Queen or Antonio 
 Perez was to be the victim, the first prisoner, 
 Polwhele, was, under TopclijBTe's persuasion, telling 
 bit by bit a more extraordinary story still. There 
 was no pretence in his case of any one but the 
 Queen being aimed at. When, after some hesita- 
 tion, he had consented to do the deed, and had 
 informed Father Sherwood of that fact, the Jesuit 
 had replied " that he was a fool for not undertaking 
 it sooner, when he was first moved to it, as he 
 then might have had the honour of it ; but that now 
 Collen had gone on the same service, and more 
 were going every day." It would be good sport
 
 io6 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 for them all, said Sir William Stanley, if Mrs. 
 Elizabeth were dead ; to which, according to Pol- 
 whele, the amiable Jacques assented, with a sug- 
 gestion of unlimited loot during the confusion, 
 "He, Pol whole, had often heard Jacques say they 
 did not esteem killing Antonio Perez, who had 
 done all the hurt he ever could do . . . nor the 
 killing of any one else save the Queen. A man," 
 he said, "would run as much risk in killing another 
 person as the Queen herself ; and neither he, Jacques, 
 nor Father Holt, would deal with any but for kill- 
 ing the Queen." Sherwood, he said, reproved a 
 man for undertaking to poison Burghley : the Queen 
 alone was to be aimed at, and Jacques' intention to 
 have her killed was public talk in Brussels. 
 
 Then, in February 1594, another Irishman, named 
 Cahill, came over and made a set of avowals to 
 Topcliffe at Burghley House in the Strand that 
 quite threw the aforegoing revelations in the shade. 
 CahiU's statement was, that an Irish gentleman, 
 named Daniel,^ had informed him in the previous 
 May that Sir William Stanley, Father Holt, and 
 Hugh Owen wanted to employ a tall, resolute, 
 desperate Irishman to go to England and kill the 
 Queen. Daniel suggested that Cahill should under- 
 
 1 Daniel wrote to Lord Burghley in the previous August 1 592 from 
 Calais begging permission to come over to England safely to give some 
 very important news. He warned Bui-ghley at the same time to have 
 great vigilance exercised iu preventing any of Stanley's men from 
 joining the Queen's forces going to France. Daniel was allowed to 
 come over, and doubtless from his disclosures the whole of the other 
 proceedings in England arose. In February whilst Daniel's tool, 
 Cahill, was under examination, the former gave notice to the Govern- 
 ment of a plan to fire tlie magazine in the Tower, &c. (Hatfield 
 Papers, vol. iv. p. 474).
 
 CAHILL'S CONFESSIONS 107 
 
 take the task and get the money ; whereupon they 
 (Daniel and Cahill) should both go to England and 
 divulge the plot to Lord Burghley. Cahill relates 
 that Daniel then took him to Fathers Plolt and 
 Archer at Brussels, and they and Hugh Owen had 
 said " that it would be a most blessed deed for 
 him, a soldier, to kill the Queen, as by it he would 
 win heaven and become a saint if he should be 
 killed. If he would do it he would be chronicled 
 for ever." The plan suggested to him was to get 
 into the service of a courtier, " and then manage 
 to waylay her (the Queen) in some progress, and 
 kill her with a sword or a dagger at a gate or 
 narrow passage, or, as she walked in one of her 
 galleries." Cahill consented, the price being fixed 
 at 100 crowns down, and 2000 and a pension if he 
 were successful. Thereupon, with the blessing of 
 Archer, the precious pair, Cahill and Daniel, went 
 to Calais. From there the latter wrote in August 
 to Lord Burghley, telling him he had an important 
 revelation to make if he was allowed to go over. 
 This being accorded to him, he left Cahill in Calais ; 
 whilst he made the first disclosures in England. 
 In Daniel's absence the two Jesuit fathers. Archer 
 and Walpole, came to Calais, and finding Cahill 
 still there, were very angry, and said that Stanley, 
 Owen, and Holt were indignant at so much delay. 
 Upon their urging, Cahill consented to sail secretly 
 for England at once, and landing at Margate, came 
 on to London to join Daniel, who conducted him 
 to Lord Burghley. This stoiy was, of course, con- 
 firmed in every particular by Daniel ; and it is not 
 surprising to hear, as these plots were divulged
 
 io8 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 through the Cecil organisation, that mysterious hints 
 were indulged in that for his own ends the Earl of 
 Essex was more or less mixed up in the nefarious 
 plans, as had been the case when Hesketh was 
 charged and executed for having been sent over 
 by Stanley to sound the Earl of Derby. 
 
 It will be noticed that in all the declarations of 
 the prisoners, there was an eagerness to prove their 
 intention from the first to betray their employers, 
 and that their consent to kill the Queen had never 
 been sincere. There is, moreover, an utter absence 
 of proof, beyond their own respective assertions and 
 the conversations they had with each other. Great 
 caution must therefore be exercised in accepting the 
 evidence as conclusive as against their alleged in- 
 stigators ; but enough residuum remains, after all 
 deductions, to give grounds for believing in the 
 existence of an intention on the part of some of 
 them to assassinate the Queen if a favourable 
 opportunity offered, or to betray the plot if the 
 contrary was the case. The weakest case is against 
 the Spanish Ministers, whom all English historians 
 have condemned upon the flimsiest evidence, and 
 especially against the King, who certainly for the 
 moment would have been seriously embarrassed by 
 Elizabeth's sudden death ; ^ though doubtless the 
 
 1 As we have seen already, Philip was in no position at this time to 
 take advantage of Elizabeth's death if it had occurred. He was in 
 dire .straits for money ; his naval preparations were utterly inadequate 
 for an attempt to impose a nominee of his own upon the English 
 nation as king ; he had not yet fixed upon any definite policy as to the 
 course to be pursued on the Queen's death ; and, with his methods, 
 nothing could be decided upon without infinite delay and considera- 
 tion. He was, moreover, straining every nerve fighting a losing battli' 
 in France, iioth in Provence and BrittaTiy, and had the greatest diffi-
 
 RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE PLOTS 109 
 
 removal of Antonio Perez, his hated enemy, or 
 of Don Antonio, the Portuguese Pretender, would 
 have been extremely welcome to him. 
 
 Hugh Owen himself wrote a spirited letter 
 (March 1594) of disclaimer to Phellips, both as to 
 the complicity of the Earl of Essex in any negotia- 
 tions of theirs, and also as to himself or Stanley 
 having urged or hired to kill the Queen any 
 of the men who had confessed. He had, he said, 
 never seen Collen in his life, and had hardly 
 exchanged a word with Cahill or Polwhele ; and 
 •' neither he, Owen, nor Sir William Stanley had 
 any more to do with killing the Queen than the 
 man in the moon." He protested against the re- 
 putation of men like himself and his associates 
 being taken away by *' perjured jacks, who could 
 not in any Christian commonwealth bear any credit 
 for witnesses." Annias, he says, " is a sorry fellow, 
 who can make white powder, but would not kill a 
 cat if she looked him in the face,"^ who had 
 recently fled from Flanders for killing and robbing 
 a Spaniard. Owen ascribed to Daniel the invention 
 of the whole story about Annias, not dreaming that 
 the latter was coming to England ; but on this 
 point, of course, Owen was ignorant of the com- 
 promising admissions of Annias himself, and of 
 Polwhele with regard to him. The Duke of Parma, 
 he said, was constantly receiving intelligence of 
 similar plots being hatched against him in England, 
 
 culty in protecting his own coasts and commerce. He was not vet 
 nearly ready to take advantage of the death of Elizabeth ; and in my 
 opinion at this period did not desire her sudden removal. 
 
 1 Owen does not attempt to deny the accusation of having employed 
 Annias to burn the fleet.
 
 no TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 but always disdained to notice them. " If the 
 Queen and her council would do the same, they 
 need never unquiet themselves as they do, nor so 
 easily permit false juries to cast away so many 
 innocent men." 
 
 No doubt the confessions of the criminals were 
 in most cases interested or exaggerated, but Hugh 
 Owen's denials fail to carry conviction sufficient to 
 demolish their stories altogether. An age that saw 
 Henry III., Guise, Orange, and Henry IV. assassi- 
 nated was not squeamish about killing princes, if 
 they were considered to be in the way ; and the few 
 violent extremists in Flanders, and more especially 
 Jacques, belonged to the visionary type from which 
 regicides are usually drawn. 
 
 Another case of which much stir was made 
 happened shortly before Owen's letter was written. 
 In January 1594 three persons were caught whilst 
 landing surreptitiously near Flamboro Head in 
 Yorkshire. One of them was found to be Father 
 Henry Walpole, the Jesuit to whom Cahill's con- 
 fession had referred, the other two being one Lingen 
 and Walpole's young brother, both of them being 
 soldiers in Stanley's regiment. Young Walpole was 
 quite communicative from the first, but the other 
 two prisoners for a time refused to make any 
 admission. Father Walpole was looked upon as 
 an important capture, and in the light of Cahill's 
 reference to him it was immediately assumed that 
 his coming to England was for some deep political 
 object. His brother confessed that the priest had 
 given him six scraps of parchment — which are 
 believed to have been passports for the conveyance
 
 FATHER HENRY WALPOLE iii 
 
 of recusants abroad — and twelve letters ; which were 
 buried in the sand of the shore where the prisoners 
 landed. Topclifife was sent down to York to " work 
 up " the case, and disinterred the letters, which, as 
 they must have indicated many correspondents in 
 England, so much delighted the Earl of Huntingdon, 
 President of the North, that we are told that " his 
 Lordship leaped for joy," when they were slowly 
 unfolded, dried, and read. " Much lies hidden," 
 wrote Topcliffe, " in the Jesuit and Lingen which 
 cannot be digged out without further authority." 
 The " digging out " process was a long and painful 
 one for the wretched prisoner.^ Again and again 
 Father Walpole protested that his mission was a 
 purely religious one : he was to administer the 
 sacraments and exhort Catholics to remain faithful, 
 obeying in all things his superior in England, Father 
 Garnet ; but he stoutly denied his sympathy in 
 plans for a Spanish invasion or subjection of his 
 country; "which," he said, "would ruin England, 
 seeing the vicious and wanton character of Spani- 
 ards." He repelled, too, with horror the suggestion 
 that he favoured the assassination of the Queen. 
 But alas ! it was discovered that, when he was about 
 to set out from Spain on his voyage, Father Persons 
 
 ^ At one of his public examinations the unhappy man said that he 
 had been put to the torture no less than fourteen times. The most 
 common torture to which he was subjected seems to have been that 
 of suspending him by sharp irons cutting into the flesh by the hands 
 for six or seven hours at a time, the tips of the toes just touching the 
 ground. A most interesting account of Father Walpole and of the 
 awful cruelty with which he was treated— though probably not worse 
 than hundreds of other poor creatures equally innoct'ut of treason — 
 wiU be found in Dr. Augustus Jessop's "One Generation of a Norfolk 
 House."
 
 112 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 had carried him to King Philip, who had said to 
 him " Dios os encamina " — God further you ; and 
 he had gone thence to Secretary Esteban de Ibarra 
 in Flanders, from whom he had received some 
 money. Besides, he confessed that he was to 
 report himself to Garnet, who, as Lord Burghley 
 argued, " might haply commit to him some matter 
 of the State." ^ In vain he prayed for mercy, for 
 mere life. He would conform to the law, and 
 preach in the English Church according to the 
 word of the Gospel. He would betray all his 
 associates, break all his vows. It was of no avail : 
 the unfortunate Jesuit was carried to York again 
 with others in like case, and there suffered the 
 death of a traitor.^ There was not a shred of 
 evidence, except Cahill's indirect implication, that 
 Walpole was privy to the murder plot ; but the 
 prisoner's disclaimer of any sympathy in a Spanish 
 invasion of England is valueless, even if true, as 
 the efforts of his superiors in that direction are 
 abundantly recorded under their own hands : he 
 was a Jesuit, bound blindly to obey, and, as a 
 
 * Hatfield Papers, vol. iv. p. 608. 
 
 2 Father Walpole with another priest in like case, Alexander Rawlins, 
 suffered martyrdom ou the 7th April 1595. The death meted out to 
 all these poor creatures was hanging for a short time and then, often 
 before they were unconscious, disembowelling. One of the most 
 dreadful — and apparently undeserved — punishments was that inflicted 
 upon Father Robert Southwell, the chaplain of Philip, Earl of Arundel, 
 who was indicted for disaffection at the time of the Armada, but died 
 in the Tower. The chaplain Soixthwell was less fortunate. There 
 was no pretence in his case of his having been accomplice in plots ; he 
 was simply indicted of being a priest and of performing Mass in the 
 Queen's dominions. After more than three years of the most heart- 
 rending cruelty in the Tower, he was hanged and disembowelled at 
 Tyburn on the 21st February 1595.
 
 COMPLICITY IN THE PLOTS 113 
 
 member of the Society, his personal sympathies 
 went for nothing. 
 
 It will be seen by the cases recited in this chapter 
 that the accusations that have been repeated by 
 nearly every English historian from Elizabeth's time 
 to our own, of widespread and numerous plots by 
 Catholics to assassinate the Queen at this period, are 
 to a large extent unsupported by serious evidence. 
 That a small party of extreme men may have counte- 
 nanced such plans is certain, and that some of the 
 wild schemes of regicide, so readily confessed under 
 torture by the intended assassins themselves, were 
 real and dangerous, is more than probable, but that 
 any large section of Catholics, clerical or lay, 
 approved of such means of forwarding their religious 
 objects is untrue, and an impartial examination of 
 the whole of the known facts will prove this to be 
 the case. In accordance with the usual practice, it 
 was the policy of the English Government at the 
 time to blacken the character and methods of the 
 national enemy as much as possible, and it was 
 especially the object of the Essex party to exas- 
 perate English feeling to the point of forcing Eliza- 
 beth to declared and open national war with Philip. 
 Religious feeling, moreover, ran very high in England 
 itself, and for the zealous Protestants to fix upon 
 Catholicism in general the stain of regicide and dis- 
 loyalty was a victory for their own side which could 
 not fail to win over waverers who were Englishmen 
 first and Catholics afterwards. Pamphlets and 
 broadsides, professing to give the whole story of the 
 various murder plots, were numerous, and have 
 formed the basis of our historical relations for three 
 
 H
 
 114 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 centuries ; but they were written in nearly every 
 instance with political or party object, and, from the 
 nature of the case, were necessarily based upon an 
 imperfect or partial statement of the facts. The 
 opening of our own and other national archives in 
 recent years has now enabled us to go to the 
 original sources of information and attempt to dis- 
 cover the truth for ourselves, free from the heat or 
 bias that warped the minds of men who were too 
 near the events to see them clearly. The net 
 result of such inquiry tends to show that, whilst 
 the methods and ethics of ruling statesmen were 
 far less scrupulous than those of our own day, and 
 the valuation of human life as balanced against the 
 welfare of the State much lower, yet the moral 
 rectitude of the mass of the people was quite as 
 high as our own, and it would be as unjust then as 
 now to attempt to fasten upon the members of a 
 particular Church, or upon any large section of the 
 community, the reproach of favouring regicide. Even 
 the English refugees on the Continent must nearly 
 all of them have been against the commission of 
 such a crime, or the Queen M^ould never have died 
 a natural death. We not only have the apparently 
 sincere voluntary declarations in innumerable letters 
 from English exiles of their loyalty to the sovereign 
 and State, but the fact remains that, notwithstand- 
 ing all the loose talk of the swashbucklers, no 
 serious attempt was ever really made to commit the 
 murder.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The conspiracy of Dr. Lopez — The confessions of Yorke and Williams 
 — The alleged connection of the Spanish Ministers with the murder 
 plots. 
 
 In the preceding chapter I have dwelt upon a few 
 typical cases of the so-called Catholic murder plots 
 against the Queen, to show how their importance 
 was exaggerated for political reasons, and how very 
 few of the English Catholics can have sympathised 
 with them. I have, however, reserved for treat- 
 ment in a separate chapter the two principal con- 
 spiracies, the fame of which rang throughout 
 England, and aroused a fervour of loyalty towards 
 the person of the Queen, which surpassed any pre- 
 vious manifestation of the people's love for her. 
 This outburst was partly in consequence of the 
 peculiar features of treachery with which one of the 
 plots seemed to be surrounded, and the fact that 
 both of them were ostensibly traced directly to the 
 instigation of the King of Spain or his Ministers. 
 
 We saw in the last chapter that the loose boast- 
 ing of Captain Eustace, repeated by Annias, was 
 accepted as a reason for associating Esteban de 
 Ibarra, Philip's Secretary of War in Flanders, with 
 the plot for the Queen's assassination ; but this 
 evidence was really so slight as hardly to be worth 
 consideration. It was otherwise with the famous 
 conspiracy of Dr. Lopez, and the atrocious plot
 
 ii6 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 confessed by Edmund Yorke and Williams. The 
 first of these two intrigues deserves special con- 
 sideration here, because its apparent heinousness 
 aroused English hatred of Spain to the highest 
 pitch, and so greatly influenced subsequent events, 
 and also because my own recent researches at Paris 
 and in Lord Calthorpe's MSS. have provided me 
 with new information which must be taken into 
 account before a final historical verdict can be 
 given, either as to the guilt of Lopez himself, > or 
 as to the direct complicity of Philip IL in a plot to 
 murder his sister-in-law. The story is extremely 
 involved, but I will endeavour to reduce it to as 
 simple a form as is compatible with the statement 
 of all the facts upon which a judgment should be 
 based. Contrary to the course followed by other 
 writers on the subject, I propose to set forth the 
 facts as they were disclosed, instead of in the order 
 in which they were supposed to have happened.^ 
 Dr. Rodrigo or Ruy Lopez, though a professed 
 
 * The principal authorities upon the Lopez plot are as follows : — 
 State Papers, Domestic, from vol. ccxxxviii. to cclviii.,1 abstracted in 
 the Calendars for 1593-94; the Gawdy Papers, Hist. MSS. Commis- 
 missiou ; Hatfield Paj^ers, vol. iv. ; the Bacon Papers in the Lambeth 
 Palace Library, of which Birch's extracts are in B.M., Sloane MSS., 
 41 12, and are mostly published in his "Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth ;' 
 Charles Yetswirt's " True Report of Sondry Horrible Conspiracies," 
 London, 1594 (French version of same; also London, 1594); 
 Francis Bacon's " True Report of the Detestable Treason ; " Bishop 
 Goodman's " Court of James I. ; " Sir William Waad's detailed ac- 
 count of the case in Lord Calthorpe's Manuscript Papers (for allowing 
 me access to which I desire to thank his Lordship) ; an excellent 
 article called "The Conspiracy of Dr. Lopez" in the Englwh Historical 
 Review, for July 1894, by tlie Rev, Arthur Dimock ; and Mr. Sidney 
 Lee's article on " Lopez " in the " Dictionary of National Biography." 
 There is also a contemporai-y statement of the whole case drawn up by 
 Coke, the Solicitor-General, in Harl. MSS., P.M., 871.
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 117 
 
 Protestant, was one of those Iberian Jews throu":h 
 whom the medical lore of the ancient Orient filtered 
 to the Western world. Thel'persecution of this race 
 in the Peninsula had driven them forth with their 
 learning and traditions to seek safety in other lands ; 
 and in the sixteenth century no court in Europe 
 lacked a physician of this sort, who was reported 
 to possess secrets of science unattainable to the 
 Gentile practitioners in their profession. Such 
 men naturally attracted the dislike and jealousy of 
 their medical rivals, both on account of their mys- 
 terious skill and their outcast race. They were 
 generally self-seeking intriguers, who often wormed 
 themselves into the confidence of high personages, 
 and added to their wealth and importance by making 
 themselves useful as intermediaries in affairs of state, 
 where their knowledge of tongues and their con- 
 fidential position gave them an advantage over others. 
 Lopez had lived in London since the beginning of 
 Elizabeth's reign, first in Broad Street in the city of 
 London, then in Wood Street, and finally in Mount- 
 joy's Inn, Holborn. Gradually he became a leading 
 physician, and obtained the patronage of Leicester, 
 whose household doctor he was. Leicester was 
 accused by his enemies, and notably by Father Per- 
 sons, of a propensity for removing inconvenient 
 friends or rivals by poison, and naturally his house- 
 hold physician shared his evil repute in this respect. 
 The English medical men of the time shrugged 
 their shoulders and turned up their eyes when Lopez 
 was mentioned, and it became an accepted fact that 
 the Portuguese Jew had more skill in intrigue and 
 self-advertisement than in medicine, and knew more
 
 ii8 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 about poisoning than healing. But with the patron- 
 age of Leicester and Walsingham, both members 
 of the Puritan party, Lopez continued to prosper 
 greatly in spite of frowns and sneers. In 1586 
 he was appointed principal physician to the Queen, 
 he was house-physician of St. Bartholomew's Hos- 
 pital, and was to all appearance a person of wealth, 
 though he was really impecunious. In the pursuit 
 of profit he was certainly indefatigable. He had a 
 monopoly for a term of years of the importation of 
 shumac and aniseed into England ; his son was 
 being educated at Winchester College, Oxford, by 
 means of the revenues of a parsonage granted to 
 him by the Queen ; one of his wealthy patients 
 gave him a house ; and when Don Antonio, the 
 Portuguese Pretender, came to England to crave 
 the assistance of Elizabeth, Dr. Lopez at once be- 
 came his advocate at court, his interpreter, and his 
 inseparable friend — doubtless for very handsome 
 consideration, for the Pretender, at his first coming, 
 had brought with him from Portugal some of the 
 finest jewels in the world, and whilst they lasted 
 he was a welcome guest both to Elizabeth and to 
 Catharine de Medici. Lopez had acted for his 
 patrons, Leicester and Walsingham, in presenting 
 Antonio's cause to the Queen in the most glowing 
 colours ; and, influenced by his representations, 
 Elizabeth had been induced to consent to the 
 joint-stock company invasion of Portugal by an 
 English force in 1589, which ended in a dismal 
 fiasco.^ Elizabeth was very angry with Antonio 
 
 * The history of this expedition is fully related in " The Year after 
 the ArniaHa," by the present writer.
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 119 
 
 for the failure of his hopes, and Lopez was ex- 
 tremely apologetic for his share in the transaction. 
 
 Thenceforward the Pretender was under a cloud, 
 the jewels were soon gone, and the crowd of 
 Portuguese adherents who had surrounded him 
 whilst his hopes lasted began to fall away from 
 him. Many of them had already prepared a path 
 for their political salvation by serving as spies in 
 England for Philip, and as early as 1586 one of them 
 had sent proposals to Mendoza in Paris, and to 
 Philip himself, to have Don Antonio poisoned.^ To 
 these proposals Idiaquez, the King's secretary, re- 
 plied to Mendoza that "the deed might be done 
 without scruple as Don Antonio is a rebel, and has 
 been condemned to death by law." The murderer 
 was to have 25,000 or 30,000 ducats, and Idiaquez, 
 by order of the King, urged that no time should 
 be lost in performing the service.^ The proposed 
 assassin, however, was a windbag, and the attempt 
 came to nothing; but in the following year (1587) 
 the same spy, Vega, mentioned a plan that he had 
 for persuading Dr. Lopez to poison Don Antonio, by 
 purging the latter with Indian acacia, instead of 
 with his customary fortnightly purge. This was 
 merely mentioned, together with a number of 
 similar vague ideas proposed with the same object 
 by Vega, and does not in any way commit Lopez 
 yet. But shortly afterwards, Vega wrote that he 
 had succeeded in gaining over Dr. Lopez, whom he 
 had " converted to his Majesty's service with good 
 promises, and he has already done wonders in trying 
 
 ^ MSS. Siraancas and Paris, Spanish Calendar, vols. iii. and iv. 
 ^ Spanisli Calendar, vol. iv. p. 12.
 
 120 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 to get him, Antonio, turned out of here." Mendoza, 
 in a marginal note to this letter, scornfully asks why 
 Vega, *' if he is so sure of Dr. Lopez, does not have 
 Don Antonio put out of the way altogether." On a 
 mere hint which Don Gerau de Spes gave him 
 (Lopez), he offered to purge a Portuguese pilot who 
 was busy about some expeditions from England to 
 the Indies. He took the recipe to the apothecary 
 himself, and on his way he let it fall out of his 
 breeches pocket, in consequence of which he was 
 kept for six months in the Tower, " I {i.e. Mendoza) 
 will say that this other business will be well paid for, 
 as the doctor knows, and it may be settled without 
 hesitation." ^ But Lopez would do nothing on 
 Vega's word alone, and wanted a distinct pledge in 
 writing from Philip or his Ministers. Distrust pre- 
 vented this from being sent, and the matter for the 
 time again fell through. 
 
 After the wreck of the Armada, Lopez busied 
 himself greatly in favour of the Spanish prisoners of 
 the poorer sort from one of the captured galleons, 
 and claimed to have rescued 300 of them from the 
 gallows and secured their liberation. One of the 
 most daring and effective of the Portuguese spies 
 was Manuel de Andrada," who sent to Mendoza in 
 
 * Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. p. 78. I cannot find any confirmation 
 of Mendoza's statement that Lopez was imprisoned, as he says, though 
 it is no doubt true that he agreed to poison the Portuguese pilot, 
 Bartolome Bay on, in 1571. 
 
 2 Every writer on the subject with whose works I am acquainted 
 lavishes upon this man vituperative epithets, wliich, so far as I can see, 
 are absolutely unjustified, except that, like all the dramatis j>ersonm, he 
 was a double spy. Motley calls him " the famous Portuguese poisoner,'' 
 which he certainly was not. Mr. Diniock says he " was a ruffian pure 
 and simple." Tlie papers I shall cite from Simancas and Paris will 
 prove that at all events he told the truth.
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 121 
 
 Paris absolutely correct and full advice of English 
 naval affairs, and of the movements of Don Antonio. 
 He spoke French and Flemish, and was frequently 
 sent by Don Antonio on missions abroad, but was 
 already, in 1590, suspected — and with good reason 
 — of playing false to his master. During his absence 
 in France on Don Antonio's business, he had left as 
 his substitute in England another spy, one Rodrigo 
 Marques, and on Andrada's arrival in London from 
 Dieppe at the beginning of 1590, he had met his 
 substitute there, and had learnt of Don Antonio's 
 intention to fly from England to seek the aid of the 
 Dutch, the Huguenots, or even of the Turks, since 
 Elizabeth was unwilling to help him further. 
 Andrada was secretly instructed by the Pretender 
 to freight a ship for this purpose to carry him to 
 Dieppe, and treacherously stipulated with the 
 Flemish skipper, for 10,000 crowns, to alter his 
 course when he was out at sea and run the vessel 
 into Dunkirk, where Antonio would be at the 
 mercy of the Spaniards. This pretty arrangement 
 was conveyed in a letter written by Andrada to 
 Mendoza in Paris, but the letter was intercepted, and, 
 although written with sensitive ink, was promptly 
 deciphered by Phellips, and Andrada was clapped 
 into jail, Marques flying into hiding until the hue 
 and cry was over, and then escaping into France. 
 
 By the strenuous intervention of Dr. Lopez, An- 
 drada was released, instead of being hanged by Don 
 Antonio ; and when he arrived in France, the spy 
 had a strange story to tell the Spanish ambassador. 
 He had, he said, made great efforts to win over Dr. 
 Lopez, "who is a person of great influence with the
 
 122 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Queen and Council." " When Andrada was about 
 to leave England, the Doctor said that as he had 
 saved Andradra's hfe — which he certainly did, for if 
 he had not interceded for him nothing else could 
 have rescued him — he would confide in him that he 
 had already been approached by Mendoza for the 
 purpose of putting Don Antonio out of the way ; ^ 
 but he had refused, as he was distrustful. He had 
 been the means, he said, of saving from the gallows 
 over three hundred Spaniards from Don Pedro's ship, 
 who had been sentenced to be hanged ; and yet, for 
 all this, he had never received any favour whatever 
 from his Majesty (Philip). He said that God had 
 ordained my imprisonment, and made him the in- 
 strument of my release, in order that he might be 
 able implicitly to trust me ; and since I displayed 
 so much zeal in the service of his Majesty, I might 
 tell Don Bernardino (Mendoza) that if he, Dr. 
 Lopez, received his Majesty's orders to negotiate 
 an arrangement, this was the time. He was sure 
 that the Queen would concede any terms that were 
 demanded of her, as she was in great alarm. It 
 was not necessary to write about this, but that I 
 should go to Calais, and write to him from there to 
 the effect that, bearing in mind the clemency the 
 Queen had extended to me, I was discussing with 
 Mendoza subjects which would redound greatly to 
 the advantage of her country ; " and that if a pass- 
 
 ' It is fair to observe that on a former occasion wlien Lopez said 
 this to Vega, Mendoza said it was a lie ; but there was nothing impro- 
 bable in it. 
 
 - Letters to a similar effect to this were written by Andrada to Lopez 
 in 1 59 1 from Calais. See Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, for 
 that year, where translations of them will be found.
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 123 
 
 port were sent to me, enabling me to go backwards 
 and forwards freely, which passport Lopez promised 
 should be sent at once, I could come secretly and 
 stay in his house in London, where Secretary Wal- 
 singham could come and speak with me. He, 
 Lopez, had no doubt that the Queen would come 
 to terms with his Majesty, and would force Don 
 Antonio to do the same, on the conditions that his 
 Majesty might think just. She would also cause 
 the Netherlands to agree, and he, Lopez, on his part, 
 would endeavour that everything should be done to 
 his Majesty's satisfaction. No one was to know 
 that he had discussed this matter with me. He 
 would continue to let me know the decisions arrived 
 at by the Queen's Council ; and when things were 
 sufEciently advanced towards a conclusion to his 
 Majesty's satisfaction, personages might be sent to 
 make the formal contracts. He hopes that every- 
 thing may thus be settled speedily and advantage- 
 ously for his Majesty ; and he promises, if the 
 matter be kept secret, that he will inform me of 
 everything that happens of interest to his Majesty. 
 If an arrangement be not arrived at, he promises 
 that Don Antonio shall be sent away from England, 
 or detained as his Majesty may desire, and if the 
 present suggestion fell through he would continue 
 to protect his Majesty's interests in England. In 
 very truth no person can report so well as he can, 
 in consequence of his great influence with the 
 Queen and Council : but . . . energy and liberality 
 are necessary." ^ 
 
 It is evident that Walsingham was behind Lopez 
 
 ^ MSS. Paris Archives, Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.
 
 124 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 in this suggestion, and having in view the party to 
 which he belonged, we shall be safe in assuming 
 that the suggestion of peace negotiations was only 
 a screen behind which agents might go backwards 
 and forwards to Spain, and obtain information of 
 armaments, &c. But two parties can play at such a 
 game as this ; and when Andrada, with Marques in 
 his company, proceeded to Spain, apparently them- 
 selves in all sincerity, Mendoza suggested to the 
 King, and the latter approved of the suggestion, 
 that Andrada shall be " sent backwards and for- 
 wards to England under cover of the negotiation, 
 so that he may be able to report what is going on 
 there." ' 
 
 This, however, was not the only message that 
 Andrada took from England. A brother-in-laAv 
 of Lopez (whose name is not mentioned, but who 
 was one of several brothers, English Jews, perhaps 
 originally from Portugal, named Jorge or Anes) had 
 professed to be deeply oflfended with Don Antonio 
 for having spoken ill of his father (Gonzalo Jorge?), 
 and promised, if a person were sent to him with an 
 agreed token, he would " kill Don Antonio if his 
 Majesty desired." He disapproved of the peaceful 
 suggestion of his brother-in-law Lopez ; but, pend- 
 ing the authority to kill the Pretender, he also would 
 send information from England. Andrada protests 
 that "he never, on his conscience, urged the person 
 to do this ; yet, seeing that although the heretic 
 Queen had been merciful to him, Don Antonio had 
 tried by all means to have him killed, he, Andrada, 
 in revenge for such cruelty, is now disposed to do 
 
 ^ ^ISS. Paris Archives, Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 125 
 
 everything against Don Antonio, even to have him 
 killed. Nothing will be done, however, without his 
 Majesty's orders." 
 
 These were the missions that Andrada carried to 
 Madrid, in part with the connivance of Walsingham, 
 through Lopez ; and I have quoted thus fully from 
 these documents, which are here used for the first 
 time, because upon this negotiation was subsequently 
 built the accusation against Lopez of participating in 
 the plot to murder the Queen, and an infinity of 
 totally unsupported scandal was grouped around it. 
 Andrada and Marques, as usual with persons of their 
 rank, did not negotiate in Spain with the King him- 
 self, though they said they were admitted to the 
 presence of Philip, who was seriously ill at the 
 Escorial, to kiss his hand, as he sat in his great 
 black velvet wheel chair. The peace suggestions of 
 Dr. Lopez were discussed with Don Cristobal de 
 Moura, Philip's favourite Secretary of State, and, 
 although we know that the negotiation was as 
 hollow on one side as the other, Andrada was sent 
 back to England, with full instructions to proceed in 
 the manner proposed by Mendoza. Moura's draft 
 instructions on the matter are plain and precise. It 
 is probable that Andrada himself was to think that 
 the Spaniards were sincere, although, if such was 
 the intention, he was really not deceived, and on his 
 arrival in England at once divulged the truth in 
 this respect to Lord Burghley. The draft for his 
 instructions ^ clearly demonstrate that his negotia- 
 tions in Spain were confined to the matters he had 
 already stated in writing to Mendoza, namely, the 
 
 ^ See Appendix, p. 162.
 
 126 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 peace negotiations, the confinement in or expulsion 
 from England of Don Antonio by the influence of 
 Lopez, the murder of Don Antonio by Lopez's brother- 
 in-law, unknown to the doctor, and the gaining of in- 
 formation in England. All these offers were accepted 
 by Philip's Minister Moura, though, as will be seen, 
 not the faintest indication is given in these most secret 
 papers of any hint of a plot to kill Elizabeth, and 
 certainly none was included in this negotiation. Of 
 course, Moura must have known perfectly well that 
 such an envoy as Andrada would have had no chance 
 of negotiating a peace with the Queen, and the hint 
 that "satisfaction" must be given by England, with- 
 out, apparently, any concession on the part of Spain, 
 would of itself have rendered the negotiations abor- 
 tive. The whole matter, indeed, was insincere on 
 both sides, with the object of gaining information. 
 When Andrada and Marques were about to set out 
 for England, Moura only provided the insignificant 
 sum of 300 reals ( = ^6) for their voyage, and a pro- 
 mise of a pension of 30 reals (per month ?) ^ at some 
 future time. So empty, indeed, was Philip's treasury 
 that Andrada's demand for a jewel for Dr. Lopez's 
 " daughter," and the payments for the doctor's 
 brother-in-law and the spy who furnished Andrada 
 with information, had to be met by taking some of 
 the "old jewels from his Majesty's casket"" in lieu 
 of sending money. The '* old jewel" sent to I^opez's 
 daughter was a fine diamond and ruby ring, worth 
 ;^ioo, and it was made, three years afterwards, one 
 of the principal pieces de conviction against the 
 doctor. It was said to have been sent direct 
 
 ^ See Apjiendix, p. 162. ^ Ibid.
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 127 
 
 from Philip to Lopez as a pledge for the murder 
 of Elizabeth, and was asserted to have been ac- 
 companied by an " embrace " from the King 
 himself. Andrada doubtless boasted and made 
 the most of his mission ; but there is no indication 
 in the Spanish documents that any such message 
 was sent, or even that he saw Philip at all. To any 
 one who knows, as I do, the relations that existed 
 between Philip and the rest of mankind, the mere 
 idea of an "embrace" being sent by the King him- 
 self through such a messenger as Andrada to such a 
 person as Dr. Lopez is ridiculous. The ahrazo, at 
 all events, may be dismissed as a fable invented long 
 afterwards. The ring itself may have been intended 
 for the Queen, as Lopez's daughters were young girls, 
 and it is not likely that a ring would be sent to 
 either of them. In any case, Lopez offered the ring 
 to the Queen, though it is not clear whether he told 
 her from whom it came, and she graciously refused 
 it,^ Of Marques we hear no more, but Andrada, 
 after suffering shipwreck and many adventures, 
 arrived at Havre in the summer of 1591, and begged 
 the English Government to give him a passport to 
 come to England. Walsingham, however, had died 
 in the meanwhile, and Lord Burghley had received 
 from his spies full information of Andrada's sus- 
 picious visit to Spain. Besides, his former betrayal 
 of Don Antonio had marked him as a dangerous man, 
 and when, eventually, after detention as a suspicious 
 character by the Huguenot governor of Dieppe, he 
 
 * The fact of her having refused the ring is presumptive evidence of 
 Lopez having said it came from Philip. As a rule, she received such 
 presents from her courtiers with alacrity.
 
 128 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 was brought to Rye, it was as a prisoner of the Eng- 
 lish. Lord Burghley, who evidently knew nothing 
 of Walsingham's complicity in the matter, attached 
 much importance to Andrada's coming. The air, as 
 we have seen, was full of the talk of the Spanish 
 plots, and here was a man known to be a traitor to 
 his own King and in the pay of Spain, coming 
 straight from Philip and was seeking entrance to 
 the English court. When Andrada was brought to 
 Rye (August 2, 1591 O.S.), he wrote to Burghley 
 begging that he may be examined by the Lord 
 Treasurer himself or by some person of great 
 trust, as his mission was important ; ^ and to the 
 King, Don Antonio, he also sent a letter full of 
 contrition for past errors, saying that he always 
 wished to serve him, and had determined, in unison 
 with Marques, upon a course which would complete 
 successfully the matter he had in hand. Pie trusts, 
 he says, that Antonio's Minister, Botello, may be 
 present when he speaks to the Lord Treasurer 
 on matters concerning the Queen and Philip IL 
 Burghley's answer to the spy's letter was to send 
 Mr. Mills to Rye with Botello and Dr. Lopez to 
 examine Andrada and his papers, "at first civilly, 
 and then threateningly, so that in fear of his life he 
 may be compelled to disclose the truth." On the 
 13th August, Andrada related to Mr. Mills quite 
 truly everything which I have already told from 
 the documents themselves. From that time to this 
 English historians have characterised this statement 
 of his as a pack of lies," and the man himself as a 
 
 ^ State Papers, Domestic. 
 
 - Mr. Dimock, for instance, dismissed it as " of course, all sheer false-
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 129 
 
 perjured braggart ; but I have checked every state- 
 ment and cannot find one discrepancy. He had been 
 sent on this peace negotiation, he said, by Pliilip, 
 whilst the latter prepared an expedition against 
 England or Ireland : he told the whole story of 
 his former negotiation with Mendoza, and assured 
 Burghley that Walsingham was a party to the arrange- 
 ment, though he does not seem to have appealed 
 to Lopez for confirmation, as he might have done ; 
 he disclosed the oflfer of the Anglo-Portuguese 
 brother-in-law of Lopez — though he did not give his 
 name — to kill Don Antonio, and added that, on the 
 failure of a certain Spanish emissary from Philip to get 
 through France to kill the Pretender, the Spanish 
 Ministers had authorised him, Andrada, to offer Dr. 
 Lopez himself a large sum to commit the crime. 
 
 Lord Burghley was indignantly incredulous of the 
 whole story, and sent to Andrada a scornful paper of 
 queries.^ How could Philip think, he asked, that 
 Andrada could be a fit envoy to England, seeing the 
 way in which he had betrayed Antonio before, and 
 how could he think that the Queen would receive 
 such a man? The suggestion (of Moura) that 
 Andrada should be sent to Parma to make terms, 
 considering how the Prince had tricked the Queen 
 in the former peace negotiations, was ridiculous. 
 What was the use of the disclosure of the names 
 of those who had been spies in England, or of his, 
 Andrada's, proposal for England to checkmate Philip 
 by sending a force to Portugal in September in the 
 
 hood." As a matter of fact it is all confirmed by the letters of Mendoza 
 and Moura. 
 
 1 In State Papers, Domestic, of the date. 
 
 I
 
 I30 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 interests of Don Antonio ? Andrada made good and 
 true answers to all these objections. He gave a 
 wonderfully correct list of the Spanish spies still in 
 England, letters from all of whom I have seen. He 
 cited Mendoza's strong letter of recommendation of 
 him to the King as a reason for the latter's trust in 
 him, and protested warmly that his ultimate object was 
 neither ambition nor greed, but to save Portugal from 
 Spanish tyranny and avenge the death of his kins- 
 folk who had been sacrificed to Philip's cruelty. The 
 man was obviously a traitor, and Burghley would not 
 believe his protestations, or for some time accept his 
 oifers of service as a spy. He was consigned to the 
 keeping of Dr. Lopez, in whose house he lived for 
 the next year or so, and in June 1593 we find him 
 living at Calais, whence he had gone from Zeeland, 
 and although, as he says, poorly recompensed, sending 
 to Lord Burghley such news as he could gather in 
 the interests of England.^ He was, however, dis- 
 contented with his pay, and in August wrote to the 
 Lord Treasurer a letter very different in tone to those 
 he usually sent, and evidently conveying a covert 
 intimation that unless money was sent to him he 
 would take his services elsewhere. " As the Queen 
 has nothing for him to do, and Don Antonio is not 
 in a position to support him, he is determined to go 
 where his fortune shall guide him." Naturally his 
 fortune guided him to the Spanish territory of 
 Brussels, and, fortunately for himself, Manuel An- 
 drada trod English soil no more, although upon the 
 
 ^ His letters to Lord Hiirghley are in tlie Hatfield Papers, vol. iv. 
 When he had set out for Flanders, Burghley had given him a sum equal 
 to ,^io, and he does not seem to have received more.
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 131 
 
 facts I have here set down was reared the edifice whose 
 fall crushed Dr. Lopez and sent all England into a 
 fresh frenzy of hate and rage against the Spaniards. 
 
 Lopez in the meanwhile lived honoured and re- 
 spected at court, a man of supposed wealth and 
 influence; but he was already marked down for 
 ruin. As we have seen, he had owed his advance- 
 ment to Leicester, Walsingham, and Essex, the 
 heads of the party determined upon open war with 
 Spain, and lo I the discovery of this peace negotiation 
 of Andrada exhibited him as an anxious intermediary 
 in an arrangement with Spain. "Walsingham was 
 dead, and could not say that he never meant the 
 negotiations to be sincere ; they were evidently in- 
 tended to be so by Lopez, and this was a desertion 
 of those to whom he owed everything.^ Essex was 
 hotheaded and vindictive enough himself, but he 
 had now two men practically living upon his bounty 
 to whom peace with Spain was utter ruin and whose 
 hatred for Philip was a mania. 
 
 T)on Antonio, the evicted king, whose crown 
 Philip had wrested from his brows ; and Antonio 
 Perez, the sleepless foe who had derided, deceived, 
 and defied the sovereign who looked upon himself 
 as semi-divine ; who had raised revolt against and 
 
 ^ Bishop Goodman, in his " Court of James I.,'' gives us another 
 reason for Essex's anger with Lopez. It appears that Don Antonio 
 and Antonio Perez were carousing with Dr. Lopez at Eton, where they 
 were all lodged whilst the court was at Windsor, and in the confidence 
 bred of the circumstances the Doctor told his boon companions some 
 very discreditable secret respecting the Earl's maladies. This breach 
 of professional etiquette was immediately conveyed to Essex by the 
 two Antonios, and "here the Earl was so much incensed that he 
 resolved to be revenged on him, and now he began to possess the 
 Queen that Lopez was a very villain and had poisoned others."
 
 132 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 had humiliated the proudest king on earth before 
 his own people. To these men, both of whose lives 
 Philip sought, Lopez, the reputed poisoner, was 
 dreaded and hateful in a double sense. He had 
 been in close communication with their enemy, 
 first, to bring about peace between England and 
 Spain, and secondly, to assassinate by his vile art 
 those whom Philip wished out of the way. 
 
 What could save Lopez from such a combination 
 as this, even if he had been innocent, much less if 
 any guilt could be found beneath all this mysterious 
 intriguing ? 
 
 Either from the spying of Essex's creatures or 
 otherwise, it was conveyed to the Queen by the 
 Earl in the middle of October 1595 that a certain 
 Portuguese gentleman of rank, who had been 
 ruined by his adherence to the cause of Don Antonio, 
 and was then living in Lopez's house in Holborn, 
 being discontented with his master, had determined 
 to compass the death of Don Antonio and offer his 
 services to the King of Spain. ^ The Queen at once 
 gave Essex an order for the apprehension of this 
 man, Esteban Ferreira da Gama, and the exami- 
 nation of his papers.^ This was the first step, and 
 Essex lost no time in making the arrest, and 
 handing his prisoner over to his own offended 
 sovereign, Don Antonio, who was then lodging at 
 
 1 Carleton (" Thankful Remembrancer ") says that " it was conveyed 
 tt) the Queen that it was Ferreira's intention to go to the King of 
 Spain accompanied by Don Manoel, the eldest son of Don Antonio, 
 and divers other Portuguese, the purpose being for them all to submit 
 to Philip." Such a submission was, as we shall see by the correspond- 
 ence, at all events one of the objects of the negotiations. 
 
 '^ All these men had aliases, some of them several, but I have 
 throughout retained their true names to avoid unnecessary obscurity.
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 133 
 
 Eton College/ Orders were also sent to Rye, 
 )Sandwicli, and Dover for all correspondence arriving 
 at those ports directed to Portuguese to be detained 
 and read. There was no definite charge against 
 Ferreira ; he was merely suspected of an intention 
 to betray his master, Don Antonio ; but a fortnight 
 after his arrest a man named Gomez d'Avila, 
 described as a " mean, base fellow," living when 
 at home hard by Lopez's house in Uolborn, was 
 taken at one of the ports as he came from Flanders. 
 Upon him was found a letter addressed to one 
 Ferrandis, and signed Francisco de Torres. The 
 terms in the letter were commercial, but neither the 
 writer nor the person to whom it was addressed was 
 known. It ran thus: "The bearer will inform 
 your Worship in what price your pearls are held. 
 I will advise your Worship presently of the utter- 
 most penny that will be given for them, and crave 
 what order you will have set down for the convey- 
 ance of the money, and wherein you would have it 
 employed. Also this bearer shall tell you in what 
 resolution we rested about a little musk and amber, 
 the which I determined to buy. But before I 
 resolve myself I will be advised of the price 
 thereof. And if it shall please your Worship to 
 be my partner, I am persuaded we shall make good 
 profit."" This was very mysterious, and no explana- 
 tion could be got from Gomez d'Avila. But he 
 was put in prison as a precautionary measure whilst 
 further inquiries were being made, his arrival and 
 
 1 Sir William Waad's account in Lord Calthorpe's MSS,, vol. xxxiii. 
 fol. 148. 
 
 - Yetswirts " True Report." &c.
 
 134 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 arrest being kept secret. About the same time a 
 large packet of letters was seized on another Por- 
 tuguese at Dover, addressed to a certain Manuel 
 Luis at Brussels, and in this packet was found a 
 letter written by Ferreira to the Spanish Secretary 
 Ibarra, enclosing another from Dr. Lopez to Ferreira, 
 written before the arrest of the latter, giving him 
 news of what was passing at court, where Lopez 
 was staying, Ferreira being at the time in Dr. 
 Lopez's house in London. This was confirmation 
 of the suspicions against Ferreira, but nothing 
 else. 
 
 In the meanwhile Lopez was using all the influ- 
 ence he possessed with the Queen to secure the 
 release of Ferreira. He told her how ungrateful 
 Don Antonio was, not only to this good servant of 
 his, who had sacrificed everything for him, but also 
 to her. He (Antonio) was even now, he assured 
 her, quite truly, again planning to go to France, and 
 to appeal for help to other princes, as he had done 
 before. There was, Lopez told the Queen, no 
 person more likely to be useful than Ferreira "to 
 work a peace between the two kingdoms, in which 
 he (Lopez) had already laid a good foundation." ^ 
 And if her Majesty did not desire this course, what 
 a good thing it would be " to cosin the King of 
 Spain by a speech uttered by himself! "^ The Queen 
 sharply reproved the Doctor for this. She did not 
 relish such liberties being taken with a crowned 
 head, even that of her enemy. It was noticed, too, 
 by courtiers that the Jew grew more and more 
 
 1 Sir William Waad's account in Lord Calthorpe's MSS. 
 2 Ibid.
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 135 
 
 haggard and anxious, for Essex had many friends 
 whose watchful eyes were upon him. 
 
 In the meantime the "base fellow," Gomez d'Avila, 
 was being daily pressed in Essex's house for some ex- 
 planation of the mysterious musk and amber missive 
 he had brought. During the time he was waiting 
 in the chamber for examination on one occasion, he 
 begged "an honest gentleman who happened to be 
 there, and who spoke the Spanish tongue, to tell 
 Dr. Lopez that he was captured." ^ This was a clue 
 that was not lost upon Essex, to whom it was con- 
 veyed, for hitherto there had been no mention of 
 any connection between Gomez d'Avila and the 
 Doctor. " The honest gentleman " shortly after- 
 wards met Lopez in the Base Court at Windsor, and 
 gave him the message ; whereupon it was noticed 
 that Lopez "changed countenance."" When Gomez 
 d'Avila saw the rack he gave further extension to 
 the story. He had been sent, he said, by Ferreira 
 two months previously to Brussels to one Manuel 
 l^uis — whose real name was Tinoco — and to Secre- 
 tary Ibarra, and had there awaited for weeks the 
 reply which he had brought to England, the letter 
 signed Torres being really written by Manuel Luis 
 (Tinoco). This at once marked out Ferreira as the 
 man to whom this mysterious musk and amber letter 
 had really been written. 
 
 Shortly before this Ferreira had taken a most 
 unfortunate step. He was, be it recollected, only 
 a prisoner of Don Antonio at Eton, and was under 
 the charge of a young Portuguese servant named 
 
 * Sir William Waad's account in Lord Caltliorpe's MSS. 
 2 Ibid.
 
 136 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Pedro. In order to test this lad, Ferreira asked him 
 to beg another Portuguese, one Caldeira, who was 
 a member of the household of the French Ambas- 
 sador, also living at Eton College, to come and 
 speak to him at his grated window. Caldeira re- 
 plied that he dared not ; but as the reply proved 
 that Pedro had given the message, Ferreira then 
 sent him to Caldeira with a little note, praying him 
 to see Dr. Lopez, and to warn him, for God's sake, 
 to prevent the coming over of Gomez d'Avila from 
 Brussels, " for if he should be taken, the Doctor would 
 be undone without remedy." ^ The message was con- 
 veyed to Lopez, who had not yet learnt of Gomez's 
 arrest, and he then made his fatal mistake. Caldeira 
 had been arrested, and was imprisoned at Ditton 
 Park, for the lad Pedro had divulged to Don Antonio 
 Ferreira's communication with him and Lopez. So 
 the latter had to find another means of sending a 
 reassuring note to Ferreira. He wrote on a little 
 ticket, folded in a handkerchief sent from the 
 laundry, that he had already taken steps to stop 
 Gomez d'Avila from coming. " He had," he said, 
 " sent twice or thrice to Flanders with that object, 
 and would spare no expense, if it cost him ^300." ^ 
 This little note in the handkerchief was, of course, 
 intercepted (by the confessor in the service of Don 
 Antonio), and when Ferreira was confronted with 
 the information contained in it, thinking that Lopez 
 had betrayed him, he hastened to make a declaration 
 
 ' The little note also contained these words: "All the diligence 
 that hath been used doth not condemn Dr. Lopez as yet any whit, for 
 I have bravely diverted anybody from that." This is noted by Waad 
 as being "very suspicious" (Lord Calthorpe's MSS, 33). 
 
 2 Ibid.
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 137 
 
 incriminating the Doctor. Lopez, he said, was a 
 principal party in the negotiations for the submis- 
 sion of l^on Antonio's son and heir to the King of 
 Spain. The J)octor, he repeated, had artfully secured 
 Andrada's release from prison three years before, in 
 order that he mio;ht so to Mendoza and deal for the 
 poisoning of Don Antonio ; and he (Lopez) had 
 been in the interests of Spain for years. Much of 
 this was old news, at least to the Cecils, who had 
 squeezed Andrada at Eye two years before, but it 
 gave Essex some further clues. Gomez d'Avila was 
 plied with leading questions till he confessed that 
 when he was in Brussels he learnt that a great sum 
 of money was to be sent to England, some 40,000 
 or 50,000 crowns, he thought. It was to be ad- 
 dressed to Ferreira, and was for the purpose of 
 buying the adhesion of Don Antonio's eldest son 
 and his followers to the Spanish side. Ferreira 
 being confronted with this statement, admitted its 
 truth, and confessed that the " musk and amber " 
 letter was really intended for him, and referred to 
 this matter. He went further, and proposed that 
 the plot should be allowed ostensibly to proceed, 
 and the sum, when it came, handed over to Don 
 Antonio himself, to be used against Spain. Don 
 Antonio was in dire poverty, and the money would 
 have been welcome enough, but Essex and Perez 
 persuaded him that there was some deep mystery 
 behind all this, which, when discovered, would do 
 more for his cause and against Philip than could be 
 done by the treasure. 
 
 The watch upon the English ports was not 
 slackened, and in December it met with its reward.
 
 138 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 The Portuguese called Tinoco, otherwise Manuel 
 Luis, came to JefFerey, the English Consul at Calais, 
 asking for a passport and safe-conduct to go to 
 England. He had been, he said, an adherent of 
 Don Antonio ; he had feigned attachment to the 
 Spaniards, and had lived in Brussels in order to 
 obtain the release of his wife and children in Portu- 
 gal. He was, however, disgusted with his prince, 
 Antonio, and owed gratitude and allegiance alone to 
 the English Queen, who had secured his liberation 
 from captivity in Barbary. His object in going to 
 England was to reveal to the Queen and the Lord 
 Treasurer secrets hurtful to England which he had 
 learnt in Brussels. Jefferey, at his request, for- 
 warded two memorials to this effect to Elizabeth 
 and Eurghley, and in due time a "prudently 
 drafted " safe-conduct was sent by Sir William 
 Waad, allowing the Portuguese to enter England 
 without molestation, but reserved to the discretion 
 of the Government whether he should be allowed to 
 depart again. Tinoco, taking his safe-conduct for a 
 full protection, sailed for England, in company with 
 one of the Consul's servants, who took care not to 
 let him out of his sight until he handed him to the 
 captain of Dover Castle. Thence he was taken to 
 court with all secrecy, expecting to be granted an 
 interview with Lord Burghley. But, to his dismay, 
 he was seized, searched, and placed safe under lock 
 and key (14th January 1594). On him were found 
 two letters, which were susceptible of sinister inter- 
 pretation, and bills of exchange for a large sum of 
 money. One of the letters was dated Brussels, 
 Tjf December 1593, signed by Count de Fnentes,
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 139 
 
 the Spanish governor of Flanders, and addressed 
 to Ferreira, who had been languishing in Don 
 Antonio's prison for two months previously. The 
 letter bespeaks credence for the bearer, Tinoco, 
 and requests Ferreira, if possible, to go to Portugal, 
 and thence to Spain, for the purpose of conferring 
 privately with Don Cristobal de Moura, the Secre- 
 tary of State, following his directions for the service 
 of his Majesty. " If the shadows he speaks of," the 
 letter continues, " have been the occasion of not 
 entreating the commission, and if he would be 
 informed of what has been offered, he may do it; 
 the chief matter is the service of the king. He is 
 to consider well, before he takes the voyage in hand, 
 whether he can give any better order therein, but 
 the whole is referred to him, Ferreira. ... It is 
 important that he goes thither with the commission, 
 for the profit that may be reaped thereby. ... As 
 to the young gentleman, it does not seem convenient 
 to move anything till they see his decision." ^ 
 Ibarra's letter was similarly enigmatical. It refers 
 Ferreira to Tinoco, who knows their decision in the 
 affair, which concurs with his, Ferreira's, own. 
 " He is persuaded that Ferreira will do his en- 
 deavours, and he may be assured himself to obtain 
 all that is to be expected of one [i.e. Philip) who can 
 do so much, and is so willing to recompense that 
 which is done in his service, and which is so much 
 for the benefit of the world." 
 
 The wretched Tinoco was then submitted to the 
 searching examination of Essex, Waad, and others. 
 What did these strange letters mean? he was asked, 
 
 ^ State Papers, Domestic, ccxlvi.
 
 HO TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 since Count Fuentes said that he, Tinoco, knew 
 all about it. Tinoco told a tale to explain why 
 he had come to England. The new Viceroy of 
 Flanders, the Archduke Ernest, was going to invade 
 England, and an attack was to be made upon the 
 Isle of Wight : a Gallego priest and a Jesuit were 
 to come across from Dieppe to kill the Queen with 
 a " device of fire," and much more vague stuff of the 
 same sort, was all that at first could be got from 
 him — evidently the loose talk of the English re- 
 fugees in Brussels.^ When he was pressed closely 
 as to his object in going to Brussels at all from 
 England, he prevaricated, and was tripped up again 
 and again. But at last leading questions drew 
 from him the avowal that he had been sent over 
 to England to see Ferreira, and with him secretly 
 endeavour to win Dr. Lopez to do " a service " to 
 King Philip, presumably against Don Antonio, as 
 Tinoco confessed that he had deserted the Pre- 
 tender and despaired of his cause. But this avowal 
 did not explain Fuentes and Ibarra's letters to 
 Ferreira, and it was evident that something more 
 was behind. Tinoco himself grew alarmed at the 
 snare into which he had run, and wrote the next 
 day to Cecil protesting his innocence and praying 
 to be sent back to Flanders. He was, he says, 
 " confused and encumbered by the cunning questions 
 of the Earl of Essex," and had small knowledge of 
 the language, French, in which he was examined. 
 He came voluntarily in all sincerity to do the Queen 
 a service, but has not been treated as he expected. 
 
 1 State Paper.'?, Domestic, ccxlvi.
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 141 
 
 He gives his word as a gentleman to serve her 
 Majesty truly, and to send all information possible 
 if he is allowed to go back to Brussels. His letters 
 from Fuentes and Ibarra had, he asserted, no 
 reference to Don xlntonio and his aifairs ; and he 
 advises Cecil to allow Ferreira himself to go to 
 Spain, as desired in the letters, so that he may learn 
 the designs of Philip against England. This was 
 written on the i6th January, and its immediate 
 effect was to render Tinoco's prison the closer. For 
 the "cunning questions" of the Earl of Essex had 
 drawn from him the avowal that the main object 
 of his voyage and of Ferreira's curious correspond- 
 ence was to prevail upon Dr. Lopez to do " a service " 
 to the King of Spain that had no relation with 
 Don Antonio. Gomez d'Avila had confessed that 
 a large sum of money was to be sent to England 
 for something ; that he had waited two months in 
 Brussels for a definite reply to some proposal sent 
 by Ferreira — an inmate of Lopez's house — who had 
 in his little note to the Doctor besought him to 
 prevent a reply coming from Brussels or he, Lopez, 
 would be utterly ruined, and had assured the Doctor 
 that he, Ferreira, had not incriminated him, Lopez. 
 The Doctor, moreover, in his little "ticket" in the 
 handkerchief addressed in reply to Ferreira, had 
 said that he would spend ^300 rather than the 
 answer from Brussels came over. This seemed to 
 prove conclusively that the Doctor was really the 
 principal in the business, whatever it was, and 
 Tinoco said it did not concern Don Antonio. On 
 the ist January 1594 the blow of Essex fell upon 
 his enemy. Dr. Lopez, the Queen's principal
 
 142 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 physician, a court favourite and a friend of the 
 great Lord Treasurer, found himself a prisoner. 
 Nothing whatever of an incriminating character 
 was found in his house ; and when he was taken 
 before the Lord Treasurer, his son, Sir Robert Cecil, 
 and the Earl of Essex, at Burghley House in the 
 Strand for examination, his answers seemed so satis- 
 factory that the Cecils, at all events, were convinced 
 that he had no part in any sinister designs. Burghley 
 knew, of course, that he was in communication with 
 Spanish agents, for he had become one of his own 
 principal spy-masters. The Cecils also knew from 
 their examination of Andrada all about the peace 
 negotiations of two years before, and were per- 
 suaded that the new matter was a prolongation of 
 the same intrigue, for the purpose of "cosining" 
 the King of Spain and gaining knowledge of his 
 intention. So, as soon as Sir Robert Cecil could 
 get away from the examination of Lopez, he rode 
 in haste to the Queen at Hampton Court, and told 
 her how Essex had arrested her body-physician, 
 and that on examination the Doctor had proved his 
 innocence of offence. Elizabeth was in a fury. She 
 had been squabbling with Essex ever since Christ- 
 mas, and this was another grievance against him. 
 When he appeared at court she railed at him 
 vigorously. How dared he, " a rash temerarious 
 youth," to bring these grave accusations of high 
 treason, or, of sheer malice, against a faithful ser- 
 vant of hers ? She knew that Lopez was innocent, 
 and it touched her honour now to see that justice 
 was done. Cecil, the prim, sly, little hunchback, 
 whom he hated, stood by whilst the haughty
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 143 
 
 favourite was thus rebuked ; and when Essex flung 
 out of the chamber, with flaming face and violent 
 gesture, to snlk ior the next two days, it touched 
 his honour thenceforward to bring the Jew Lopez 
 to the gallows, guilty or innocent. 
 
 Not a word up to this point had been said about 
 poisoning the Queen, but in the excited state of 
 public feeling against Spain, already described, a 
 mere hint of such a plan attributed to Lopez was 
 sufficient to turn every one against him. The hint 
 was not long coming, and it came from the quarter 
 where it might have been expected. Standen, one 
 of Essex's Catholic spies, went to Hampton Court on 
 the 24th January, and wrote to Bacon on the 30th 
 an account of Lopez's first examination in London 
 on the 2 1 St, and the Queen's rage with Essex. He 
 then says that " Lopez had been detected of a design 
 to poison the Queen." ^ The following day Faunt, 
 another of Essex's hangers-on, wrote from London 
 to Bacon, saying that " it was most true that Dr. 
 Lopez was most deeply touched in the particular 
 working of the Queen's destruction, and was dis- 
 covered to have been the King of Spain's pensioner 
 for seven years past. . . . The Queen had forbidden 
 all access to her, except only of four persons, besides 
 councillors and ladies." " The day before this was 
 written Lopez was taken to the Tower, and Essex 
 himself wrote to his spy-master, Antony Bacon : " In 
 haste this morning. — I have discovered a most dan- 
 gerous and desperate treason. The point of conspiracy 
 was her Majesty's death. The executioner should 
 have been Dr. Lopez; the manner poison. This I 
 
 ' Birch. - Ihid.
 
 144 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 have so followed as I will make it appear as clear as 
 noonday." ^ 
 
 In the meanwhile, the separate examination of 
 all the prisoners continued. Tinoco was told that 
 Ferreira, on a threat of torture, had charged him 
 with high treason ; and Tinoco, in a panic, we know 
 not how pressed or led, but determined to save his 
 own neck by the earliest and fullest declarations, 
 opened the flood-gates of revelation, and surpassed 
 himself in the satisfaction he gave to Essex. On the 
 1 1 th February, Faunt wrote to Bacon some news he 
 had heard secretly from Sir W. Waad about the 
 Lopez case, which he now mixed up vaguely with 
 the Collen, Annias, and Polwhele conspiracies, re- 
 ferred to in the preceding chapter. Then he goes 
 on to say : " The inquiry is still very strict, and Dr. 
 Lopez used great arts to elude it, and swore and 
 forswore himself for that purpose." However, he 
 has already confessed that many letters had been 
 sent to him from the King of Spain's Ministers with 
 large offers, but that he had always forborne to make 
 answer, and entered not into promise. Yet one 
 letter was found, in which he offered all his service 
 to the King, saying that he only stayed in England 
 to do him some acceptable service, which, being 
 done, he would think himself happy to retire and die 
 in his Majesty's dominions." Lopez, he said, asserted 
 
 ' Birch, vol. i. p. 152. It is not plain whence came the original hint 
 about Lopez killing the Queen, but it seems probable that it arose out 
 of an important exclamation which Ferreira afterwards confessed he 
 had made to his <,'uard, the young Portuguese called Pedro, to the effect 
 that he had no doubt tluit Lopez would poison either the Queen or Don 
 Antonio if he was paid sufficiently for it. 
 
 - Sir William Waad, in his account in the Calthorpe MSS,, speaks of 
 " Lopez's customary awful oaths."
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 145 
 
 that all this was in pursuance of a plan he had 
 arranged with Walsingham to gain over as a spy 
 one of the assistants of Idiaquez, the Spanish Secre- 
 tary of State. " But that shift," continued Faunt, 
 " will not serve. This will prove the most resolute 
 attempt, and most deeply advised, of the court of 
 Spain, if Lopez be well sifted, who is a most vile 
 person, and void of all shame and common humanity. 
 Thus much in great secret. " ^ All this, be it recol- 
 lected, was from the various creatures of Essex. 
 The letter to which he refers from Lopez, offering 
 his services to Spain, is not now forthcoming, and 
 Mr. Faunt's hearsay assertion of its existence is not 
 conclusive ; but there is no doubt that such letters 
 had been written by Ferreira at Lopez's dictation. ~ 
 This, however, is no proof that such offers as they 
 contained related to the murder of the Queen. The 
 first presumption, indeed, is to the contrary, as the 
 unquestionable negotiations laid bare in the papers 
 
 » Birch. 
 
 '•^ Ferreira confessed on the i8th February that ten months pre- 
 viously he had received from Lopez two letters to be delivered to Don 
 Christobal de Moura. These letters were written by Ferreira himself, 
 at the dictation of Lopez, and professed the latter's willingness to do all 
 that the King of Spain desired, though, said Ferreira, tlie wording was 
 purposely obscure. In answer, evidently, to a leading question, Ferreira 
 confessed at the same time that, in his opinion, " the Doctor would have 
 poisoned the Queen if required." This is an instance of the way in 
 which the evidence was built up. From these extorted admissions to 
 the confident statement that Lopez iiad written to the Spaniards offer- 
 ing to kill the Queen was but a step. In the same confession Ferreira 
 said that Andrada had told him, shortly before he left England in 1 593, 
 that if the King of Spain wished. Dr. Lopez would poison either the 
 Queen or Don Antonio. This speech Ferreira said he had afterwards 
 repeated to Lopez himself, who replied, '"As for the King (Don 
 Antonio), he shall die with the first sickness that shall happen to him, 
 but for the Queen we have no answer as yet from the other side." See 
 Ferreira's confession, State Papers, Domestic, and in Yetswirt's book. 
 
 K
 
 146 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 from the Paris archives I have quoted in an appendix 
 prove that the communications between Lopez and 
 the Spaniards disclosed therein refer to the simulated 
 peace overtures, and also, probably, to the removal of 
 Don Antonio by poison. 
 
 Essex, Waad, and Robert Cecil (for the latter 
 was as anxious nov^ as the Earl himself to sift the 
 matter ; it was the Cecil method never to champion 
 an unpopular cause) followed up ceaselessly the 
 clues thus gained, with the object of " making it 
 appear clear as noonday " against Lopez. Tinoco's 
 admissions were used as levers for still further 
 opening the lips of Ferreira ; and the two prisoners 
 were so cleverly handled with fears of torture, and 
 by a desire to ingratiate themselves with their exa- 
 miners, that the story soon looked circumstantial 
 enough to ensure the hanging of Lopez. When the 
 evidence, such as it was, was pieced together, it 
 appeared from the declarations that the reference 
 to " peace " and " service " really meant the murder 
 of the Queen by Lopez. ^ The ruby ring and the 
 mythical " embrace " brought by Andrada to the 
 Doctor were said to be an encouragement direct 
 from Philip to the commission of the crime. The 
 King, however, distrusting such a man as An- 
 drada in so delicate a mission, had instructed 
 
 ^ Tinoco confessed on 26th February : " The letters I wrote to Fer- 
 reira by Gomez d'Avila concerning the jioint which speaketh of 
 pearls, and the price of them, was to give him to understand that the 
 news which he had sent that Dr. Lopez would kill the Queen were 
 very greatly accepted, and much esteemed of Count de Fuentes and 
 Secretary Ibarra. And touching the point concerning musk and 
 amber, tlie Count de Fuentes did tell me that he did look for a reso- 
 lution of the King of great importance ; and when it came tliere should 
 be a great matter" (Yetswirt). 
 
 I
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 147 
 
 Count Fuentes to employ Ferreira instead of him. 
 Andrada himself, it was asserted, had written to 
 Count Fuentes three letters, urging that the money 
 for the service {i.e. the murder of the Queen) should 
 be paid at once. It was not in accordance witli the 
 Spanish principle to pay beforehand — if at all — 
 and, according to the confessions, the matter hung 
 fire until Ferreira was sent by Lopez to Flanders 
 with the two letters already referred to again offer- 
 ing his service in obscure terms. Ferreira stated 
 that Fuentes and Ibarra instructed him to obtain a 
 more binding pledge from the Doctor, which, how- 
 ever, he was unable to do. Tinoco was then sent 
 by Ferreira from London to Brussels and Antwerp, 
 where Andrada was then staying. At Fuentes' 
 instance Tinoco persuaded Andrada to stand aside, 
 whilst Ferreira acted as principal intermediary ; ^ 
 and Tinoco then went back to England for one day 
 only — according to his own statement — carrying 
 grand promises and another embrace from Fuentes 
 
 1 Tinoco confessed on the 22nd February that Fuentes had sum- 
 moned him to his house at Brussels and asked his opinion about 
 Andrada. Tinoco's reply appears to have been unfavourable, and 
 Fuentes's secretary had then exliibited to Tinoco three letters, which 
 he said had been written by Andrada to him from Calais. The first 
 letter related that Dr. Lopez had sent him (Andrada) to say that he 
 " was determined to do such a ])iece of service to the king of Castile 
 as thereby he (Philip) might with safety satisfy himself of the English 
 nation. But so as the King should recompense his services with honour 
 and favour, according to the quality thereof ; for he was old, and in 
 many ways indebted, and would now lind rest for his old age. And 
 declaring the quality of the service he (Andrada?) told liim (Fuentes) 
 that Dr. Lopez bound himself to despatch the Queen by poison ; 
 whereof it behoved him (Fuentes) to advertise the king of Spain 
 thereof with all speed ; and he (Andrada) would attend at Calais 
 until answer came from Madrid." According to Tinoco, it was at this 
 point that Philip declined to proceed in such a matter by means of a 
 person so discredited on both sides as Andrada.
 
 148 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 to Lopez, and a letter from Moura in Spain to 
 Ferreira, instructing him that the " treaty of peace," 
 which Tinoco said meant the murder of the Queen, 
 should be renewed. Tinoco then returned to 
 Flanders and Ferreira himself kept close to Lopez, 
 urging him to do the service required of him, and 
 Ferreira confessed that the Doctor demanded 50,000 
 crowns down ; and according to the prosecution, it 
 was the delay necessary for the return of Philip's 
 answer to this demand that was referred to in the 
 reply promised to be sent to Ferreira by Tinoco 
 about the price of " pearls." Tinoco's own journey to 
 England after Ferreira's arrest was said to have been 
 urged by Fuentes for the purpose of encouraging the 
 conspirators by the letters from Fuentes and Ibarra, 
 and of exciting Lopez's cupidity by showing him 
 bills of exchange for a large amount, which might 
 be his after the commission of the crime. ^ 
 
 It will be seen by these confessions that Tinoco's ^ 
 avowals were all directed to prove his own innocence 
 at the expense of Lopez and Ferreira, whilst the 
 latter sought to shift the principal burden upon 
 Lopez. Both the prisoners, however, admitted the 
 main point, namely, that the conspiracy really aimed 
 
 1 Be it recollected that three years before tlie Spanish Ministers had 
 themselves offered 30,000 for the killing of Don Antonio by Lopez. 
 
 '■^ Tinoco confessed on 22nd February that Fuentes and Ibarra had 
 summoned him to a secret chamber, and takin<r his hands in theirs, 
 liad made him pledge himself to inviolable secrecy. "After I had 
 given them my word and faith . . . they told me that Ferreira had 
 written to theiu that Lopez had offered and bound himself to kill the 
 Queen of England by poison, on condition that the King of Spain 
 should recompense his services according to their quality. This jmssed 
 at the house of Count de Fuentes in lirussels, and as far as I remember 
 on the 9th December last." 
 
 I
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 149 
 
 at the Queen's death ; and the final triumph for 
 Essex was to wring some sort of admission from 
 Lopez himself. All the avowals of Tinoco and 
 Ferreira were dangled before him daily in the 
 Tower. First he indignantly denied his guilt ; 
 then, in terror or distress, he admitted that he had 
 made a promise to the Spaniards to poison the 
 Queen, but that his object was simply to cheat 
 Philip out of a large sum of money and then to 
 expose him. Although it is often asserted that 
 this confession was made on the rack, this does 
 not appear to have been the case. But however 
 obtained, it sufficed; and on the 28th February 
 1594 Lopez was tried at Guildhall by special com- 
 mission, including Essex and Cecil. Tinoco and 
 Ferreira told their story again, with all the damning 
 details. In accordance with the usual procedure 
 in such cases, the accused was browbeaten and 
 abused unmercifully by his judges and prosecutors. 
 The various letters I have mentioned were made 
 the most of, though of themselves without the de- 
 clarations they would have proved nothing against 
 Lopez,^ except perhaps the little notes that had 
 passed between him and Ferreira when the latter 
 was first arrested. The Doctor solemnly asserted 
 that he was innocent ; and on being confronted 
 with his own partial confession, he said that it had 
 been made out of fear of the rack. This was 
 denied ; and he then averred that his only wish 
 
 1 It must be recollected that the letters purporting to be written by 
 Andrada in Calais to Count Fuentes connecting Lopez directly with 
 the plot to kill the Queen were only recited on the recollection of 
 Tinoco, who asserted tliat they had been shown to him in Brussels by 
 the secretary of Count Fuentes.
 
 I50 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 was to " cosen " King Philip. Confronted with 
 Tinoco and Ferreira, he could only protest passion- 
 ately that their evidence was all false, and he was in 
 turn told by them that he lied. Lopez, guilty or 
 innocent, was doomed long before, and on his 
 own statement he was condemned to death as a 
 traitor. Cecil was as eager as Essex now to wash 
 his hands of sympathy with the fallen wretch, and 
 directly he left Guildhall he wrote to a friend that 
 "ye vile Jew sayd that he did confess indead to it 
 that he had talk of it, but now he might tell further 
 he did belie himself; and did it only to save himself 
 from racking, which, ye Lord knoweth on my sowles 
 wytness, to be most untrue : and so he was told 
 home : and the most substantial jury I have seene 
 have found him guilty in the highest degree of all 
 treasons ; and judgment passed against him with ye 
 applause of all ye world." ^ Ferreira and Tinoco 
 were put upou their trial a fortnight afterwards, 
 and, notwithstanding their prayers for mercy and 
 their engaging frankness, there was no clemency for 
 them. For some reason or other the Queen hesi- 
 tated to sign the death-warrant. Lopez begged 
 humbly for himself, his wife and children, but 
 without avail so far as he was concerned. All 
 England was in a ferment of indignation, owing 
 to the revelations made by Ferreira and Tinoco, 
 and the heat introduced into the accusations against 
 Philip and his Ministers by the Essex party ; and 
 at length, early in June 1594, the three poor 
 wretches, bound to hurdles, were dragged up Holborn 
 to Tyburn, and the penalty for treason was paid by 
 
 * State Papers, Domestic, cclvii.
 
 THE LOPEZ CONSPIRACY 151 
 
 all of them, with a sickening barbarity exceeding 
 even the usual awful rites.^ Lopez in vain tried to 
 speak to the vast scoffing crowd that faced him. 
 Almost speechless with agitation, he solemnly pro- 
 tested his innocence : mocking laughter and ribald 
 interruption alone greeted his despairing cry. He 
 was unfortunately inspired to say that he loved his 
 mistress better than Jesus Christ ; and this, coming 
 from a Jew, so incensed the multitude that the 
 tumult silenced all else, and Ruy Lopez went to 
 his death, and left his final secret to be guessed by 
 others. 
 
 The reader has had placed before him quite im- 
 partially all the evidence known to be in existence 
 upon which Lopez was condemned. He can judge 
 for himself as to the righteousness of the sentence. 
 That Lopez was willing to poison his master, Don 
 Antonio, there is no reason to doubt ; that he was a 
 false and lying trickster is proved beyond possibility 
 of cavil and by his own statement ; but he was a 
 clever, self-seeking man, and he must have known 
 that to poison the Queen, whose chief physician he 
 was, to gain the reward of a King who was notoriously 
 a bad paymaster and an ungrateful patron, would 
 have been foolish from a purely business point of 
 
 1 It is related, though no authority is quoted, in Dr. Lee's "The 
 Church under Queen Elizabeth," that one of the three, probably Tinoco, 
 as he ■was the youngest, recovered his feet after the hanging, and, 
 mad with pain and desperation, attacked the executioner. The crowd 
 applauding his pluck, broke through the guard and made a ring to 
 witness the fight. Two burly ruffians came to the executioner's help, 
 but one was immediately felled by a blow from the prisoner, who kept 
 the other two at bay for some time. The half -strangled creature was 
 at length stunned with a blow on the head, and the disembowelling 
 then proceeded.
 
 152 TREASON AND PLOl^ 
 
 view. Lopez had made his home in England for forty 
 years and all his interests were here. For a large 
 reward he might have undertaken to poison Don 
 Antonio, for the Pretender was discredited every- 
 where, and his death would have injured no one but 
 himself, but it was far otherwise in the case of the 
 death of Elizabeth under the hands of her physician. 
 That would have ruined Lopez socially and pro- 
 fessionally ; have made life for him impossible in 
 England or any Protestant country, and have left 
 him to the tender mercies of Philip and the Inquisi- 
 tion unless he had sought oblivious refuge in Turkey, 
 which, for a man of his antecedents, would have 
 been as bad as death. 
 
 The proofs against him are absolutely confined 
 to the declarations of his two accomplices, and 
 especially Tinoco, who confessed himself a perjurer, 
 and both of them would probably have sworn to 
 anything desired of them to save their necks. The 
 evidence of Philip's complicity is for the most part 
 demonstrably false, whilst that against Fuentes and 
 Ibarra — so far as the plot to murder Elizabeth is 
 concerned — rests likewise on extremely unsubstantial 
 foundations. The whole of the original documents 
 produced in the case were compatible with the 
 objects of the conspiracy being: (i) the simulation 
 of peace negotiations to obtain information ; (2) the 
 winning over of Don Antonio's eldest son and his 
 adherents; (3) the "cosening" of King Philip, for 
 the benefit of the conspirators ; and (4) the murder 
 of Don Antonio or of Antonio Perez. It is unwise 
 to pronounce a dogmatic opinion on so very doubtful 
 a case, but on a review of the quality of the whole
 
 YORKE AND WILLIAMS 153 
 
 evidence, I am inclined to believe that one or more 
 of these objects were those really aimed at. It is 
 not at all necessary to believe that Essex purposely 
 and knowingly sacrificed an innocent man, but the 
 Earl's evident desire to incriminate Lopez would 
 naturally influence the statements of the two 
 prisoners, anxious for their own pardon, upon whose 
 evidence mainly Lopez died. 
 
 About a fortnight after the execution of Lopez, and 
 whilst broadsides magnifying the danger to the realm 
 were still in the hands of all men, Essex received a 
 letter, written from Calais, by a young man of good 
 family named Edmund Yorke. The writer expressed 
 deep contrition that he had broken the law by going 
 abroad without licence, and begged the Earl to sue 
 for his pardon, and permission to return to his 
 allegiance in England. He had, he said, been 
 acknowledged at Brussels as heir to his uncle's 
 property,^ but as the authorities there would not 
 put him in possession of the inheritance until he 
 swore allegiance to Philip, he preferred to renounce 
 it, and to live as a " poor good subject in England." 
 He had with him, he said, two English gentlemen of 
 like mind to himself, one of whom had served under 
 Essex in France, and the other had been for three 
 years in Sir William Stanley's regiment. They all 
 begged for the Queen's pardon, and offered, if they 
 were allowed to come over, to do good service to 
 their natural sovereign. The vagaries of this young 
 man in France and Flanders were not unknown to 
 
 ^ His uncle was Sir Rowland Yorke, who, when in command of the 
 English contingent at Zutphen, went over with his regiment to the 
 enemy. He had since died, leaving considerable property in Flanders.
 
 154 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Essex. Ue had beeu consorting with Catholics in 
 France, and latterly had been the constant companion 
 of the most swaggering set of the exiles in Flanders. 
 He had been received into the Church by Father 
 Holt, and his relationship to the traitor Rowland 
 Yorke was ominous. So, although Essex sent the 
 permission for Edmund Yorke and his two com- 
 panions, Richard Williams and Henry Young, to 
 come to England, they were closely shadowed from 
 the hour they first landed. Young was a rogue, 
 pure and simple, and hastened, in the usual way, 
 when he found that suspicion was entertained, to be 
 the first to betray his companions. According to his 
 first story,^ told on the 30th July 1594, the object of 
 Yorke's coming was to raise rebellion in North 
 Wales by the aid of Williams. Th(^y were to go in 
 the winter to Conway, and, with the aid of local 
 friends, to seize the castle : money was to be pro- 
 vided by Williams' uncle, Ralph Sheldon, and a 
 Mr. Pew, a rich Angiesea squire and trader, was 
 to sell his estate and spend the money in maintain- 
 ing the revolt, whilst a Captain Middleton of the 
 Queen's Navy was to co-operate with his ship. 
 According to Young, the assertion of Yorke about 
 his uncle's property was false, and had been invented 
 by Father Holt to throw the English Government oflf 
 its guard. Yorke had already received ^250 of the 
 inheritance, and the rest was being held for his 
 benefit. The plan of invasion, said Young, had 
 been devised by Sir W. Stanley, and in the various 
 conferences about it he hud identified Drs. Gifi"ord, 
 Holt, and Worthington. The trio of suspects had 
 
 ' State Papers, Domestic, ccxlix.
 
 YORKE AND WILLIAMS 155 
 
 feigned to be discontented with the leaders in 
 Brussels, and had ostentatiously sold their cloaks in 
 pretended poverty, and had given out that they 
 intended to return to their allegiance in England. 
 
 Coming after so many similar declarations, to 
 which I have referred in the last chapter, this 
 seemed important, and Yorke and Williams were at 
 once cast into the Tower. Essex himself took the 
 matter in hand, and began by interrogating Yorke, 
 whose statement about himself was vague. Holt, he 
 said, meant to send him to Scotland, but he did not 
 know on what business. But when he saw or sus- 
 pected that his associates had betrayed him, he grew 
 very communicative about them. He had heard 
 Y^oung say that he had offered Father Holt in 
 writing to kill the Queen, on condition of a good 
 sum of money paid down, and more afterwards. 
 Williams had thereupon said that he, too, would do 
 it for a large sum of money, and advancement for 
 his house, as he himself would be sure to die in the 
 attempt. He (Yorke) declared that he had heard 
 Sir William Stanley say that if the Queen were to 
 die, he would take his regiment to Scotland, and 
 there make himself strong, after which he and all 
 Englishmen would go to the Earl of Derby. Wil- 
 liams also had said in his hearing that if he came to 
 England, he would commit some great robbery, and 
 with the proceeds, and with the help of Pew, would 
 raise a rebellion. 
 
 All this was the usual swashbuckling gossip of 
 the Brussels refugees, directed specially to the 
 inculpation of Y^oung and Williams, whom Yorke 
 suspected of betraying him. Young, he said, had
 
 156 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 sworn to kill both the Queen and Burghley, whilst 
 Williams, who was the special friend of Lieutenant 
 Jacques Francis, had talked loosely about doing 
 some " great service " in England. With these 
 admissions Essex was able to put the screw on 
 Young, who evidently thought that Williams, and 
 not Yorke, had betrayed him, Williams, he said, 
 had stolen eighteen hundred pounds-worth of church 
 plate from Winchester, and had coined it into 
 money in the chamber of his uncle, Sir Griffin 
 Markham, in Gray's Inn, sharing it with others. 
 He had afterwards tried to break into the Queen's 
 palace of Whitehall and steal her jewels, but one of 
 the parties took fright and the attempt failed. He 
 (Young) had written letters for W^illiams to Dr. 
 Gifford and other English refugees, asking for 
 money and employment. In one of the letters 
 Williams had demanded 200 crowns down and 
 advancement for his house for the service, if he 
 perished in the "action." Dr. Gifford replied to 
 this that he should be employed with Yorke. Talk- 
 ing of the killing of the Queen, Williams had said 
 that only resolution was required, to which Yorke 
 had replied "that they were fools to think of 
 killing the Queen : she was always mewed up in a 
 chamber. It would be better service to kill the 
 Lord Treasurer's horse, for he would take it so 
 grievously if the old jade were dead that he would 
 die too." Williams had also said that he should 
 like to tread under foot the base nobility of England 
 that lived in servitude. 
 
 These avowals, as will be seen, were directed mainly 
 against Williams, and when, later in the day (12th 
 
 I
 
 YORKE AND WILLIAMS 157 
 
 August), he was confronted with Young's accusa- 
 tions, he was either too much terrified or too vain- 
 glorious to palliate them greatly. He confessed that 
 he had committed a robbery in England, and had 
 taken service under Essex in France to get out of the 
 way. He had deserted to the enemy, and now came 
 to England for the purpose of raising rebellion, as 
 Young had stated. It was quite true that he had 
 sent offering his services in England to Holt and 
 Gifford, but they had sent him a cool answer. He 
 admitted that there was much talk in Brussels about 
 killing the Queen, and Young had said that he 
 would do it for money ; whereupon Yorke had 
 ejaculated, " Tush ! you will kill the Lord Treasurer's 
 nag." Torture soon wrung from the poor wretch 
 further avowals. He gave particulars of all the 
 Catholics and priests he knew, and was ready to 
 confess everything. 
 
 Two days afterwards Yorke was taken in hand. 
 He had talked wildly and rashly : had expressed a 
 wish to be present at the burning of London : had 
 spoken with gross disrespect of Lord Burghley : had 
 said that he knew Young to be an expert poisoner ; 
 and these indiscretions, and the avowals of Youns? 
 and Williams, made it easy for Essex and Cobham 
 to handle him. On the rack he confessed that 
 Father Holt had promised him 100,000 or 200,000 
 crowns if he would raise a rebellion in England, 
 "or do some notable act." The plan, he said, was 
 to seize Conway ; and Williams immediately after- 
 wards confirmed him in all that he admitted. On 
 the 20th August Yorke was again examined ; and 
 on this occasion he said all that was required of
 
 158 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 him. Holt, he confessed, had persuaded him to 
 come over on the Queen's pardon and live at court ; 
 and had promised him on oath a payment of 40,000 
 crowns, guaranteed by Secretary Ibarra, if he killed 
 the Queen, by his own agents or by means of two 
 refugee associates designated to him. At the con- 
 ferences on the subject he had met Stanley, Thomas 
 Throgmorton, Charles Paget, Dr. Worthington, and 
 Dr. Gifford, and various means of committing the 
 crime were suggested — poignard, arrow, rapier, and 
 dagger, to be used on the Queen as she walked in 
 her garden. He had, he said, received forty crowns 
 from Gitfbrd ; but they had kept him in want, in 
 order that he should be driven to undertake the 
 task. The plan was for him, Yorke, to have entered 
 the household of Essex, Williams that of the Lord 
 Admiral (Howard), and Young that of the Lord 
 Chamberlain ; and on their departure they partook 
 of the sacrament in pledge of their sincerity, being 
 absolved by Father Holt. 
 
 This was all admitted under torture ; and a day 
 or two afterwards Young alleged that in conversation 
 at Calais the poor, foolish young fellow Yorke had 
 expressed wonder at any man betraying a friend on 
 the rack. He had boasted of the Duke of Parma's 
 admiration of Sir Rowland Yorke's firmness under 
 torture, and had said, if they both kept firmly 
 secret, they might yet ride through London with 
 silver footcloths. Williams in the same conver- 
 sation had boasted that he would rather die than 
 betray his friends under torture, and said that if 
 anything was dragged from him on the rack he 
 would at once deny it again when he was taken 
 
 r
 
 YORKE AND WILLIAMS 159 
 
 down. According, however, to Young, this con- 
 versation at Calais unnerved Williams, for all his 
 bragging, for when Essex's passport came allowing 
 them to go to England, and he found himself 
 described as " one Williams," he said they would 
 be foolish to go over, for they might be racked and 
 hanged. Young told the examiners, too, that the 
 Council of State for England, which met in the 
 Jesuit College at Brussels every morning, consisted 
 of Charles Paget, Thomas Throgmorton, Hugh 
 Owen, Captain Tresham, and L)rs. Holt, GifFord, 
 and Worthington. 
 
 Williams's next admission was unreserved and 
 damning. On the 27th August he confessed, as 
 Yorke had done, that he had been sent by Holt 
 and Stanley to kill the Queen, on promise of great 
 reward ; and both he and Y^orke had taken the 
 sacrament upon it. This was said to Sir Michael 
 Blount, Sir W. Waad, and the Attorney-General 
 Coke ; but Essex made Williams repeat the state- 
 ment in his presence, and wrote on the document 
 containing it that " Williams had said that he 
 would avow it to his death before Yorke's face." 
 There was no need for it, for Yorke had already 
 told almost the same stoiy, and death for high 
 treason was the inevitable doom of both.^ 
 
 There are two things specially to be noted in 
 these confessions, and they did not escape the keen 
 intellect of Lord Burghley." The evidence of the 
 complicity of Secretary Ibarra depends only upon 
 Yorke's statement that Holt had said that he 
 
 * All these confessions aie in State Papers, Domestic, ccxlix. 
 - Hatfield Papers, vol. iv. p. 607.
 
 i6o TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 guaranteed the payment ; and in Lord Burghley's 
 hreviate a note points out that " this is all against 
 Ibarra or any other Spaniard ; " and secondly, that 
 in the list of persons given as being present at the 
 conference which arranged the assassination there 
 appear the names of Charles Paget, Worthing- 
 ton, Gifford, and others, who were known to be 
 opposed to the Jesuit policy/ This was considered 
 important enough for Yorke to be re-examined on 
 the point, and he was constrained to admit that he 
 was not quite sure of their being present. This 
 seems to indicate that, at least in points of detail, 
 his evidence cannot be depended upon. Holt and 
 the few extremists in Brussels, who had been at the 
 bottom of all the genuine attempts to kill Elizabeth, 
 were evidently the originators of this ; but from the 
 day of its discovery until now, one English historian 
 after another has repeated that this conspiracy was a 
 Spanish plot hatched by Fuentes and Ibarra. We 
 have seen that Ibarra's connection with it depends 
 upon a second-hand assertion, unconfirmed by any re- 
 liable evidence, and yet the contemporary writers un- 
 animously cast themselves specially upon this point; " 
 
 1 It will be noted that Dr. Gifford, who was much more opposed 
 than "Worthington to the Spanish party, was mentioned by the prisoners 
 in this case as an active accomplice. This is difficult to believe. 
 
 - In Yetswirt's " Sondry Horrible Treasons," written almost im- 
 mediately after the event, it is stated that Yorke confessed that " Hugh 
 Owen showed him at Brussels an assignation in writing, signed by 
 Ibarra, for assurance of payment of 40,000 crowns, to be given to him 
 from the King of Spain if he should kill the Queen, or should assist 
 Williams or any other to perform the same. The assignation was 
 afterwards deposited with Holt the Jesuit, who also showed it to 
 Yorke, and swore on the sacrament to pay the amount as soon as the 
 fact should be committed." I can find no such statements in Yorke's 
 confessions in the State Papers. The main point, apparently, was to 
 connect Spaniards with the plot.
 
 COMPLICITY OF SPANISH MINISTERS i6i 
 
 and the plot of Holt, Yorke, and Williams, like that 
 of Lopez, served as fresh fuel for the fire of hatred 
 which it was the object of the Essex party to keep 
 raging between England and Spain, it being repre- 
 sented that Philip and his Ministers, both in the 
 Lopez case and this, were the first instigators of the 
 murder of the Queen.
 
 APPENDIX TO CHAPTEE V 
 
 Paris Archives, Uncalendared MSS., K. 1578, 7 and 11. As 
 these documents have never been printed, and prove conclusively 
 the falsity of much of the evidence i;pon which Lopez was 
 convicted, I translate them here entire. They are in the form 
 of minutes from the Secretary of State, Moura, to Philip, for 
 his consideration and approval, and though they bear no date, 
 they are correctly included in the papers for 1591. 
 
 ^.1578,7. Paris Archives Nationales. Fonds Simancas. 
 
 " Respecting Manuel de Andrada and Pedro Marques his 
 companion. 
 
 " The things proposed by Manuel de Andrada are three in 
 number : — 
 
 " I. By means of Dr. Lopez he was opening negotiations for 
 peace with England if permission be given to him to do so. He 
 believes that he could carry these through successfully, as he 
 understands that they (the English) desire it, and Dr. Lopez 
 assures him of success. 
 
 " 2. By means of the same Dr. Lopez he will undertake, if 
 so desired, that Don Antonio shall never leave that country 
 (England). 
 
 "3. Or otherwise that he shall be expelled at once, if that 
 course be preferred. 
 
 " Besides these three things, which are the main objects of his 
 coming, he says that he has an understanding with an English- 
 man, a brother-in-law of the said Dr. Lopez, who undertakes 
 to send him advices of events there, and will also attempt to 
 do another secret service which he (Andrada) recommended to 
 him. This understanding with the brother-in-law is unknown 
 to Dr. Lopez. 
 
 " It appears that there can be no objection in letting this man 
 
 (Andrada) return to England ; and to give him a pretext for 
 
 162
 
 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V 163 
 
 doing so, it will be necessary to seize upon the first point of his 
 proposals. He may therefore go to Calais, and write from there 
 to Dr. Lopez that his coming has been prompted by the common 
 good, begging him to send a passpoii;. When he receives the 
 passport, he may proceed whithersoever Dr. Lopez may instruct 
 him. On his arrival he may tell him that he had proposed the 
 peace negotiations here as Lopez had requested him, and had 
 set forth the Doctor's good services ; whereupon all the (Spanish) 
 Ministers had asked him (Andrada) what letters of credence or 
 other authority he could produce to enable him to deal in the 
 matter. This will lead them to infer that, if he had brought 
 such credentials he would have been favourably listened to ; 
 although, at the same time, he may say that he was told that 
 it would be necessary for the peace suggestions to be accom- 
 panied by due satisfaction for the offences inflicted upon Spain. 
 Andrada should also be instructed to express hopes of success 
 on some such basis as this, as if of his own motion, in order that 
 he may have an excuse for remaining there safely for some 
 time, and when he thinks best he can return ostensibly on the 
 same matter. 
 
 " He must be instructed that, whilst he remains in England, 
 he may ui-ge Dr. Lopez's brother-in-law to do the secret service 
 proposed. And moreover, since Dr. Lopez himself gave his 
 Tvord to get Don Antonio expelled from England if his Majesty 
 desired, he should be asked to fulfil his promise in this respect, 
 as his offer to do so has been accepted, and his good service in 
 all things will be acknowledged. 
 
 " Under cover of all this, Manuel de Andrada must inquire and 
 discover everything he can that is going on there, and send us 
 full advices of the same 
 
 " It is only reasonable that he should have a grant in aid. 
 He himself proposes a grant secured on some Portuguese 
 revenues. 
 
 *' His other demands must remain in abeyance for the present, 
 but he may proceed on his sei'vice in the assux-ance that on his 
 return he shall be very highly considered. 
 
 " In addition to the grant in aid in Portugal, he will need some 
 money for his voyage, as much as appears necessary. He asks 
 for a jewel to be given to him for the daughter of Dr. Lopez, 
 and he attaches importance to this.
 
 t64 treason and PLOT 
 
 " He also requests money to remunerate the man he has gained 
 to give him information, and the Doctor's brother-in-law. There 
 seems no objection to this being done in moderation. 
 
 " Pedro Marques will apparently follow Andrada's lead, and 
 will be more easily satisfied." 
 
 This document was, as usual, sent by the King to Moura for 
 his i^eport and recommendations, and Moura returned the fol- 
 lowing, of which Philip approved : — 
 
 " The opinion of Don Cristobal de Moura respecting the matter 
 of Manuel de Andrada. 
 
 " He should be given 300 reals as a grant in aid for the 
 expenses of his journey to England with his companion. 
 
 " In addition to this he may be told that he shall have a 
 grant not exceeding thirty reals (per month ?) secured on Indian 
 revenues, but other than those that he proposes, as they cannot 
 be allowed. 
 
 " It will be just to give him something for the daughter of 
 Dr. Lopez, and this may be one of the old jewels from his 
 Majesty's caskets. 
 
 " It will also be advisable to give him something for the 
 brother-in-law of Dr. Lopez, who offers to do the service, and 
 also for the other confidant who gives information. But as at 
 present there is no money to spare, it will perhaps be best to 
 take for this purpose also some of the jewels from the said old 
 caskets belonging to his Majesty, as is suggested above for the 
 other gift."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The complete separation of the two sections of English Catholics — 
 Alarm in England at the Spanish armaments — Drake's last 
 voyage — Tyrone's declaration — Promise of Spanish aid — Irish 
 emissaries to Spain — The expeditions of Captains Cobos, Medi- 
 nilla, and Cisneros to Ireland — Their description of Ireland — 
 Breakdown of the Spanish Administration — Essex's attack upon 
 Cadiz. 
 
 The indignant alarm aroused amongst Englishmen 
 of all classes by the constant threats of conspiracy 
 and foreign invasion on the part of the extreme 
 faction of refugees, was now rapidly hurrying on the 
 complete division amongst Catholics, which finally 
 led to the victory of Protestantism and the peaceful 
 succession of James to the English throne. The 
 seminaries had all been captured by the Jesuit party; 
 the moderating influence of Cardinal Allen had dis- 
 appeared with his death (October 1594); Father 
 Persons, with indefatigable activity and zeal, practi- 
 cally controlled Philip's policy with regard to Eng- 
 land ; and Father Holt in Flanders, by his hauteur 
 and violence alienated all but those whose views 
 were as extreme as his own. These causes together 
 operated in the formation of a strong anti-Jesuit 
 Catholic party in England and abroad. We have 
 seen that from the first the secular priests disap- 
 proved of the violent political action of the Fathers 
 of the Company, and had smarted under their airs of 
 
 superiority. Ever since the defeat of the Armada and 
 
 165
 
 1 66 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 the exposure of Philip's real objects, the breach had 
 been widening, but the reconciliation of Henry IV. 
 to Rome, and the now acknowledged hopelessness of 
 Philip's attempt to gain for his favourite daughter a 
 foothold in France, gave rise to circumstances which 
 drove both sections of Catholics still farther apart. 
 Henry IV. being now a faithful son of the Church, 
 and the French interest in the counsels of the 
 Vatican being restored, the anti-Spanish Catholic 
 party was greatly strengthened, whilst the Jesuit 
 interest, to counterbalance this, endeavoured to 
 pledge the King of Spain to its uncompromising 
 course by openly advocating as their candidate for 
 the English throne the Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia, 
 who, through Philip's father and mother, claimed the 
 crown by right of descent from John of Gaunt and 
 Edward HI. The book published by Persons under 
 the name of Dolman, and dedicated, with character- 
 istic audacity, to the ambitious favourite, Essex, 
 completely opened the eyes of Catholics and Pro- 
 testants alike. Its effect upon the English Catholics 
 was marked and immediate. The group of exiles 
 who followed Charles Paget and Dr. Gifford in 
 Flanders and the Bishop of Cassano in Italy de- 
 nounced the unpatriotic Englishmen who would 
 submit their country to a foreign yoke ; the turbulent 
 English students in Rome broke out into open re- 
 volt against their Jesuit masters,^ and the Catholic 
 prisoners in the castle of Wisbech divided into two 
 distinct antagonistic sections, even in their common 
 
 * Full particulars of this disturl)ance will be found in Law's "Jesuits 
 and Seculars," p. xxix., and the sequel may be followed in "The 
 Archpriest Controversy" (Camden Society).
 
 JESUITS V. SECULARS 167 
 
 tribulation. To make matters worse, the cardinal's 
 hat vacant by the death of Allen was struggled for 
 with so much acrimony by both sections, that neither 
 Persons, Stapleton, nor the Bishop of Cassano got it, 
 and the much needed English Catholic prelate, with 
 sufficient authority to introduce a spirit of modera- 
 tion on both sides, was not appointed. Moderation 
 and compromise, indeed, were utterly foreign to 
 Persons' methods and aims ; ^ and the secular priests, 
 on the other hand, did not mince their words when 
 they exposed the disastrous effects produced upon 
 the Catholic cause in England by Jesuit action.^ 
 They who, for the great part, had to bear the brunt 
 of the persecution, could not fail to see that the 
 constant impotent aggression kept up by the extreme 
 party from its safe refuge on the other side of the 
 water gave justification for the severe penal enact- 
 ments from which all Catholics suffered. 
 
 The cause of Spain itself, moreover, was irretriev- 
 
 1 In 1596 Persons threw down the gage anew by circulating his 
 manuscript book called " Memorial of the Reformation in England," 
 in which he set forth his views as to how this should be carried out, 
 in case he died before the restoration of Catholicism. There was to be 
 no " huddling up " this time, he said, whereby fallen priests were ad- 
 mitted to the altar, with no other satisfaction but sending away their 
 concubines. The Church property was to be restored ; there was to be 
 no political paltering with that question, as there had been in Mary's 
 time; and "some good and sound manner of Inquisition" must be 
 established. It is plain to see that the only Catholic England with 
 which Persons would be contented was one modelled on Catholic Spain, 
 It is evident, from such blind bigotry as this, that Persons, for all his 
 ability, was utterly out of touch with the vast majority of his country- 
 men, and that the adoption of such a policy as his by the only foreign 
 power that could effectively aid the Catholics of England to reassert 
 the supremacy of their faith, rendered their cause hojjeless. 
 
 2 See Father Bagshaw's " True Eelation," reprinted in Law's 
 " Jesuits and Seculars."
 
 1 68 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 ably damaged by the policy of the hot-headed zealots 
 who bragged and swaggered in Flanders, and who 
 wrote impracticable and violent books in Spain. 
 All England was kept in a ferment and for ever on 
 the alert. Philip's slow and cumbrous methods made 
 sudden action at a moment when England was un- 
 prepared in any case difficult, but thanks to the 
 continual threatening boasts and abortive plots of 
 Stanley and his party and the alarmist reports of the 
 English spies, all the Spanish plans were forestalled 
 long before they were even matured. 
 
 As we have seen in chapter iii., the English Govern- 
 ment were fully informed of the proceedings of both 
 the Scottish and Irish emissaries in Spain during the 
 winter of 1594 and the spring and summer of 1595, 
 and, as usual, gave to Philip a credit for promptness 
 and liberality in acceding to the prayers for help which 
 neither his character nor his resources permitted. 
 He was chronically in want of money, and the capture 
 of his treasure fleet, or any considerable portion of it, 
 crippled him for a year at least. The loss of Brest 
 had made a direct invasion of England in force again 
 impossible, for Blavet was too small a port for the 
 rendezvous of a great navy, and the new ships which 
 the Spaniards had constructed, although persistently 
 viewed in England as a threatening Armada destined 
 for invasion, were, in fact, mainly intended to protect 
 Spanish trade and to ensure the arrival of the treasure 
 fleets, upon which the potency of Spain depended. 
 Although, therefore, the English knew it not, Philip 
 was in a position to give only very small aid, if any 
 at all, in 1595 to those who were urging him to strike 
 a blow which should overturn Protestantism in the
 
 DRAKE'S LAST VOYAGE 169 
 
 three kingdoms. But the constant alarm in which 
 England was kept by the action of the extremists in 
 Flanders, cleverly and systematically exaggerated by 
 the Essex war party at home/ led to the re-adoption 
 of an aggressive policy on the part of England in 
 1595, which drove Philip to despair, and compelled 
 him to make one more great effort, by which at least 
 the English might be diverted from ravaging his own 
 coasts and commerce. 
 
 Drake had for years been under a cloud, though 
 doing useful work at Plymouth, but he chafed at 
 the naval supineness which had fallen upon the 
 councils of Elizabeth. He knew that without the 
 money from America, Philip, the national enemy, 
 was powerless, and Protestantism safe. The treasure 
 depot at Panama was the heart from which flowed 
 the life-blood of Spain. Let me strike at that, 
 prayed Drake, and the giant sinks to impotence. 
 Elizabeth doubted and hesitated long ; for she hated 
 her wooden walls to drift too far away, and the 
 stories of Philip's preparations and the Bearnais' 
 shiftiness grew more and more alarming, thanks to 
 
 ' A good instance of this is seen when Antonio Perez was sent back 
 to the court of Henry IV. much against his will by Essex in 1 595. His 
 mission was to send alarming news to Essex as to Henry's intentions to 
 make peace with Spain and break with England, the object of Essex 
 being to force Elizabeth to join Henry against the common enemy. At 
 the beginning of 1596 Sir Henry Unton was sent to France on a special 
 mission, officially to offer Henry further help in return for the occupa- 
 tion by England as security of Calais and some other French towns. 
 Unton, however, was secretly instructed by Essex to prompt Henry to 
 feign anger and indignation with England and to threaten to make 
 friends with Spain. Unton was to " send us thundering letters, where- 
 by he must drive us to propound and offer." This was behind the back 
 of the Cecils and the rest of the Council. See " The Great Lord 
 Burghley," by the present writer.
 
 lyo TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Essex's cleverness. But at last the Queen con- 
 sented, and in January 1595 gave to the great 
 Admiral his last commission, she herself providing 
 a powerful contingent to the joint-stock fleet. The 
 news stirred England like a bugle-blast, and volun- 
 teers flocked in thousands to join the expedition ; 
 for on the sea the English could beat the Spaniards 
 wherever they met them, and the temper of the 
 country was in favour of bold offensive action — 
 especially with abundant loot in sight. 
 
 The terror of Drake's name had lost none of its 
 potency in Spain, and the news that he was to 
 sail the sea again fell upon Philip like a blight. 
 In March and April, Ave are told, thousands of 
 Spanish soldiers deserted. Lisbon in a single week 
 was abandoned in a panic by most of its in- 
 habitants. " From the highest to the lowest, all the 
 people had no other talk than of Drake's coming," ^ 
 wrote one of Burghley's spies ; and a traveller 
 returning from Spain in April 1595" testified that 
 " the intelligence there that Sir Francis Drake is 
 preparing to go to sea wonderfully troubles them, 
 because of the Indian fleet which is to bring great 
 treasure, and the King is in great want of money." 
 The same informant says that the people in Lisbon 
 were in great fear. " The King has made great 
 preparations ; but if this money does not come he 
 will be unable to offend or invade this year. The de- 
 ponent learnt that an Irish bishop went from Spain 
 to the Earl of Tyrone last Christmas, and certain 
 
 1 State Papers, Domestic, March i6, 1595. 
 
 2 Examination of Richardson, State Papers, Domestic, April 26, 
 1595-
 
 ALARM IN SPAIN AND ENGLAND 171 
 
 men with him, by whom the King promised to 
 send the Earl 40CO men every year to assist him. 
 But he will send nothing until he knows where 
 Sir Francis Drake is going. Also, lately a gentle- 
 man from the northern Lords of Scotland was sent 
 from them to the King (of Spain), and a priest in 
 his company. The Lords demand money to be lent 
 to them, and the King offered to give them money 
 if they will assure him to land men in Scotland 
 where he shall appoint, and will help him with 
 10,000 men to join him in his pay." ^ " Had Drake 
 been able to strike whilst the enemy were thus ripe 
 for defeat, the blow must have been of deep effect, 
 but the usual interminable delays prevented his 
 sailing. The Queen laid the blame on the admirals, 
 the admirals on the Queen." '" But whilst Drake, 
 hampered by Hawkins and the old politicians in 
 London, was thus delayed, the Spanish treasure fleet 
 arrived safely ; ^ and reports, more alarming than 
 ever, of Philip's preparations and intentions came 
 fast and thick from the spies. In July colour was 
 given to these reports by the sudden raid of four 
 galleys with 400 Spaniards on the Cornish coast. 
 The country around Newlyn and Penzance was 
 burnt and devastated, and the towns and villages 
 were destroyed. The country levies in a panic fled, 
 leaving Sir Francis Godolphin, their commander, 
 with only five or six gentlemen to stand by him, and 
 the triumphant Spaniards ostentatiously attended 
 
 ^ Examination of Richardson, State Papers, Domestic, April 26, 
 
 1595- 
 2 Corbett's " Drake and Tudor Navy." 
 ^ State Papers, Domestic, May 17, 1595, Palavicini to Burghley.
 
 172 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Mass upon a hill overlooking the smoking ruins 
 of Penzance. Rumours flew through England that 
 the Armada was now to be avenged. But after 
 all, the whole business was but a flash in the pan. 
 The four vessels had been driven from Brittany 
 into Penzance by the stress of weather and lack 
 of drinking water, and the invaders, finding the 
 place unprotected, had worked their will. They 
 soon grew frightened at their own temerity, and 
 took advantage of a northern breeze to run back in 
 safety to Blavet. But the raid thoroughly alarmed 
 the Queen, and she determined to forbid Drake 
 from sailing on his voyage. She had just received 
 also the news — premature, as we have seen in a 
 former chapter — of an intended expedition in force 
 being about to sail from Spain to aid the Ulster 
 rebels, and she ordered Drake to await on the 
 coast of Ireland the threatened approach of the 
 Spaniards. Failing to meet them, he was to proceed 
 to the Spanish coast and to intercept any Spanish 
 naval force that might sail from there towards 
 England ; and if no such Spanish force appeared, 
 he was to cruise for a month on the look out for 
 Spanish galleons homeward bound, and finally 
 proceed on the voyage to Panama, on the un- 
 derstanding that he must be back in England in 
 the following spring, to withstand the threatened 
 invasion. These instructions were ridiculous, and 
 would have meant the abandonment of the Panama 
 expedition altogether. The politicians and lands- 
 men were once more for tying the hands of the 
 great seaman on his own element ; but Drake was 
 a hard man to bind, and he told the Council that,
 
 DRAKE'S LAST VOYAGE 173 
 
 though on his way south he would look out for 
 any Spanish force bound for England and follow 
 it, he could not remain wasting precious time on 
 the coast of Ireland. 
 
 The Queen herself thereupon wrote a letter 
 (August 9) to the admirals, telling them in strict 
 secrecy " what she should require of them," and the 
 reasons for the orders she gave. She had been 
 advised, she said, that three squadrons were being 
 fitted out in Spain, one at Cadiz, another at Lisbon, 
 and a third at Ferrol, Corunna, and the Biscay 
 ports, " By some reports, we think they intend a 
 voyage to Ireland, to land about Tredagh ; we cannot 
 understand whether it is to be before next winter, 
 but we suspect it. The preparations in Spain are 
 greater than in 1588, and it is not to be doubted 
 they intend to invade England or Ireland next 
 summer. For this reason we find it dangerous to 
 yield to your departure at present, and especially 
 before the present attempt in Ireland be discovered ; 
 but, most of all, lest you should not have returned 
 next summer in convenient time to help to do ser- 
 vice against the Spanish army, expected to attempt 
 the invasion of this realm about June or July." ^ 
 She forbade them, in fact, to sail at all unless they 
 promised to be back by the following May, however 
 profitable the voyage might be. If they could not 
 promise that, they were to consider what they could 
 do now to destroy ships and stores on the coasts of 
 Spain, so as to prevent an invasion of England in 
 the following year. They replied that their ships 
 had been fitted out by a joint-stock enterprise for a 
 
 1 State Papers, Domestic, ccliii. August 9, 1595.
 
 174 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 certain purpose, and were not adapted to such work 
 as she indicated, but, if she insisted upon it, she 
 must bear the whole expense of the squadron her- 
 self. She was deeply incensed at this. Burghley 
 and Howard, neither of them a friend of Drake, 
 supported the Queen, and Elizabeth grew more tart 
 and peremptory in every letter as the admirals re- 
 mained firm,^ so that it was already September 1595 
 before the two great seamen, Drake and Hawkins, 
 already at loggerheads, sailed from England to re- 
 turn no more. 
 
 In the meanwhile, the supposed danger of a 
 Spanish invasion for that year, which had really 
 never existed, had disappeared, but Philip was 
 slowly maturing the plans upon which he had de- 
 cided to cripple England, by bringing, as he said, 
 the fire to her own doors. We have seen that the 
 Archbishop of Tuam had advised Philip to write a 
 loving letter to Tyrone, urging him to avow himself 
 openly on the side of the Catholics. Accompanied 
 by an Irishman named Lacy and a Spanish captain, 
 the Archbishop sailed from Spain, carrying this and 
 other letters to the Irish chiefs, assuring them of 
 Spanish support if Tyrone declared himself at one 
 with O'Donnell, Macguire, and O'Rourke. Of the 
 Archbishop and his companions no more was ever 
 seen on earth ; but doubtless intelligence of the 
 message they bore reached Tyrone by other means ; 
 and in the summer of 1595 he boldly threw ofi' the 
 mask, called himself by the forbidden name of the 
 O'Neil, and defied the English garrison. 
 
 The news rejoiced the little knot of fervid Irish- 
 
 1 Hatfield Papers, vol. v.
 
 TYRONE REBELS 175 
 
 men who waited and prayed in the Peninsula, for 
 it meant to most of them the certain prospect of 
 returning to the land they loved. The Bishop of 
 Killaloe, the most ardent patriot of them all, wrote 
 in July to Tyrone hailing his action with praise and 
 gratitude, hoping " that by his means the Catholic 
 faith should be spread over the whole country, so 
 that there, where the body of St. Patrick rests, there 
 also should the restitution of that faith be accom- 
 plished, and the honour and praise of it remain for 
 evermore." Now, he says, that we know that the 
 Earl of Tyrone has openly taken up arms with other 
 chieftains against the Queen, I have every confi- 
 dence you will meet with success. " I have ear- 
 nestly, but with great caution, persuaded the King 
 to send you a fleet with which to oppose the enemy 
 and subjugate the English Government, and that 
 you may free yourself and all your people from the 
 oppressive yoke of the English for ever. Further- 
 more, I find the King most willing to send you 
 immediate assistance. Wherefore you must man- 
 fully and bravely resist, without making any peace 
 or treaty with the enemies of the faith ; for King 
 Philip has seen these letters, and has told me to 
 write that you shall be helped immediately, so that 
 you may crush the enemy. ... I promise you that 
 instant succour shall not be wanting. . . . The one 
 thing I ask and pray is, that you make no peace 
 with the foe until I come to you." 
 
 This must have reached Tyrone in August 1595, 
 shortly after his successive defeats at Armagh and 
 Newry at the hands of the Lord-Deputy Russell and 
 General Sir John Norreys, and doubtless caused his
 
 176 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 changed tone towards the English. Time seemed 
 now the principal thing to be gained by the Ulster- 
 men until the promised " immediate " aid reached 
 them from Spain, and Tyrone's new temporising 
 with his enemies was obviously only in the hope 
 that the Bishop of Killaloe's promise for Philip 
 should be promptly kept. Alas ! Tyrone then knew 
 less of the Spanish King's methods than we do, or 
 than he himself learnt afterwards, to his cost. In 
 September the Ulster chief called beseechingly upon 
 Philip to send the aid "now or never," and with his 
 letter to the King sent others addressed to the 
 Spanish commanders in Brittany, praying them to 
 urge their master to promptness. "Ireland," said 
 Tyrone, "would acknowledge no other King than 
 his Catholic Majesty. If I may know for surety 
 that I shall have Spanish aid, I will make no peace 
 with the heretics. They shall fail within a year in 
 Ireland like smoke before the flame." 
 
 But these letters were intercepted, and the bearer, 
 an Irish priest, O'Cullan, was put under examination 
 and forced to tell his story ; how he had come from 
 Spain twenty days before, and how the Earl, when 
 he gave him the letters for Spain, bade him be 
 importunate for an answer, or he might be obliged 
 to make peace with the English. He was to ask the 
 Spaniards, he said, for 3000 or 4000 troops before 
 May at latest ; but if the men could not come so 
 soon, at least the King should send to Ireland muni- 
 tions and money. If the King would thus help 
 them, the envoy was bidden to say that they would 
 " submit themselves to be governed by him as good 
 subjects."
 
 TYRONE APPEALS TO PHILIP 177 
 
 But though these missives were captured, Tyrone 
 contrived to send his Jesuit confessor, Father Mum- 
 ford, with similar urgent letters a few weeks after- 
 wards,^ whilst he artfully kept up his show of 
 negotiations with the Lord-Deputy, much to the 
 disgust of Norreys, who was all for striking a blow 
 at the rebel combination by crushing Connaught, 
 now that " their hearts are broken in Ulster." The 
 Queen, he warned Burghley, must make up her mind 
 either to end the war by conciliation, or else pro- 
 vide full and timely resources to root out the rebels 
 for once and for all. The latter, Elizabeth, in her 
 frugality, was unwilling to do, and the hollow nego- 
 tiations with Tyrone dragged on. The exaggerated 
 reports of preparations in Spain came almost weekly 
 to the English Government, whilst Russell, the Lord- 
 Deputy, with every fresh report warned Burghley 
 and the Queen that Tyrone was only dallying until 
 
 ^ The most exaggerated news of Tyrone's successes was current in 
 Spain at the time. The Venetian Ambassador in October sent to the 
 J3oge a report which had been brought to Lisbon by a caravel that had 
 sailed from Ireland on the 21st September, doubtless the vessel which 
 conveyed Father Mumford. "Tyrone," the report said, "had found 
 himself face to face with Norreys, near Antrim ; and in reply to an 
 offer of the Queen's pardon if he laid down his arms, the Prince O'Neil 
 had refused peace unless all his friends were pardoned, the Catholic 
 religion allowed without molestation, and the exiles restored to their 
 estates and revenues. In the battle that ensued on the 19th September, 
 on a great plain, the heretics, to ihe number of 8000, were routed and 
 broken. Norreys himself was wounded by a shot in the arm, and his 
 brother dangerously in the thigh. Fifteen hundred trained troops fell, 
 and they say that not an Englishman escaped except a few fugitives 
 who fled to a fort where there are 400 wounded and dead. O'Neil 
 captured all the heavy guns and baggage. At the same time another 
 ofhcer of the Catholic League routed 300 English in Connaught, 
 O'Neil is said to have burnt four of the principal of the heretic 
 ofiicers though Norreys offeX'ed large sums for their ransom " (Vene- 
 tian Calendar). 
 
 M
 
 178 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 the promised Spanish force should come. But 
 nothing could persuade or convince Elizabeth to 
 adopt a liberal or bold course, so the talk of truce 
 and " composition " with Tyrone continued, whilst 
 O'Donnell and O'Rourke, less diplomatic than their 
 chief, sulked unappeased amongst their bogs and 
 mountains. 
 
 In the meanwhile, swift pinnaces ran backwards 
 and forwards from Sligo and Donegal to Spain. 
 Several of them were lost or captured by the Eng- 
 lish, but some of the messages reached Philip from 
 the chieftains. The news of Tyrone's diplomacy was 
 as gall and wormwood to him, and for a time the 
 principal Irish hero in Spain was not the temporising 
 Earl, but Bryan Oge O'Rourke of the Battle-axes, 
 who still smote the English who came within his 
 reach. Early in the year 1596 an Irish priest, 
 Brian O'Donnell, was sent from Spain with messages 
 to the chiefs, praying them not to make truce or 
 peace with the heretics, and promising them aid if 
 they would keep in arms. To O'Rourke especially 
 letters of fervent praise and exhortation were written 
 by Philip II., and by the Bishop of Killaloe in 
 Lisbon, congratulating him upon his recent victory 
 over an English force, and promising him a prompt 
 remittance of arms and munitions of war. The 
 Bishop's letter, however, plainly indicates the know- 
 ledge that the attempt to withstand the English in 
 Ireland, except under Tyrone's leadership, will be 
 hopeless, and he urges O'Rourke to obey the Earl 
 in all things. The Bishop requests O'Rourke, also, 
 to get " some principal learned man to write in his 
 (O'Rourke's) name to the Pope, beseeching him to
 
 IRISH ENVOYS TO SPAIN 179 
 
 separate Ireland for ever from the English domi- 
 nation, and to appoint Tyrone King of Ireland."^ 
 
 When Father O'Donnell arrived at Donegal, he 
 found the truce between Tyrone and the English 
 about to be signed, but was assured by the Ulster 
 chiefs that it was only a subterfuge to enable them 
 to await the coming of the Spanish force ; and 
 O'Donnell, the chief, and O'Rourke sent their con- 
 fessor, another Irish priest, to Spain for the purpose 
 of explaining the situation to Philip. There was 
 no pinnace available to carry him across, so he had 
 to travel in disguise through the English pale to 
 Dublin, and leaving Connaught in March, it took 
 him two months to arrive in the presence of the 
 King. The relation he gave is extremely curious,^ 
 though apparently highly tinged by Celtic imagi- 
 nation. In the beginning of January, he said, the 
 Earl of Tyrone, who was now Prince and Grand 
 O'Neil, issued from his principality of Ulster, " which 
 is the fifth part of Ireland," and came within eight 
 leagues of Dublin, where many Catholic gentlemen 
 joined him, " especially a great gentleman named 
 O'Reilly, with all his following, his estates being 
 thirty leagues long. They took a fortress called 
 Cavan, and killed all the heretics there. All the 
 Catholic gentlemen of Meath sent word that if the 
 Catholic King would send them help they would 
 
 1 It should not be forgotten that the Bishop himself was an O'Neil. 
 The ;idvice to O'Rourke to get fome " principal learned man " to write 
 liis letters was less needed in his case than in some others. O'Rourke 
 had been an Oxford student, and his signature is well written. The 
 letters from the chiefs are <:enerally written in Latin by priests and 
 signed by themselves either in Latin or in Irish. 
 
 2 Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.
 
 i8o TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 join at once." A cousin of Tyrone, he reported, 
 Brian O'Neil, had also killed 400 heretics at Newry, 
 and as many more at Carlingford, On the 13th 
 February, in Connaught, O'Donnell and O'R-ourke 
 had gathered an army of 8000 foot and 500 horse, 
 with which they had approached Galway, the only 
 strong place held by the English, where they were 
 met by 3000 of the enemy, very few of whom 
 escaped by flight to the shelter of the city walls ; the 
 Catholics being unable to attack Galway for want 
 of artillery. Three days after this victory, continued 
 the confessor, six great chiefs who had been on the 
 side of the English joined the Catholics, with all 
 their vassals. The O'Connor Don, with twenty 
 leagues of land, O'Kelly with as much, O'Connor 
 Roe (McDermot) with twelve leagues, O'Malley 
 with eight leagues, Macguire with twelve leagues, 
 O'Flaherty with twelve leagues, and McDermot 
 with eight leagues. The English all fled from the 
 province to Dublin, except 300 in the strong towns 
 of Killaloe and Roscommon, which could not be 
 attacked as the Catholics had no artillery. O'Rourke, 
 too, had killed 100 Englishmen near one of these 
 towns, and had approached Dublin, being joined 
 by O'Ferrall with 600 vassals and other men of 
 Meath ; whilst O'More had risen in Leinster and 
 burnt fourteen heretic towns and had co-operated 
 with O'Rourke from Connaught. 
 
 After all this talk of victory it must have dis- 
 appointed Philip to be told, as he was, that before 
 the messenger left a two months' truce had been 
 signed : " in the hope of the Spanish succour 
 arrivini^." The Catholics still had in the field, said
 
 IRISH ENVOYS TO SPAIN i8i 
 
 the priest, two armies forty leagues apart : one under 
 Tyrone, with 16,000 foot and 2000 horse, within 
 eight leagues of Dublin, and the other, commanded 
 by O'Donnell and O'llourke, near Galway, with 
 10,000 men/ When the truce expires they intend 
 to follow the English into Munster, where, and in 
 Dublin, all those who have been left alive have 
 taken refuge. The "Englishwoman" was to send 
 20,000 men to Ireland in May, but if his Catholic 
 Majesty would send help, the Catholics did not fear 
 double that number. In conclusion they begged 
 for great-artillery, muskets, and powder, when they 
 doubted not to have the whole country in their 
 power ; and above all, that the bishops, priests, and 
 other Irishmen now in Spain should be sent home. 
 
 This flourishing story, with its disappointing rider 
 of a truce, was not of a sort to move Philip without 
 further evidence," and for this he had not long to 
 wait. Since the first day in the year he had been 
 fitting out in Lisbon a little expedition of three or 
 four vessels, with several trusty officers of his own 
 on board, to visit the Irish chief, carrying with them 
 presents in money, a few arms, and many exhortations 
 and promises, their principal object being to examine 
 closely the strength of the rebels and the military 
 
 ' This, as will be seeu, was an absurd exaggeration. When Philip's 
 experienced military officers reported to him officially as to the armed 
 force which each of the Catholic chiefs could raise, they found that the 
 aggregate number was less than 6000 foot and iioo horse. 
 
 2 In many letters from Philip that have passed through my hands 
 there are evidences of his distrust and disbelief in priests as relators 
 of facts or as organisers. The Irish confessor in the present instance 
 seems to have drawn very largely upon his imagination, most of the 
 victories over the English, the slaughter, &c., which he relates being 
 entirely without foundation.
 
 1 82 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 capabilities of the country. As a forerunner to this 
 little expedition there went in April from Santander 
 to Killibegs a swift pinnace carrying Ensign Alonso 
 de Cobos, entrusted with letters from Philip to the 
 Catholics again urging them to stand firm and to 
 make no truce with the enemy. His arrival empty- 
 handed except of letters and promises, after Tyrone 
 and O'Donnell had signed the two months' truce, was 
 a subject for considerable embarrassment for the 
 chiefs. They assured Cobos, on the one hand, that 
 the truce was only a feint, and on the other, pro- 
 tested to Lord-Deputy Russell and General Norreys 
 that they had sent the Spaniard away curtly, " as 
 they had now been received into the favour of 
 their own princess, wherein they will continue." 
 With the Spaniard they made the best of the matter, 
 so as not to lose the long-promised succour. Cobos 
 was persuaded to give them a sort of certificate that, 
 although terms satisfactory to them had been offered 
 by the English for a permanent peace, they had, on 
 his arrival, " solely on conscientious grounds and out 
 of afi"ection for his Majesty, desisted from finally 
 making peace . . . and now sincerely turned their 
 hearts to God and the King, in whose service as 
 faithful vassals they will remain during his Majesty's 
 pleasure." Although Philip's famous letter sent by 
 Cobos to the EarP was forwarded by the latter, as he 
 said, only for perusal to Norreys, with protestations of 
 his refusal of all Philip's advances and his loyalty to 
 the Queen, Cobos carried with him to Spain fervent 
 letters from Tyrone, O'Donnell, Macguire, McSuyne, 
 
 ^ A copy of Philip's letter to Tj'rone (of wliicli copy more will be 
 heard) is in the Irish State Papers, cxc. 6.
 
 CAPTAIN COBOS IN IRELAND 183 
 
 O'Rourke, and (most violent of all) from McWilliam 
 Bourke of Mayo, begging for aid to the Catholics and 
 professing unalterable loyalty to Philip/ They re- 
 quired, they said, 6000 soldiers and arms for 10,000 
 more, and begged that the Cardinal Archduke 
 Albert might be appointed their sovereign under 
 the protection of Spain. 
 
 No sooner had Cobos sailed homewards than the 
 more formal expedition from Lisbon arrived in Ire- 
 land. The two captains who were entrusted with 
 the negotiations appear to have been good specimens 
 of their class and time, brave, quarrelsome, and 
 jealous. Cisneros, who was the senior, began by 
 giving himself the airs and title of " ambassador," ^ 
 and the junior, Medinilla, who was to remain with 
 the Irish chiefs as military adviser, became jealous. 
 Henceforward the two captains were at daggers 
 drawn, and, as I suspect, came to blows before 
 their return to Spain. ^ The expedition appears at 
 first to have put into the Bourke country, on the 
 coast of Mayo, where the Spaniards boasted of 
 the great things that their king would do for the 
 Catholics. Money they had in plenty to distribute 
 amongst those w^ho would join the rebels ; wine 
 flowed in unwonted streams to the gallowglasses 
 who flocked down to the coast to see the outlandish 
 strangers ; and the great MacWilliam Bourke himself 
 — Marquis of Connaught dubbed now — who sent one 
 
 ^ These letters have all been transcribed from the originals at Siniancas 
 by the present writer, and are printed in the Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. 
 Almost exactly similar letters were sent l,ack by the next expedition in 
 the following month. 
 
 ^ Irish State Papers, July 27, 1596 ; Calendar, p. 50. 
 
 3 Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. p. 625.
 
 1 84 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 hundred beeves for the refreshment of the Spaniards, 
 had his present refused except on condition that he 
 would receive their full value in Spanish gold. 
 
 The first problem was to persuade the chiefs to 
 meet the King of Spain's " ambassador." The most 
 important of them, Tyrone and O'Donnell, were 
 swearing loyalty to their own sovereign, and the Eng- 
 lish were watching them with distrustful eyes. Mayo, 
 under Bingham's iron fist, was out of the question 
 as a meeting-place, and Bourke proposed that the 
 captains should accompany him by land to summon 
 the chiefs to the monastery of Donegal for the con- 
 ference. To Cisneros this seemed a good oppor- 
 tunity for observing the state of the country and 
 the strength of the Catholics, but Medinilla refused 
 to leave the ships, which apparently then went round 
 to Teelin, Sligo, and Killibegs. It was not easy to 
 persuade the rebel chiefs to leave their retreats, but 
 the King of Spain was a dazzling name to conjure 
 with, and most of them were assembled finally at 
 Donegal to receive the message sent by Philip. 
 The Irish, he said, originally came from Spain, and 
 he, the King, who had always favoured them, would 
 now deliver them from the oppression of the Eng- 
 lish, lor which purpose he would join his forces to 
 theirs, and send with them stores and money. 
 
 The spies told the English that the chiefs raised 
 objections. The Spaniards were far off, they said, 
 and the English near at hand, with all the strong 
 places in their possession. It would be unwise for 
 the Irish to risk everything by refusing the fair 
 terms now offered to them by the Lord-Deputy, 
 unless they were quite sure that the King would
 
 SPANISH ENVOYS TO IRELAND 185 
 
 keep his promise to them, so as to make success 
 certain. Cisneros replied that thousands of men 
 should be sent, and went far beyond his instruc- 
 tions in the promises he gave ; ^ whereupon, says 
 the English account, "all the rabble of the Irishry 
 gave a roll of the names of the lords, as they call 
 them, who would depend upon the King, and follow 
 his counsel ; that in expectation of that succour 
 they would forbear to make any composition till 
 mid-August, so they might have munition to efend 
 themselves in the meanwhile." 
 
 The letters carried back to the King by the 
 captains are worded in a more exalted strain than 
 this, and repeat the professions of loyalty and at- 
 tachment to Philip taken a few weeks before by 
 Cobos. We see the result of Tyrone's prudence, 
 however, in his refusal to allow Medinilla to remain 
 with him in order that he might be able to say, 
 as he did, that he had refused to enter into any 
 negotiations against his allegiance to the Queen. "^ 
 After an exciting fight with an English ship at 
 the mouth of the Tagus, the captains arrived in 
 Lisbon, bringing with them a curious account of 
 the state of the rebel forces in Ireland in the form 
 of answers to eighteen exhaustive questions, such 
 as Philip loved. What did they (the chiefs) want ? 
 was the first question, and, as usual, the King 
 
 ^ The Englisli account of the meeting is in the Irish Calendar, July 
 26, 1596, and the Spanish reports, with a copy of Cisneros' instruc- 
 tions, in the Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. p. 620. 
 
 * The Spaniards were at this time very distrustful of Tyrone's 
 trimming, as will be seen later ; and an English officer was told (7th 
 June) by Shan 0' Brian that the Spaniards threatened to banish Tyrone 
 with his friends the English if he did not join their forces when they 
 (the Spaniards) landed in Ireland.
 
 1 86 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 required to know the irreducible minimum. The 
 captain was to suggest "prudence and due con- 
 sideration " in their demands, and was to " hint 
 softly at the difficulties in the way, to see how they 
 meet them, but do not push this far enough to 
 cause distrust." But with all the minimising of 
 the Spaniards, the chiefs asked for arms for 10,000 
 footmen, corselets, pikes, morrions, harquebuses, 
 muskets, powder, ball, &c., and 1000 men at once, 
 to be sent Math these munitions pending the coming 
 of a large Spanish force. Cisneros reported favour- 
 ably upon the unity of Tyrone and O'Donnell, 
 " whom the rest respect ; " and he praises their 
 firm Catholicism. But the vast armies spoken of 
 by O'Donnell's confessor as being in the field shrink 
 woefully in the report of the experienced soldier. 
 The chiefs could raise, it appeared, 6000 foot and 
 1200 horse; and when they took the field they 
 carried provisions with them sufficient for the time 
 they intended to be absent from home. No artil- 
 lery, moreover, could be landed at any of their ports 
 or be sent inland, in consequence of the boggy 
 nature of the soil, and the provisions available were 
 only sufficient for the native Irish. In another 
 report, given by the ensigns who accompanied the 
 expedition, full particulars are given of the number 
 of men to be raised by each chief, and the state of 
 the strong towns in the hands of the English.^ 
 
 ' The following paragraphs in the report of the ensigns is curious. 
 After summing up the total number of the rebel Lords' forces (5900 
 foot and 1080 horse), the report continues : — -"The men are now spread 
 about the territories of their Lords, and have darts, bows and arrows, 
 shields like ours, and others like Hungarian bucklers. They have no 
 muskets and few harijuebuses. Their food is butter and milk ; but even
 
 PHILIP AND THE IRISH 187 
 
 Whilst these minute details were being discussed 
 and weighed laboriously by Philip at the Escorial, 
 news came from England through Flanders and 
 France, at first vague and then with increasing 
 definiteness, which struck the Spaniards with terror. 
 When Drake had finally sailed away in the previous 
 autumn, the way seemed clear for, at least, some 
 show of force being sent to Ireland, although there 
 was never any chance in that year (1596) of any 
 great expedition, such as the English feared.^ But 
 in the fight off the mouth of the Tagus between the 
 ship with Cisneros on board and the English vessel, 
 two boats' crews of the latter had got adrift and 
 were captured by the Spaniards. When they were 
 
 this is not to be boiiglit, as such is not their custom ; and if people go 
 from one part of the country to another, they receive butter and milk 
 for their sustenance from the natives of the country they go to. The 
 people are all Catholics, and they show signs of being able to handle 
 weapons well. They ?eem a well-disposed sort of people. It is im- 
 possible to travel on the land, as yon sink up to the knees, but it is all 
 land that may be cultivated. In the forty leagues we have travelled 
 {i.e. from Mayo to Donegal) we have not seen a single tree, and it is 
 impossible to transport artillery." It may be added that these rej^orts, 
 which were evident!}' written by men more accustomed to wield pikes 
 than pens, are excessively illiterate, and in places almost unintelligible. 
 (Simancas MSS., Spanish Calendar.) 
 
 1 The rejjorts of the Venetian ambassador in Madrid to the Doge 
 throughout the autumn and winter of 1595 give details of the naval 
 preparations in Spain. In October he says that thirty ships are ready, 
 some say for Brittany or Ireland, but most likely to go after Drake in 
 South America. On November 17 he writes that the shipyards in 
 Biscay and Andalusia are busy building new ships. " It is certain 
 that his Majesty intends to have on the ocean next year a larger fleet 
 than at any previous time, except in 15S8 ... If it does nothing 
 else, this preparation, by keeping tiie Queen of England in alarm, will 
 compel her to think of her own defences rather than ... of molest- 
 ing others." " There are thirty armed transports in Lisbon and Seville 
 to be sent to hold Drake in check." This squadron of twenty-five ships 
 sailed from Lisbon on the 2nd January 1596.
 
 1 88 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 questioned by Count Portalegre in Lisbon, the 
 English sailors confessed that the Queen's fleet 
 of loo ships was assembled when they had left 
 London two months previously, but they knew not 
 its destination. Philip had later news than this, 
 and he also had heard of the gathering of a great 
 fleet in England, evidently destined to do him 
 injury, though at what point he could not guess. 
 His naval advisers soothed him with the idea that 
 it was already too late in the season for the English 
 to come to Spain "that year ; but Count Portalegre, 
 when he sent to the King the intelligence he had 
 gathered from the English prisoners, not only ex- 
 pressed his fears that the Spanish expedition could 
 not be safely sent to Ireland that year, notwithstand- 
 ing the vehement pledges given to Tyrone, but he 
 conveys his apprehension of something worse. 
 
 ** We are now at the loth June, and it is getting 
 late in the season, considering how early the English 
 came in the year '89 ; and I do not see much sign of 
 apprehension of that which I am very anxious about, 
 more anxious than ever I was in my life about any- 
 thing. Notwithstanding reasons of State and pru- 
 dence, that persuade others that it is impossible that 
 the English fleet should come to the coast of Spain, 
 I have convinced myself that it is extremely proba- 
 ble that it may come to prevent the final union of 
 your Majesty's fleet by cruising about the route, and 
 burning whatever it may find unprotected between 
 Viana and Lisbon. As for this bar {i.e. Lisbon), 
 they could act according to the intelligence they 
 received of the city and ships, and of the flotillas 
 which are expected from all parts. And even if
 
 ALARM IN SPAIN 189 
 
 your Majesty's fleet succeed in assembling, they 
 might embarrass it greatly, and this, perhaps, might 
 satisfy them for this summer. It might be all 
 frustrated if what your Majesty promised should be 
 provided could arrive here : but before it can arrive, 
 the cause for alarm will have passed." ^ 
 
 This letter is a good specimen of the utter paraly- 
 sis which fell upon the Spaniards in the face of 
 English naval movements, and of the disastrous 
 effects of Philip's slow methods. Long before he 
 had discussed and considered the infinite pros and 
 cons of the requisites demanded, much less before 
 he could laboriously furnish the resources necessary, 
 either for attack or defence, his opponents had 
 anticipated him, and his action and expenditure 
 were wasted. This is exactly what happened in the 
 summer of 1596. Whilst his officers were reporting 
 and inquiring in Ireland, whilst the priests and 
 others were sending false assurances to the Irish 
 chiefs that the long-delayed support should at once 
 be sent from Spain, Philip's officers, trammelled by 
 his blighting centralising system, were slowly, 
 and with ill success, endeavouring to collect in 
 half-a-dozen different ports the vessels and stores 
 
 ^ The Venetian ambassador in Madrid wrote to the Doge, June ii, 
 saying that Count Portalegre had reported the great alarm caused in 
 Lisbon by the English naval preparations. "A sharp answer was 
 returned from here that the governor had exaggerated ttie alarm ; for 
 the conquest of Calais, the deatli of Drake, and the dispersion of liis 
 fleet, would undoubtedly cause the Queen to change her plans ; and 
 that it was his ( Portalegre' s) duty to keep up the courage of the popu- 
 lation, rather than by lending them his ear, to frighten them more at 
 mere shadows " (Venetian Calendar). The letter from Purtalegre, 
 which I have quoted in the text, was evidently the reply to this 
 reproof.
 
 I90 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 necessary to form an auxiliary expedition.^ Before 
 one part of the munitions could be got ready, the 
 part already collected went rotten : men deserted as 
 fast as they were levied, for they were no longer 
 buoyed up by the idea of their invulnerability against 
 the heretics or of the invincible sacredness of their 
 cause. In plain truth, they were afraid of the 
 English. In all ranks disillusion and demoralisa- 
 tion were becoming general. The King was a mere 
 name now, seen by no one, and already sick to 
 death. He had with forty years of ceaseless toil 
 woven around himself and his people the endless 
 spider's web of despotism ; filaments that had grown 
 into cables centred in the paper-choked closet of a 
 gloomy recluse, stifling all initiative, restricting all 
 activity, and dooming the nation to atrophy and 
 decay. 
 
 The alarming and exaggerated news of Spanish 
 preparations, and the efforts of the French and of 
 Essex's party in England,^ had at length brought 
 
 ^ The Venetian ambassador in Spain wrote on i5tli January that 
 loo new vessels were being built in Biscay, Galicia, Lisbon, and 
 Seville ; but he doubted whether the result would correspond with the 
 elfort, " for the first flush of preparations in Spain usually promises 
 much more than is eventually accomplished." In February he reported 
 that the King of Spain had abandoned his scheme for an attack upon 
 England, since the Queen has now settled her Irish and English 
 affairs. " He is well aware that neither in Corunna nor in Flanders 
 are there sufficient troops to harass the English, even if they could 
 effect a landing." In April the same ambassailur wrote that the 
 " preparations for a fleet are not being pushed on as fast as they might 
 be, or would be, if there was any idea of using a fleet at once." 
 
 2 Sir Francis Vere, the English commander in Flanders, who was an 
 " Essex " man, wrote to the Earl on the 9th March. " You were pleased 
 to acquaint me with a purpose you had to draw her Majesty, the 
 French King, and the States into a firm league. . . . There is no so 
 ready way in the world to terrify and ruin tlie great adversary." At the
 
 CHANGE OF ENGLISH POLICY 191 
 
 Elizabeth to consent to an aggressive policy. Vera 
 was authorised to obtain the aid of a naval con- 
 tingent from the States, and once more Plymouth 
 and the Thames were alive with the fitting out of 
 a great fleet. Henry IV. having to a great extent 
 conciliated the Leaguers, had declared a national 
 war upon Spain, and was now at close grip with 
 the enemy. He had strained his own resources 
 to the utmost, and in vain both he and his ally 
 Essex had sought, by cajolery and threats, to obtain 
 more eflfective assistance from England, especially 
 on the coast of Picardy, where English interests 
 were closely touched. Philip, on the other hand, 
 as will be recollected, had been fortunate in the 
 arrival of his treasure fleet, thanks to the delay in 
 the departure of Drake in the summer of 1595, and 
 had also contracted a large new loan with the 
 Fuggers ; and much of the money had been spent 
 in providing for the new Governor of Flanders, the 
 Archduke Albert, a powerful army, with which, as 
 it was thought, to relieve La Fere from its pro- 
 tracted siege by Henry's forces. 
 
 When a few weeks earlier Sir Henry Unton had 
 given Henry Elizabeth's message, asking for Calais 
 as a pledge for her further help, the great Bearnais 
 replied in a rage that he had as lief be bitten by a 
 
 same time (March 1596) Elizabeth and Burghley were made to believe 
 by forged letters that Spain was making approaches to Henry IV. 
 She sent yoi^ng Palavicini to France to inquire secretly if this was 
 true. His informant in France was one of the Essex-Lopez gang, who 
 told him, in reply to his questions, " that it was true that the Spaniard 
 was trying to come to terms, but that Henry was little inclined to do 
 so unless he were driven by force. The real way to keep him (Henry) 
 was to assist him vigorously" (Venetian Calendar).
 
 192 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 dog as be scratched by a cat, and would prefer the 
 Spaniards in Calais to the English. He spoke more 
 truly than he thought at the time, for the relief of 
 La Fere was only a feint ; and early in April the 
 King learnt to his dismay that the Spaniards had 
 suddenly turned aside, marched upon Calais, and 
 had already stormed the outworks of the town. 
 This was threatening news indeed for England. 
 Whilst Elizabeth was haggling, the Spaniards had 
 captured a port which commanded her narrow seas, 
 and the Spanish army in Flanders was in sight of 
 her own shores. As soon as the news came to 
 England of Calais's danger, a hasty levy of men was 
 made in London and hurried to Dover for embarka- 
 tion under Essex ; for the citadel of Calais still held 
 out, and relief was possible. No sooner were the 
 men on board, and the young Earl burning to bring 
 them into action, than a courier galloped in from 
 the Queen counter-ordering the expedition. Essex 
 was frantic, but raved and prayed in vain. Almost 
 within his sight the next day, 14th April, the citadel 
 of Calais fell ; and Elizabeth found that she had 
 overreached herself. Henry made the most of it, 
 and sent a special embassy to remonstrate wath her 
 upon the effect produced by her avaricious demand 
 for Calais in return for her aid ; and she was, 
 though greatly to her dislike, obliged to make a 
 new treaty with France, by which her contingent 
 was to be increased, and Henry was bound never 
 to make peace with Spain without the consent of 
 England — a provision which he broke as soon as it 
 suited him. 
 
 This untoward capture of Calais by the Spaniards.
 
 ESSEX AND SPAIN 193 
 
 made it more necessary than ever now that the 
 power of Spain should again be broken at sea ; and 
 the policy which Hawkins, Drake, and lialegh had 
 always advocated, of attack at sea rather than 
 defence on shore, was forced by circumstances upon 
 Elizabeth and Burghley, though they faced it with 
 much hesitancy and fickleness. We have seen in 
 Count Portalegre's letter to Philip early in June 
 tlie alarm which the English preparations caused in 
 Spain, The slow and ineffective fitting out of small 
 squadrons in different ports, Ferrol, Corunua, San- 
 tander, Lisbon, and Cadiz, in order that they might 
 ultimately form a junction, was rendered necessary 
 by the paucity of supplies and the difficulties of 
 transporting great quantities of stores to one centre, 
 but it always exposed Philip's fleets to be destroyed 
 piecemeal, either in their ports, or on their way to 
 the rendezvous ; and this was a danger against which 
 it was difficult for the Spaniards to provide, as they 
 had not sufficient force to protect adequately all 
 threatened points, and rapid concentration was 
 impossible. This was well known to English sea- 
 men, and they had constantly urged the Queen to 
 strike at the strength of her enemy in what they 
 saw was the most effectual way. But her lifelong 
 policy was to take a middle course and hold the 
 balance whilst extremists fought ; and no sooner 
 had Essex persuaded her to authorise an offensive 
 expedition against Spain than she altered her mind. 
 Through February, March, and April of 1596, whilst 
 the Irish chiefs were praying Philip for immediate 
 aid, and Spanish emissaries were flitting backwards 
 and forwards to Donegal, the hot fit followed the 
 
 N
 
 194 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 cold with maddening alternation in Elizabeth's 
 counsels. She was willing to cripple her foe, but 
 she let "I dare not, wait upon I would;" for, she 
 argued : Suppose my fleet should miss the Spaniards, 
 or any large portion of them, what would become 
 of me and my realm, what would become of Pro- 
 testantism, if another Armada should approach whilst 
 my own ships were far away on the coast of Spain ? 
 Essex in his rage sometimes forgot the respect 
 due to his sovereign lady, and this gave rise to 
 fresh wrangles and subsequent self-abasement of 
 the spoilt, ill-disciplined favourite. "The Queen," 
 wrote one of Essex's secretaries to Antony Bacon, ^ 
 " is daily in change of humour about my Lord's 
 voyage, and yesterday almost resolute to stay it, 
 using very hard terms of my Lord's wilfulness, 
 inasmuch as the wisest was fain to use his wisest 
 reasons to appease and satisfy her ; " and Essex 
 himself, almost in despair, said, " I have racked 
 my wits to get this commission, and my means . . . 
 to carry it through, as they say. I will either go 
 through with it now, or become a monk at an hour's 
 warning." ^ 
 
 It ended by the Queen's allowing the expedition 
 to be prepared, whilst she bound the commanders 
 on all sides with limitations and restrictions. To 
 curb the impetuosity of Essex and temper his want 
 of naval experience, slie associated with him in the 
 command the cold, elderly Lord Admiral Howard, 
 at which arrangement both of them impotently 
 
 ^ Reynolds to Bacon, Bacon MSS., Lambeth Palace, vol. Dclvii. 
 
 2 Jbid.
 
 THE ATTACK ON CADIZ 195 
 
 fumed and chafed ; ^ and she strictly laid down that 
 the objects to be aimed at were "the taking and 
 destruction of the King of Spain's ships and maga- 
 zines, and the intercepting of the East Indian 
 carracks and the fleet from the West Indies." 
 When her instructions were asked for in the case 
 of any "rich town" being captured, the Queen was 
 quite scandalised at the suggestion of such a thing. 
 The object was not conquest, but to strike a blow at 
 Philip's navy, which should efi"ectually prevent him 
 from sending powerful aid to Ireland, or threatening 
 Protestant England with another Catholic Armada. 
 
 When, at length, the four squadrons were assem- 
 bled at Plymouth, not without much delay on the 
 part of the Thames contingent,^ Essex and Howard 
 found themselves in command of a fleet consisting 
 of seventeen Queen's ships, seventy-six freighted 
 armed merchantmen, mostly used for transport, and 
 
 ^ A very characteristic letter on this point was written by Essex to 
 Cecil on the 24th May, on the eve of his sailing. He and Howard had 
 written a joint letter of farewell to the Queen, and he wrote : — "Sir, 
 if her Majesty do find fault with the cutting out of a piece of the 
 sheet wherein our joint letter is written, her unruly admiral (i.e. 
 Howard, who being a baron, was obliged to sign his name after Essex, 
 who was an eari) must be punished, who cut out my name, because he 
 would ha\ e none so high as himself. We are now abroad, and do see 
 all men bestir themselves to leave the shore. Here is such joy in all 
 the fleet, both of soldiers and mariners, English and Dutch, as it would 
 please her Majesty to see the effects of her own work" (Hatfield 
 Papers, vol. iv.). 
 
 2 This was specially under Kalegh's organisation, and Essex's friends 
 threw upon Ralegli the whole blame of the delay. It was not his 
 fault, however ; the service was most unpopular, and especially in and 
 about London ; and "as soon as we press men one day tuey run away 
 another, and say they will not serve." See the writer's " Life of Sir 
 Walter Ralegh." So general was the d saffection in the fleet that 
 Essex wa- forced to hang several of the soldiers on Plymouth Hoe just 
 before sailing (" Voyage to Cadiz," Hakluyt).
 
 196 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 a Dutch squadron of twenty-four vessels, besides 
 pinnaces and small craft. This fleet, with 9000 
 soldiers on board, sailed out of Plymouth Sound on 
 the 3rd June 1596; and so well had the secret of 
 its destination been kept, that, as we have seen, at a 
 similar date (xTth June) Count Portalegre placed it 
 on record that he alone of the Spanish officers 
 feared the coming of the English at all that year. 
 Even those who at an earlier date had looked for 
 the possible sailing of an English squadron had 
 feared rather that it might attack the ships in Ferrol 
 or the Tagus than repeat Drake's famous swoop 
 upon Cadiz in 1587, so that when, on the morning 
 of the 20th June, the great combined fleet of 
 English and Dutch ships anchored ofi" Cadiz, panic 
 supreme and uncontrolled seized upon the city. 
 
 Under the shelter of the sea-wall there lay 
 defending the entrance to the harbour seventeen 
 of Philip's finest galleys, and inside the port there 
 were six mighty galleons, three of the famous 
 treasure frigates, two strong argosies, the three 
 flagships of the Mexican fleet, and forty great 
 Indiamen loading for the outward voyage. The 
 first decision arrived at by the English joint com- 
 manders was in the highest degree unwise and 
 dangerous. Their prime object in sailing was, at 
 any cost, to cripple Spain's navy. Here they had 
 before them huddled in the bay, unable to escape, 
 the finest vessels that flew the flag of Castile and 
 Aragon ; and Howard and Essex conceived the 
 idea, before attacking the ships, of landing their 
 soldiers and assaulting the town, lialegli, who had 
 command of one of the squadrons, returned from
 
 THE ATTACK ON CADIZ 197 
 
 special service on the other side of the bay just 
 as the troops were being disembarked. Hurrying 
 on board the flagship, he besought Essex to push 
 into the harbour and destroy the shipping before 
 anything else was attempted, for if the attack upon 
 the town failed the whole force would be imperilled. 
 Essex threw the blame upon Howard, whose plan it 
 probably was ; but at length the eloquence of llalegh 
 prevailed over both and the plan was altered. 
 
 Thenceforward the only rivalry amongst the 
 English commanders was as to who should lead his 
 ship into the harbour first. The final choice fell 
 upon Ralegh, and at first break of dawn on the 
 2 1st June, Sir Walter, on the Warsprite, pushed 
 past the galleys that blocked the way, and, deriding 
 them as he passed with a fanfare from his ship's 
 trumpets, he struck, straight as a hawk at its quarry, 
 at the two greatest ships of the Spanish navy, the 
 San Felipe and the San Andres ; for on one bloody, 
 never-to-be-forgotten day five years before, those two 
 giants had done to death his dear friend and kins- 
 man, Sir Richard Grenville on the Revenge, and 
 Ralegh had sworn never to loose them till their 
 stout hulls were worried to future inofiensiveness. 
 
 Of the details of the great fight this is not the 
 place to tell.^ How Essex, Ralegh, Lord Thomas 
 Howard, and Francis Vere competed with each 
 other in their lust for destruction ; how red ruin fell 
 upon the towering San Felipe, the San Andres, the 
 
 1 See "The Voyage to Cadiz" in Hakluyt; Ralegh's own account, 
 "Relation of the Cadiz Action;" Fernandez Duro's "Armada Es- 
 panola ; " the present writer's " Life of Sir Walter Ralegh," and 
 Devereux's " Earls of Essex."
 
 198 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Santo Tomas, and the San Mateo and all the galleys; 
 how, in despair, the wretched Spaniards, to escape 
 the fire, drowned themselves by hundreds, until, as 
 Ralegh wrote, "If any man had a desire to see hell 
 itself, it was there most lively figured ; " how the 
 forty splendid Indiamen and their precious freights 
 all fled to the inner harbour at Puerto Real and 
 were burnt by the Spaniards ; and how, finally, Cadiz 
 itself, the " pearl of Andalusia," the richest city in 
 Spain, was conquered almost without a blow, to be 
 submitted to sixteen days of systematic plunder, 
 which left her naked, ravaged, and destroyed — all 
 this is told in sounding Elizabethan prose by Ralegh 
 himself, and has been repeated in stirring story by a 
 hundred pens. Our concern in this book is mainly 
 to consider the effect of the ruin of Cadiz upon 
 Philip's power to force Catholicism directly or in- 
 directly upon England. 
 
 During the three hours' fight, in which only eight 
 English ships took active part, Spain lost thirteen 
 ships of war and seventeen galleys, besides the forty 
 great merchantmen, and merchandise worth eleven 
 million ducats. What the loot of Cadiz city 
 amounted to no one rightly knew ; but great as 
 was the material loss suffered by Spain, the loss 
 of prestige was infinitely greater. The wretched 
 Medina-Sidonia could only look on at the destruc- 
 tion afar off, wringing his hands and weeping. He 
 had long ago pointed out to the King the utterly 
 defenceless state of the city against a sudden attack.^ 
 
 1 On the day after the disaster Medina-Sidonia wrote to the King 
 thus : " Tliis is shameful ! I said how necessary it was to send me men 
 and money, and I have never received even an answer from your Majesty.
 
 EFFECT OF THE CADIZ ACTION 199 
 
 Like all other representations of u like nature to 
 Philip, it had to run the gauntlet of infinite pro- 
 crastination, consideration, and inquiry, often to be 
 shelved and forgotten. Philip's resources, great as 
 they were, were a mere drop in the ocean of his 
 requirements. With such a system as his, where 
 one sick old man,^ writing and reading day and 
 night, tried to sway the universe with his pen, 
 waste and inefficiency were inevitable, and this 
 terrible blow of Cadiz was the natural result. The 
 disaster was even greater in a moral sense than the 
 loss of the Armada, because it proved to the satis- 
 faction of the superstitious people, either that the 
 Lord was fighting on the side of the heretic, or that 
 the powers of darkness were stronger than the powers 
 of light. 
 
 But whilst the Spaniards at large, with Oriental 
 fatalism, were resigning themselves to the inevitable, 
 and the English were bickering over their loot in 
 the intervals of self-glorification, the slow, crippled, 
 white-haired, little man in his cell at the Escorial 
 had learned nothing from defeat and failure. He 
 was, he thought, on the side of God, and if the 
 Most High for His good pleasure ordained that 
 temporary disaster should fall upon His legions, it 
 was only that the final victory should be the greater, 
 and that His servants should be purified by trial for 
 the ultimate gloiy that would surely come to them. 
 
 So now I am at my wits' end, and can only stand and await yovu- 
 Majesty's orders." 
 
 ^ Philip was chronically ill of gout with complications at this time. 
 In April and May of this year, 1596, he was thought to be dying and 
 all hope was abandoned by his physicians. See the details in Nani's 
 Letters, Venetian Calendar.
 
 200 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 There was no defeat but death for such a man as 
 this, and the day after he learnt of the catastrophe 
 of Cadiz saw him calmly plodding and planning the 
 new preparations that should carry aid to insurgent 
 Ireland, and in good time make England Catholic 
 again, a fit ally for faithful Spain.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Mission of Lindsay to Rome — Father John Cecil and Pury Ogilvie in 
 Rome — Their voyage to Spain — Address of the English Catholic 
 irreconcilables to Philip — The advice of Father Persons — Pre- 
 parations in Lisbon for the Irish expedition^ — Strength of the 
 armament — Failure and return to Spain — Meeting of the Irish 
 chiefs with Cobos in the Monastery of Donegal — A new truce with 
 Tyrone. 
 
 At the end of chapter iii. we left Walter Lindsay, 
 Lord Balgarys, the Laird of Ladyland, Father Cecil, 
 and Matthew Semple, fruitlessly praying the King 
 of Spain to send assistance to the Scottish Catholic 
 nobles, the leaders of whom were already in exile. 
 This was in the autumn of 1595, and the reason 
 for Philip's bland irresponsiveness to their cry is 
 obvious to any one who notes the tone of their 
 petitions. When the resources of delay had been 
 exhausted, and the Scottish emissaries intimated 
 that their patience was at an end, Philip adopted 
 his invariable course in such cases, and politely in- 
 formed them that, as the objects of the Scottish 
 nobles were exclusively directed to the advancement 
 of the Catholic faith, the Pope was the person first 
 to be applied to. The King would recommend 
 them to his ambassador in Rome, the Duke of 
 Sessa, who would forward their suit with his Holi- 
 ness, and when the Pope had decided how much 
 money he would contribute, he (Philip) would con- 
 sider how and to what extent he could help them.
 
 202 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 The emissaries did not know it, but this course of 
 procedure made it absolutely certain that Philip 
 had no intention of making the Scottish Catholics 
 his principal instruments for gaining England ; but 
 they took his message in all sincerity, and, late in 
 the year, Balgarys, Ladyland, Hugh Barclay, and 
 Father Cecil sailed separately from Barcelona for 
 Italy, the priest being entrusted with the principal 
 part of the negotiation. 
 
 They must have arrived early in December in 
 Rome, but as Father Cecil was ill, he did not pre- 
 sent Philip's letter to the Duke of Sessa until the 
 3rd January 1596. Although the ambassador had 
 not at that time received any explanatory despatches 
 from Madrid, he knew his master's mind well enough 
 to understand what was required of him. He, too, 
 was full of sympathy for the Scottish Catholics, who 
 were so anxious to benefit their religion exclusively, 
 but it took six weeks for him to obtain for Father 
 Cecil an audience of the Pope. When at length 
 the audience took place, on the eve of Cecil's depar- 
 ture, the English priest laid before his Holiness the 
 prayers of the Scottish nobles, and the good wishes 
 for them expressed by the King of Spain. "They 
 pretended to nothing else, he said, but restoring 
 the Catholic religion in their country, and deliver- 
 ing their King from the heretics, by whom he was 
 oppressed." Clement VIII. was very far from being 
 a fool, and understood perfectly well that Philip 
 would never lift a finger to help a party that pro- 
 fessed such objects as this. " He was very well 
 satisfied," he drily told Father Cecil, " of the inten- 
 tions of the Catholic Lords, and also of the King of
 
 SCOTTISH ENVOYS IN ROME 203 
 
 Spain's expressed intention of helping them, with- 
 out respect to his own particular interest. He was 
 very w^ell contented with so holy a resolution of his 
 Catholic Majesty. But he had great fear of the 
 delays of Spain, with which they wearied the world ; 
 besides, the King of Scots had beguiled him (the 
 Pope), and had communicated to the Queen of Eng- 
 land the intelligence that he had had with him." 
 This was as far as Clement VIII. would go ; and 
 to his nephew, Cardinal Aldobrandino, and to the 
 '* protector " of Scottish affairs, Cardinal Gaetano, he 
 deputed the task of politely but firmly making Cecil 
 understand that not a penny would be contributed 
 to their enterprise by the Pope. If the Scottish 
 Catholic emissaries had understood the position, 
 they must have seen that their clients' case was 
 hopeless of effectual aid from the moment they 
 talked about their desire being solely to benefit 
 their religion, and by inference included in their 
 programme the conversion of James. 
 
 Almost simultaneously with the arrival of Bal- 
 garys, Barclay, and Cecil in Rome, another Scots- 
 man appeared there with a still more significant 
 mission. Although the leaders of the Catholic 
 nobility had been banished or forbidden to leave 
 their estates, the sincerity of the King of Scots in 
 his Protestantism was still gravely doubted by the 
 Kirk. The Covenant was solemnly renewed, and 
 the Church Assembly joined with the Puritan towns 
 and gentry in formally requesting James to confis- 
 cate the estates of the Catholic Lords (March 1596). 
 This was most unpalatable to the King. It was, 
 in his view, vital that he should retain the goodwill
 
 204 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 of his Catholic subjects, or they might at a critical 
 moment effectually oppose his succession to the 
 English throne. He was, moreover, profoundly 
 moved by the open advocacy in Father Persons' 
 book of the right of the Infanta to succeed, in 
 consequence of his (James's) heresy,^ This book, 
 written by a leading Jesuit, known to be in the 
 confidence of Philip, was avowedly a blow at James's 
 claims ; and now that the banished Scottish Lords 
 were, as he knew, appealing to the Spanish King for 
 help, the most unfortunate thing that could happen, 
 in James's opinion, was that his Protestant subjects, 
 and Elizabeth between them, should sever the last 
 hopes in him entertained by the Catholics. 
 
 In this dilemma James took a thoroughly character- 
 istic course. On the 2nd January 1596 he published 
 a proclamation to his subjects calling upon them 
 vigorously to unite with England to resist the 
 threatened invasion of the Spaniards,^' " the common 
 
 ^ The Venetian ambassador in France wrote to the Doge, March 23, 
 1 596 : " The King of Scotland is under arms, more by sea than by 
 land, as he is disgusted with the King of Spain for the jirotection he 
 gives to the rebel Scots ; also because of a book published in Spain, 
 wherein all claims to the crown of England are discussed, and the 
 King of Scotland is entirely excluded, the King of Spain and the 
 Infanta both being put before him" (Venetian Calendar). How dis- 
 tasteful this open advocacy of the Infanta's claim was, not only to 
 Englishmen, but also to the Poj^e and all Catholics but the adherent of 
 Spain quand meme, is seen in an extract from a letter written by Dr. 
 GifFord to Throgmorton. " I have made an abstract of Parsons' book, 
 and have given it to the Nuncio (in Flanders), who is mad at Parsons, 
 and bade me write 10 the Bishop of Cassano, and assure him that 
 Parsons had ruined himself, and that the Pope would detest his be- 
 haviour, and that he could never have done anything more disgustable 
 to the Pope" (Hatfield Papers, vol. vi.). 
 
 2 The scare of Spanish preparations was at this time greater in Scot- 
 land than in England. W. Colville, writing to Bowes, January 17, 
 1 596, says, " We think verily here that you shall be swallowed up this
 
 JAMES'S DIPLOMACY 205 
 
 enemy of both nations," and thus won from Elizabeth 
 the rare reward of her unstinted praise. " I must 
 tel you," she wrote to him, " that I cannot imagin 
 how you could by any more glorious menes set out 
 your care for your land, your love to your neighbours, 
 and your hate to such wrongful invaders, than with 
 your pen and charge to your subjects you have 
 uttered. ... In me hit hathe set a deepe impression 
 of a cousin-like zeal, that mixeth not his loss with 
 her decay, and joyeth not that she should perish." ^ 
 Having thus disarmed Elizabeth, James smiled once 
 more on the banished lords (except Bothwell, his 
 personal enemy, whom he never forgave), and soon 
 Huntly, Errol, and Angus crept back to Scotland, 
 and were allowed to ao unmolested to their homes. 
 The Kirk raved in vain, and took the extreme and 
 even disloyal course of appointing a "Standing 
 Council," which should control the King and Govern- 
 ment. Black thundered sedition from the pulpit of 
 St. Andrews as violently as Knox himself would 
 have done in like circumstances ; but James, with 
 the Catholics at his bidding, and the Queen of 
 England well disposed, could afford to brave the 
 ministers, and by the end of the year 1596 he had 
 crushed the malcontents by force of arms and 
 humbled the power of the Kirk. 
 
 But whilst he was thus conciliating Elizabeth with 
 his proclamation against Spanish aggression and 
 
 summer insomuch as the preparation of the Spaniard is hekl to be out 
 of doubt ; that the Freuch King and Philip will accord, and the States 
 of Holland will return to him. So they think you shall have no 
 friendship but from hence," i.e. England (Letter-book of John Colville, 
 Bannatyne Club). 
 
 ^ Letters of Elizabeth and James (Camden Society).
 
 2o6 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 curbing the " ministers," he was cleverly and secretly 
 carrying on an extraordinary intrigue which was 
 intended to secure his accession to the English 
 throne, happen what might, and to bind the 
 Catholics to him strongly, whilst frustrating the evil 
 result to him that might follow the appeal of Huntly 
 and his followers to Philip and the Pope. The 
 man whom he chose as his agent was John Ogilvie, 
 Laird of Pury, who, five years before, had been 
 originally nominated to the unsuccessful mission 
 eventually entrusted to George Ker. Pury Ogilvie, 
 as he was called, had an extremely crooked task to 
 perform and he made it more crooked still. He was 
 first — in the autumn of 1595 — to go to Flanders. 
 There were many amongst the fugitives there known 
 to be unfavourable to the Spanish-Jesuit party, and 
 the publication of Persons' book had alienated many 
 more. Ogilvie was to approach Paget and his 
 friends of this party, and solemnly assure them that 
 James was really a Catholic.^ 
 
 The next step was for Ogilvie to make friends 
 with the Pope's Nuncio in Flanders, Cardinal Mal- 
 
 1 This is what Dr. Gifford, one of the " patriotic " refugees, wrote at 
 the time. " Here is a proper lord of Scotland come over, called Ogilvy, 
 who saieth to Paget in secret, and assureth him, the King of Scots is 
 well inclined, and if he may see men in the field he will venture all to 
 be free. He (Ogilvy) will be shortly at Rome to talk with the Pope. 
 The wife of the King of Scots is now certainly reconciled {i.e. to the 
 Church of Rome). This is a profound secret, but 113 positively 
 assures Paget that such is the case" (Hatfield I'aiaers, vol. vi.). There 
 is no doubt that the reason why James took this step of conciliating 
 the anti-Spanish refugees at this juncture was the rumour then current 
 that a compromise was under discussion by which Arabella Stuart 
 might be adopted by general consent as Elizabeth's heir. The Welsh 
 and English anti-Spanish refugees were known to be inclined to favour 
 this solution, as it would obviate the unpopular necessity of subjecting 
 England to the rule of a Scotsman.
 
 PURY OGILVIE'S MISSION 207 
 
 vasia, who, as we have seen by the note on page 204, 
 was ill-disposed towards Spain. Ogilvie told the 
 Cardinal that he had been sent by King James to 
 procure aid from the Pope and the Italian princes 
 to defend himself against his rebellious subjects, and 
 to procure the succession to the throne of England. 
 He (James) was desirous of receiving instruction 
 and of being converted to the Catholic religion. But 
 as most of his rebels were Catholics, who were in 
 favour of making the King of Spain also King of 
 England and Scotland, he, James, was obliged to 
 temporise with heretics and " politicians " in order 
 to support himself against so potent an adversary 
 as the King of Spain, who, under the pretence of 
 favouring the Catholics, endeavoured to make him- 
 self master of those kingdoms, which would not be 
 expedient either for the Pope or the Italian princes. 
 But if they, the Italians, would not help him, he 
 would be obliged to put himself under the protec- 
 tion of the King of Spain, and make the best terms 
 with him that he could. ^ The Nuncio, naturally 
 taken in with this frank avowal, expressed in no 
 measured terms his opinion of the ambition and 
 insincerity of the Spanish King, and Ogilvie care- 
 fully treasured up in his memory the unfavourable 
 language used by the Italian Churchman. 
 
 It was not to be expected that all this intimacy 
 between the Scottish envoy and the anti-Spanish 
 party in Flanders should escape the eyes of such as 
 Father Holt and Hugh Owen ; and when Ogilvie 
 
 ^ A series of letters, intercepteil by the Frencli and sent to the Earl 
 of Essex, relating to this exiraordinarily complicated intrigue, are quoted 
 at length in Birch.
 
 2o8 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 sought an interview with Secretary Ibarra, Philip's 
 Minister in Flanders, he found extremely black looks 
 to greet him. Nothing abashed, the Scotsman en- 
 tered upon his negotiation. He had been sent, he 
 said, by the King of Scots to seek a close under- 
 standing with the King of Spain against England. 
 James was sincerely desirous of becoming a Catholic, 
 and of avenging the murder of his mother and the 
 Queen of England's ill-treatment of himself. He 
 was ready to concur now in the extirpation of all 
 heresy from England, Scotland, and Ireland ; to 
 enter into an offensive and defensive league with 
 Philip against all the world, and immediately to 
 make war upon England ; to become reconciled to 
 his Catholic nobles ; to recall all Scotsmen in the 
 service of heretics abroad ; to receive and protect all 
 Catholics from England who might take refuge in 
 Scotland; to furnish the King of Spain with a con- 
 tingent of 10,000 Scottish troops; and, as a pledge 
 for his sincerity, he volunteered to deliver his son 
 and heir into the keeping of the King of Spain. In 
 return for all this James would ask Philip not to 
 oppose in any way his accession to the English 
 throne, but that he should, on the contrary, provide 
 him with an army of 12,000 men whilst the war 
 with England lasted, and give him a subvention of 
 500,000 ducats with which to commence the war ; 
 and that he should in future only treat with James 
 himself, and not with the Scottish Catholic nobles 
 or their representatives. 
 
 This was so surprising to Ibarra that he appears 
 to have expressed some disbelief in the sincerity of 
 James's offers, seeing how intimate Ogilvie had been
 
 COMPLICATED DIPLOMACY 209 
 
 since his arrival in Flanders with those who were 
 known to be in opposition to Spanish views for 
 England and Scotland. Ogilvie then seems to have 
 taken a most extraordinary course, which can only 
 be explained by the assumption that he was a young 
 man of extreme levity and untrustvvorthiness, deter- 
 mined at any sacrifice to feather his own nest. His 
 mission, he told Ibarra, was a mere farce ; the King 
 and some heretics and "politicians" had really sent 
 him " to rouse up some people's spleen, and make 
 them friends to the King of Scotland against the 
 King of Spain ; " which meant, of course, to attract 
 wavering Catholics from the Jesuit party to the 
 opposite side. For that purpose he, Ogilvie, had 
 " conferred with Paget, Gilford, and other English- 
 men of that herd ; but it was all partiality and 
 passion, and the King of Scotland was a heretic." 
 But, continued Ogilvie, he himself was a true Catho- 
 lic, and if the King of Spain would give him a 
 pension, " he would manage affairs the contrary way 
 from what the heretics and politicians aimed at." 
 This style of negotiation was much more in Ibarra's 
 line, and he promised the respectable Ogilvie 100 
 ducats a month, with which the Scottish envoy went 
 on his way to Italy rejoicing. 
 
 His next stages were Venice and Florence, and to 
 both the Doge and the Grand Duke he spoke in the 
 same tone as he had to the Nuncio. The Italian 
 princes, including the Pope, were extremely jealous 
 of Spain, and their replies to Ogilvie's charming 
 were all to the same effect. They could spare no 
 money or help to the King of Scots themselves, but 
 they fully recognised that the ambition of Philip 
 
 o
 
 2IO TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 was not to forward Catholicism so much as to en- 
 sure his own supremacy over Christendom. So 
 far Ogilvie's efforts were admirably calculated to 
 alienate Catholics in general, and especially English 
 Catholics, from the Jesuit-Spanish party by pro- 
 moting the expression of belief in the political and 
 ambitious objects of Philip ; but when the envoy 
 arrived in Rome (December 1595), he found himself 
 in the midst of the other Scottish intrigue in favour 
 of Huntly and the Catholic Lords, which was being 
 carried on by Father Cecil, Lord Balgarys, and Hugh 
 Barclay, and the King of Scotland's emissary was 
 obliged somewhat to alter his tone. 
 
 He brought letters from the Scottish Catholic 
 Lords to their envoy Cecil, who soon wormed him- 
 self into the confidence of Ogilvie, and promptly 
 carried to the Duke of Sessa, the Spanish ambas- 
 sador in Rome, the gist of their conversations. 
 Ogilvie himself only visited the ambassador secretly 
 at night, in order, apparently, that his communi- 
 cations with the Italians at the Vatican might not 
 be hampered by any open show of a friendship with 
 Spain. To the Duke of Sessa and to Father Cecil 
 he told the same story as he had to the Nuncio 
 in Flanders (p. 207), but with the addition that all 
 the Italians were badly disposed towards Spain, and 
 from them nothing could be expected, the inference 
 being that James must therefore turn exclusively 
 to Spain. The Spanish ambassador was quite eager 
 to confirm this view of the question, and tried his 
 best to hurry Ogilvie away to Spain to propose his 
 treaty. The Italians, he assured him, had no money 
 to give to the Scots, and the talk of the King of 
 Spain's being angry with James was all nonsense.
 
 A TANGLED SKEIN 2ii 
 
 Philip's one object, said his ambassador, was to 
 extirpate heresy everywhere, and not, as the Itah'ans 
 asserted, to make himself monarch of the world. 
 If James would become a Catholic he would have 
 nothing to fear from Spain. 
 
 This was in January and February 1596, and in 
 the meanwhile Cecil, Balgarys, and l^arclay were 
 losing patience. Philip had promised them his 
 decision as to the help he would give to the 
 Scottish Catholics when they had arrived in Rome, 
 but no letter came from Spain, and the envoys, in 
 despair, were anxious to return to Flanders. But 
 they deeply distrusted the sincerity of James and 
 the meaning of Ogilvie's embassy, and to have 
 retired from the field, leaving the King's envoy in 
 possession, would have been unwise ; so Father 
 Cecil set to work deliberately to discredit him in 
 the eyes of the Spanish ambassador. Ogilvie, in 
 conversation with Father Cecil, had confessed that 
 James was of no particular religion, but would pro- 
 fess anything that tended to his advantage. He 
 also let slip, according to Cecil, that James suspected 
 that Elizabeth was arranging with the Bearnais 
 (Henry IV.) to poison or divorce the wife of the latter 
 in order that he might marry Arabella Stuart and 
 succeed to the English throne ; and again, that if 
 she (Elizabeth) found herself assailed by Spain, she 
 would appeal to the Pope and embrace Catholicism. 
 This talk was of course ridiculous, and was most 
 probably invented by Cecil to blacken Ogilvie. At 
 all events, it puzzled the Duke of Sessa, who thought 
 it might infer that Ogilvie had come to Rome " with 
 some artful design " to the detriment of Spain, and 
 both he and Cecil did their best to persuade him to
 
 212 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 proceed into Philip's dominions. At the same time, 
 both Cecil and Balgarys clamoured more persistently 
 than ever that Philip should send an expedition 
 to aid the Scottish Catholics. The Pope now, they 
 said, could not object, for the King of Scots himself 
 had claimed to be a Catholic, anxious for liberation 
 from his heretic subjects. But unfortunately the 
 Scottish envoys were all secretly at issue amongst 
 themselves, and Sessa was more perplexed than 
 ever ; for Philip seldom took even his highest 
 officers into his confidence, and his ambassador was 
 absolutely in the dark as to his real intention. 
 Balgarys whispered that Father Cecil was suspected 
 to have sold himself to Lord Burghley (which was 
 quite true). Cecil accused Balgarys of only trying 
 to forward the interests of Lord Huntly, and not 
 of the Catholics generally. Barclay secretly urged 
 that the Spanish forces should be sent to the west 
 of Scotland, whereas Balgarys insisted privately 
 behind his colleague's back that they should be 
 sent to the Huntly country in the east. Sessa, not 
 knowing whether any Spanish force was to go to 
 Scotland at all, could only do his best to keep every 
 road open by persuading the Pope that if the 
 Spanish force did go to Scotland, James would not 
 be dethroned if he became a Catholic.^ But, he 
 
 1 There appears to have been some divergence in the Jesuit party at 
 this period with regard to James. They had previously been nearly 
 unanimous in their strong disbelief in the possibility of his conver- 
 sion ; but now some of them, at all events, made an appearance of 
 urging him to submit. The explanation probably is that they, no 
 more than the rest of the world, knew whether Philip's force would 
 or would not make Scotland its base, and they were desirous of 
 beguiling James into welcoming, or at least not opposing, it if it 
 entered a Scottish port. It is quite certain thnt Philip and his party 
 never really iulcnded to be friendly with James for the lattei^'s benetit.
 
 PHILIP AND JAMES 213 
 
 cynically adds in his letter to the King, that he 
 (Philip) need not wait for the authority of the Pope. 
 They none of them {i.e. the Italian Churchmen) 
 believe that an expedition will really go, and would 
 accept accomplished facts better than listen to pro- 
 jects. The Churchmen in this case understood Philip 
 better than did his own ambassador. There was 
 less prospect of a Spanish force helping the Scottish 
 Catholics now than ever before. The slightest 
 leaning of James towards Catholicism always effec- 
 tually checked that, though whether the King of 
 Scots understood that this was the case or not is 
 doubtful. At length Sessa obtained some small 
 guidance from his master. The Pope was to be 
 told that the professed conversion of James was 
 only an artful pretence, and the mission of Ogilvie 
 had been prompted by the Queen of England her- 
 self, in order to raise the jealousy of Catholics 
 
 John Colville, writing to Bowes from Edinburgh at this time (January 
 1 596), says : " Evin at the closing up heirof, I was informed that a 
 schip was arryved from Fhmderis, wharin wes one Elphinston Jesuit 
 . . . having with him commission hoyth from the Pope and Philip, to 
 deall with his Majestie and offer conditions, so he will concur against 
 her Majestie (Elizabeth) and the Huguenots. ... In lyk manner two 
 other Jesuits have written home to his Majestie persuading his Grace 
 timeously to enter in friendship with Spain. . . . Tyrie has \\ ritten to 
 Lord Hume, schavving that the King's Majestie (James) must, by 
 example ot the King of Fiance, either renounce his kingdom or else 
 be a Catholic " (Lelter-book of John Colville, Bannatyne Club). 
 
 An intercepted letter from the Duke of Sessa to Philip, of February 
 20, 1596 (Bacon Papers, Birch), says that Father Tyrie, the Scottish 
 Jesuit in Rome, had previously been against Spanish aims, but that he 
 had recently altered his opinion. Some letters recently received by 
 the General of the Jesuits had convinced him and others that James 
 was a heretic, and would always remain so. Sessa thereupon rejoices 
 that the Pope's eyes will be opened without any Spanish influence 
 appearing. By this we may conclude that the few Scottish Jesuits who 
 were anxious to promote the greatness of their own country were 
 now being finally overruled by their superiors.
 
 214 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 against Spain. ^ This was another reason for get- 
 ting Ogilvie away on his mission to Spain. He had 
 a ship waiting for him at Naples, but no money. 
 This difficulty was got over by Sessa's giving him 
 a gold chain worth 230 crowns ; and at length, on 
 the 27th February, Ogilvie, accompanied by Father 
 Cecil, at the urgent request of Sessa, sailed for 
 Genoa and Spain. 
 
 They arrived at Toledo in May 1596, and Ogilvie 
 presented his letter of credence and a formal memo- 
 randum of James's desire for an offensive and defen- 
 sive alliance between Scotland and Spain against 
 England. On their long voyage Father Cecil had 
 possessed himself of all of Ogilvie's instructions, and 
 immediately after Ogilvie had presented his memo- 
 randum to the King the priest presented another, 
 attacking and opposing it article by article.^ It is 
 not quite clear what Father Cecil's object was at 
 this juncture. He was secretly in the pay of the 
 English Government, and was violently opposed — 
 though not even Persons himself knew it at the 
 time — to the Spanish Jesuit party ; he was, moreover, 
 apparently a sincere Catholic, and presumably, like 
 the majority of the party, he secretly favoured the 
 succession of James to the English throne, either as 
 a Catholic or M'ith toleration to Catholicism. His 
 
 ^ It will be seen by the note on page 2 1 3 that Sessa congratulated him- 
 self that the Jesuits would represent this to the Pope before he (Sessa) 
 dill so, and that tliis would render the Pope less suspicious of Spanish 
 aims. Sessa repeats a saying of Sixtus V. in this connection, and says 
 that Clement Vlll. has a similar idea. "The Spaniards are Catholics, 
 it is true," said Sixtus, " but they believe nobody else is " (Bacon 
 Papers, Birch). 
 
 ' The memorandum in full with Cecil's commentary was long after- 
 wards obtained and sent to England by Sir Henry Neville. It is 
 printed in vol. i. of the Winwood State Papers.
 
 CECIL ATTACKS OGILVIE 215 
 
 reason for thus bitterly attacking James's professed 
 desire for conversion must either have been prompted 
 by a wish to see Arabella Stuart or some other Eng- 
 lish claimant succeed to Elizabeth on the demise of 
 the crovs^n, or what is more likely, simply to con- 
 vince the Spaniards and the Jesuits, for his own 
 ends, that he was ardently on their side. In any 
 case, his attack upon Ogilvie and his mission was 
 violent in the extreme. The envoy was, he said, a 
 doubtful Catholic, and was no friend to the Catho- 
 lic nobles ; he had associated in Flanders with 
 Paget, Gifford, and others of the English " political" 
 party, who adhere to the King of Scots regardless 
 of religion, and he was not in agreement with the 
 *' late Cardinal Allen, Father Persons, Father Holt, 
 and others who follow the same, and only true 
 course, for the conversion of England." His letter 
 of credence, he said, was most likely a forgery, or 
 else the King's signature has been obtained by some 
 " wile." Besides, who, looking at the King of Scots' 
 past life, can believe that he would really become 
 a Catholic? And so, one point after the other is 
 made, showing up the King's monumental insin- 
 cerity in all things and the envoy's crooked dealings 
 with all men, entirely, no doubt, to the satisfac- 
 tion of Philip, for it reflected exactly the opinions 
 which justified him in claiming for his daughter the 
 crown of England by virtue of James's incurable 
 heresy. 
 
 After the usual procrastination, Ogilvie was dis- 
 missed with a handsome present and with the vague, 
 sanctimonious banalities which, in Philip's language, 
 meant No. He was assigned as a travelling com- 
 panion homewards a Portuguese gentleman who
 
 2i6 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 accompanied him as far as Madrid. But there 
 Ogilvie seems, not without reason, to have taken 
 fright, and, giving his companion the slip, he turned 
 aside and hastened to Barcelona. But he was too 
 late, for before he could take ship Secretary Ibarra 
 himself arrived in Spain, and told the story how 
 Ogilvie had cajoled him to grant him a pension, on 
 the promise that he would betray his trust, and yet 
 while here in Toledo he had negotiated according to 
 the letter of his instructions. This was enough, and 
 the unfortunate Laird of Fury was kept in durance 
 at Barcelona until it could be learned from James 
 whether he had really sent him or not.^ 
 
 Whilst these fruitless and mutually paralysing 
 Scottish Catholic intrigues were progressing, matters 
 of far more serious moment were being conducted 
 with regard to Ireland. The blow of Cadiz must 
 have convinced Philip that the crippling of England 
 by some means was no longer needed alone for the 
 extension of his power, but for the maintenance of 
 his very existence as a potentate of the first class. 
 We have seen how nerveless had grown his officers 
 and people under his blighting sway, but he himself, 
 though fast hurrying to his grave, was as fully con- 
 vinced as ever of his final invincibility, and of his 
 sacred duty to follow without swerving the path 
 that had hitherto led him to disaster. In all his 
 northern ports shipwrights, riggers, and victuallers 
 
 * The full particulars of Ogilvie's mission was not known to the 
 English Government until three years afterwards, when Sir H. 
 Neville, the English ambassador in France, sent to Cecil the memo- 
 randum with Father Cecil's reply, 'i he English Government then 
 complained to James, who repudiated Ogilvie and imprisoned him in 
 Edinburgh Castle. See Winwood State Papers, vol. i., and Birch, 
 vol. i.
 
 THE ENGLISH EXTREMISTS 217 
 
 were busy, under the general superintendence of 
 Don Martin de Padilla, Adelantado of Castile, in 
 fitting out ships for a great expedition. Not a soul 
 — except perhaps Don Cristobal de Moura — knew 
 what its destination was to be. That was locked in 
 the breast of Philip. The Adelantado, and even 
 Father Persons, were as ignorant of the King's inten- 
 tion as the ragged beggar who moped and mowed 
 at the church door. But it was patent to all that 
 the great naval preparations were somewhere and 
 somewhen to strike a blow at England in revenge 
 for Cadiz ; and the English Catholics of the Spanish 
 faction were all agog to share in the glory and pros- 
 perity that they hoped might come to them from 
 Philip's determined effort. In Spain itself spirits 
 were high, for men knew now that the dreaded 
 Drake had been buried fathoms deep in the far 
 Atlantic, and that his fleet had been dispersed. 
 Confidence in Spanish arms and hearts once more 
 began to grow ; Irish and Scottish Catholics, it was 
 known, had been begging the King to extend his 
 paternal rule over them, and Spaniards were proud 
 that other peoples should envy them the possession 
 of so sacred a sovereign. But the Englishmen in 
 Spain and Flanders looked somewhat askance at all 
 this secret hobnobbing with Scots and Irishry, and 
 tried to prevent the King's mind from being diverted 
 from the main object, namely, the conversion of 
 England itself and the exclusion of Scottish James 
 at any cost. 
 
 In July 1596 the little body of English stalwarts 
 in Spain, under the guidance of Persons, presented 
 a petition to the King, asking him to appoint a
 
 2i8 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 regular board of Englishmen in Flanders to decide 
 upon all English matters. Many nobles in England, 
 they said, were willing to negotiate, now that the 
 Queen's life could not be many more years pro- 
 longed, but there was no authorised body with 
 whom they could negotiate ; and even the English 
 officers commanding contingents in Flanders would 
 willingly come to an understanding for a settlement 
 on the Queen's death, if they knew with whom to 
 deal. Needless to say that the members recom- 
 mended to form the board were Stanley, Owen, 
 Treherne, Dr. Worthington, Dr. Pierce, and the 
 Jesuit Holt. Those who were against the Infanta, 
 Paget, Gifford, Tresham, Hesketh, Nicholas Fitz- 
 herbert, and others, were to be sent away to places 
 where they could do no harm. Father Persons in 
 Valladolid, too, sent an interminable memorandum 
 to Idiaquez for the King's consideration, laying 
 down the principles which should guide him " in 
 the English enterprise." Some of these priestly re- 
 commendations doubtless made Philip smile grimly, 
 if it was possible for him to smile any more. He 
 was enjoined, " in imitation of the Holy Kings of 
 old to make some vow to the Lord, such as to 
 promise Him, if Pie gave his Majesty victory, to 
 restore to the Church in England the liberty and 
 privileges it possessed before King Henry separated 
 it from the Apostolic See ; and especially that his 
 Majesty would do his best to make some restitution 
 . . . with regard to the ecclesiastical property which 
 was taken from the Church." Another recom- 
 mendation seems more to the point The King, 
 thinks Persons, should tranquillise men's minds in
 
 FATHER PERSONS' ADVICE 219 
 
 England, and disarm jealous foreigners, by announc- 
 ing at once his intention not to unite the crown 
 of England to that of Spain. A tract, he proposes, 
 might be written by some reputable Englishman, 
 such as Sir Francis Englefield, setting forth the 
 advantages to be gained by a general acceptance 
 of the Infanta's candidature. Next, Father Persons 
 urges the King to cause a diversion, and alarm 
 Elizabeth by sending a force to aid the Scottish 
 nobles: "The same thing may be said of the Irish 
 savages, who should be encouraged by some trifling 
 help in money or arms," and the English exiles in 
 Flanders should be aided to make constant piratical 
 raids on the English coasts and shipping. " Another 
 way of strengthening our friends is that in any fleet 
 his Majesty sends to England, Ireland, or Scotland, 
 there should go some high English ecclesiastic, 
 such as Dr. Stapleton or other in Flanders, with 
 authority both from the Pope and his Majesty to 
 settle matters, and assure the English of his Majesty's 
 intentions, in opposition to the countless lies of our 
 enemies. ... If the people do not see such a prelate 
 come in his Majesty's fleet, they will be confirmed 
 in their suspicion that the heretics have been telling 
 the truth in saying that his Majesty wanted to 
 conquer the country, and will doubt the Pope's 
 intention of absolving them from their oath of 
 allegiance to the Queen." A printing press will 
 have to be carried in the fleet, " such as was pre- 
 pared in Flanders in the year '88 " : the excom- 
 munication of the Queen must be renewed by the 
 Pope, and the proclamation drawn up by Allen for 
 the Armada should be now reissued, with such
 
 220 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 alterations as are needful. If there is any difficulty 
 in making Dr. Stapleton a cardinal,^ he might be 
 created by secret brief Bishop of Durham or Ely and 
 Papal Nuncio in England, smaller English bishoprics 
 being given to Dr. Worthington and Dr. Pierce, 
 " But if the fleet is going to Ireland, it might be 
 better to give the title of Archbishop of Dublin to 
 an English priest (Joseph Haydon), who lives in 
 Rome, a relative of Cardinal Allen." This latter 
 paragraph proves that Persons knew nothing of 
 Philip's plans, and the fact is confirmed by what 
 follows. " In this way I trust in God that, in case 
 his Majesty nndertakes something promptly to 
 recover his prestige, either by way of Ireland or 
 Scotland, all will be well. I write this on the 
 understanding that something should be done 
 quickly to recover prestige, because otherwise, with 
 the common talk in England and all Northern 
 Europe of the weakness of Spain and of the rich 
 plunder taken by the English (in Cadiz), twenty 
 ships of theirs will be fitted out for every one before, 
 
 ^ Stapleton had been summoned to Rome on the death (October 
 1595) of Owen Lewis, Bishop of Cassano, who had been designated for 
 the cardinalate. But strong pro-Spaniard as Stapleton was, Father 
 Agazzari, the head of the Jesuits, thought he was not sufficiently 
 thorough to be made a cardinal, and wiote to Persons in Spain to 
 secure the promotion of a person about whose fidelity to the crown 
 (of Spain) there can be no doubt (Law, ''Jesuits and Seculars"): 
 Stapleton, on the other hand, was simultaneously assuring Persons 
 that he would "ever remain a true and trusty servant to his Majesty 
 of Spain" (" Douai Diaries"), and in 1591 had written his book, 
 now extremely rare, called '■'■ A/poloyia pro liege Catholico Philippo II. 
 HisjmniE contra varias et falsus accusationes Ehzabethie Meginse." 
 Father Agazzari's objection to him could hardly have been his luke- 
 warmness in adhesion to Spain ; it is more likely to have arisen from 
 a belief that Stapleton was more attached to Spain than to the Society 
 of Jesus,
 
 PHILIP'S SECRECY 221 
 
 and they will come hither like flies. With regard 
 to commencing with England or Ireland, there is 
 much to be said on both sides, but the decision 
 must turn upon feasibility. If England is impos- 
 sible, then a beginning should be made in Ireland 
 to recover prestige and give a starting-point from 
 which to attack England next year, rather than 
 doing nothing. . . . Above all, matters should be 
 arranged to send the force to England in September 
 . . . and in any case, the Earls in Flanders should 
 return to Scotland ; and the Catholics in Scotland, 
 who are awaiting his Majesty's decision, should 
 receive some help in money to raise troops." 
 
 And so on for many pages, Father Persons lays 
 down his rules for Philip's guidance, in ignorance of 
 both the real aims and intentions of the autocrat. 
 One significant paragraph at the end of this docu- 
 ment will probably provide for us later a key to a 
 problem which has never yet been satisfactorily 
 solved. It would be well, it says, for some fitting per- 
 son also to go to England to treat with those Earls 
 there who twice sent their agent, Sterello, to Flanders 
 last winter, and to see what foundation there was for 
 the new offer about Flushing.^ All July and August 
 Persons was busy in his prospective arrangements 
 for the success of the new Armada, and bombarded 
 the younger Idiaquez with memoranda, exhortations, 
 and advice for the King. He was deeply engaged, 
 he said, in translating into Latin to send to the 
 Pope his famous book on the English succession, 
 for Persons himself was summoned to Rome to quell 
 the renewed disturbances in the English College 
 
 ' Simancas MSS., Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.
 
 222 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 there, ^ and he was anxious when he left Spain that 
 everything should be in order, from the Jesuit point 
 of view, for the subjugation of England. In the 
 first days of September he wrote to Idiaquez: "Please 
 let me know also about the voyage of the Adelan- 
 tado. Although you say nothing, I am thinking 
 that perhaps his Majesty may be sending him to 
 Ireland. If neither of the other roads {i.e. England 
 or Scotland) is practicable, I told you and also his 
 Majesty that this Irish way might be adopted with 
 God's blessing. Much will depend upon the Adelan- 
 tado's taking with him from here sufficient men, 
 arms, and money, and his going thither before the 
 winter sets in or the Queen learns the design. I 
 have put upon paper a few observations that will be 
 useful to him when he arrives." To be quite ready 
 for every eventuality also, Father Persons took the 
 precaution of sending to Lisbon a Jesuit, the Vice- 
 Eector of the College of Valladolid, with half-a- 
 dozen young English missionary priests to be shipped 
 on the Armada. Though they were ready to risk 
 their lives at the bidding of their Jesuit superior, 
 not one of these young priests knew whither they 
 were being sent, the Vice-Rector, " who is very 
 discreet and of noble English family," alone being 
 in his principal's confidence ; but, wrote Persons, 
 " they will be worth their weight in gold when they 
 
 1 It is interesting to note, as marking the intrepid character of 
 Persons, that the aged and blind Sir Francis Eiiglefield, having; expressed 
 a fear that the antagonists of the Jesuits in Rome would detain Dr. 
 Persons there, the latter wrote, " I fear not, nor does my spirit faint 
 within me, as St. Paul said. God has brought me through worse passes 
 than this, and I am full of faith and hope that He will give his Majesty 
 victory " (Spanish Calendar).
 
 THE NEW ARMADA 223 
 
 arrive there," though he had to borrow the money 
 to send them on their way to Lisbon. 
 
 Before he left Castile for Barcelona on his way to 
 Rome, Persons amended, in accordance with the 
 altered circumstances, the proclamation that Allen 
 had written to be disseminated in England when the 
 Spanish troops had landed from the Armada of 1588. 
 The English attack upon Cadiz was now made one 
 of the principal reasons why the King of Spain had 
 been obliged to forego his " accustomed clemency '^ 
 towards people who had committed so many out- 
 rages against him. " His benignity," says the draft 
 edict, "has only made them bolder, and he has now 
 decided to accede to the universal demand of the 
 oppressed Catholics and to release them from the 
 yoke." The proclamation promises that the ancient 
 laws and parliament of England shall be maintained, 
 the ancient nobility and gentry upheld in their 
 former grandeur, and Philip pledges himself to con- 
 firm in their position and possessions all those that 
 are favourable to him, whilst in cases where the head 
 of a house is against him he will recognise as chief 
 the next heir who shall aid the Catholic army. 
 Where it is impossible for gentlemen at once to 
 proclaim their Catholic sympathies, the King will 
 allow them to remain with the heretics until 
 they can conveniently go over, but at least they 
 must desert the enemy at the time of battle. His 
 Majesty's object being alone the peace and tran- 
 quillity of England and the freedom of the Catholic 
 faith, he has no quarrel with the English people as 
 a whole, and will punish with the utmost severity 
 any man in the Catholic army who molests, injures,
 
 2 24 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 or attacks the land or people of the country other 
 than those who resist/ 
 
 This draft edict with Father Persons' amendments 
 was left with Father Joseph Ores well, another Jesuit, 
 who remained in Madrid in his absence to watch 
 and help in English affairs. It was Creswell who 
 at the time of the great Armada had, at Parma's 
 instance, turned the edict into English ; and he now 
 considered himself authorised to suggest in its word- 
 ing and spirit far more sweeping amendments than 
 those made by Persons. In a long memorandum 
 addressed to the King on the subject, Creswell 
 exhibits himself as a man of entirely different 
 methods from Persons. The latter in his fierce 
 zeal would have no compromise. He was a good 
 hater, a good fighter, and a man of inflexible will ; 
 but no velvet glove softened his grip, no fallacious 
 sweetness tempered the bitter venom of his tongue. 
 Creswell was more the typical Jesuit, crawling, if 
 need be, to conquer ; and in extremely guarded and 
 sophistical language he advises Philip to adopt a 
 course of conciliation, mildness, and moderation 
 towards the English after the conquest. Liberality, 
 magnanimity, concessions, rewards are the themes 
 of Dr. Creswell's discourse, though he professes 
 himself " so free from personal or national bias in 
 the matter, that if I heard that the entire destruc- 
 tion of England was for the greater glory of God 
 and the welfare of Christianity, I should be glad 
 of its being done." This was the natural concession 
 
 * Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. A full account of these plans, with 
 many additions of his own, gathered probably by personal communica- 
 tion with Persons and Creswell, was sent to the Earl of Essex by Father 
 Cecil, who still remained in Mailrid (Birch, Memoirs).
 
 THE NEW ARMADA 225 
 
 to Jesuit teaching ; but in this document, and in 
 others we shall notice later, Creswell shows that the 
 Society of Jesus had not quite killed the English- 
 man in him, as it had done in the case of Persons. 
 
 Whilst these priests were making their prepara- 
 tions for the submission of England to their faith 
 at the point of Spanish pikes, and the Duchess of 
 Feria,^ Englefield, and the few English pensioners 
 and leading Churchmen in the Peninsula, were 
 again urging that the Infanta should be openly 
 adopted as the Spanish nominee to the English 
 throne, Philip was plodding on his own way, thank- 
 ing all these zealous advisers with vague sancti- 
 moniousness, but giving no inkling to any of them 
 of his real intentions.^ 
 
 1 The Duchess of Feria (Jane Dormer), although naturally extremely 
 pro-Spanish and a personal enemy of Elizabeth, was opposed to 
 Persons' methods and aims. It will be recollected t'liat there had been 
 an obscure intrigue to place her at the head of affairs in Flanders 
 before Parma's death, in ordei' that she mi,i,'ht manage En^jlish affairs to 
 her liking. She apparently longed for a return of the political power 
 of the old Engli.-h Catholic nobility under a frequently absent foreign 
 sovereign like the Infanta. But neither the Duchess of Feria nor her 
 class in England, many of whom were enriched by ecclesiastical lands, 
 could desire to live under a harmw in the hands of fierce sacerdotal 
 despots like Persons and Holt. (See letter of the Duchess's sister Anne 
 Lady Hungerford to the Bishop of Cassano, May lo, 1595. State 
 Papers, Domestic.) Persons himself, on his way to Rome at this time, 
 wrote f 10m Genoa to Father Holt in Flanders, suggesting that the most 
 suitable candidates for the English crown would be " the Infanta with 
 the Prince Cardinal" (her prospective husband, the Archduke Albert). 
 This suggestion was the natural sequel of Persons' recent book on the 
 succession. 
 
 - The Venetian ambassador in Madrid writes (October 10, 1596), 
 that the Adelantado is making great preparations in Lisbon. " He has 
 embarked 400 of the best hor^ses in Portugal, arms for io,ocx5 men, 
 clothing for 4000, and some vestments for the Mass. He has collected 
 great numbers of carpenters, smiths, and masons, who have been 
 pressed if they would not go willingly. He has brought together 
 every sort of craft, and the total may number ninety, of which a third 
 
 P
 
 226 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 In October all things at last seemed ready. Once 
 more, through dim cathedrals, through monasteries 
 and parish churches innumerable, there resounded 
 fervent rogations for the success of the Catholic 
 King's designs, whatever they might be ; and again 
 the psalm " Contra paganos" was intoned at Mass 
 throughout the land. Gradually by the middle of 
 October it began to be vvhispered that the Bishop 
 of Killaloe and the Irish gentlemen in Lisbon were 
 on board the fleet ; and it was assumed that Philip 
 this time was aiming at the heretic Queen through 
 Ireland, and not direct at the heart of her realm. 
 The Irish exiles, with hearts aflame at the thought 
 of their home and faith, proclaimed to all who 
 would listen how easy such an enterprise would 
 be. Had they not on their side, even now in arms, 
 all that was best and bravest of Ireland itself? 
 True, the Queen of England held the two best 
 harbours, but many others hardly less good were 
 yearning to welcome the delivering Catholic fleet. 
 From the easy conquest of willing Ireland to the 
 domination of England was but a step, and the 
 Queen herself knew that if she lost Ireland England 
 must go too.^ 
 
 would be tit to fight. There are 12,000 men on board, including sea- 
 men. Ships and munitions are very poor ; there is a great lack of 
 biscuits. The extent of the preparations, the A^ariety of the provisions, 
 and the anxiety of the Adelantado lead people to believe that he is to 
 sail as soon as possible, and not merely go to winter at Ferrol, but may 
 push on at once to some further destination. Some conji'dure that 
 Africa will he the object^ but com 111071 opinion 2)oints to Ireland or England. 
 . . . But nothing certain can be Icnormi at jireseHt, us all orders are sent to 
 the Adelantado under the Kim I's own hand" (Venetian Calendar). This 
 will show how completely in the dark every one was us to Philip's 
 intentions on the very eve of the sailing of the fleet. 
 
 ^ It is worth noting that English historians have nearly always
 
 THE NEW ARMADA 227 
 
 Thus spoke the ardent Celts, and their enthu- 
 siasm was contagious amongst the listening lands- 
 men. But with seamen it was otherwise. They 
 saw with dismay and understood the meaning of 
 the demoralisation that reigned everywhere. The 
 Adelantado, a passionate, impressionable man, wept 
 and imprecated in turns at the apparent impossi- 
 bility of having everything ready at the same time. 
 Provisions and water went bad whilst hulls were 
 being caulked : when the guns were on board at 
 Lisbon, the ammunition w^as at Ferrol or Seville : 
 seamen deserted as soon as they were shipped, and 
 stores dwindled as the weeks passed on. At length, 
 in the middle of October, Philip's almost inexhaus- 
 tible patience gave way, as it had done, with dis- 
 astrous result, at the time of the first Armada. 
 Peremptory orders were sent to Lisbon that the 
 fleet must sail at once, ready or not ready, and make 
 for Ireland. Again the miserable precedent of the 
 Armada was followed. The Adelantado summoned 
 his captains to conference, and they agreed to re- 
 monstrate with the King that to sail then would be 
 to court disaster. The reply of Philip now was the 
 same as he gave to Medina Sidonia in 1588. The 
 fleet was to obey orders and sail, let the risk be 
 what it might; and on the 23rd October 1596 the 
 second Spanish Armada beat out of the Tagus. But 
 
 assumed that this fleet was iutended for the invasion of the Isle of 
 Wight. This arose from the fact that its intended destination was 
 kept secret, as we have seen, even from the high oQicers on board. 
 The captured Spaniards from various coasting vessels seized by the 
 English during the winter (1596-97) could only repeat the common 
 gossip about the fleets going to the Isle of Wight. The official papers 
 that I have quoted — and will quote — in this book show that there was 
 never any idea on the part of the King of it going thither.
 
 228 
 
 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 alas ! unready still, and, like its predecessor, it was 
 forced to put into Vigo to ship more men and pro- 
 visions, though we are told^ that "in order to 
 furnish this fleet it has been necessary to take every 
 sort of ship, ammunition, and arms that could be 
 found in all Spain." 
 
 News came that an English squadron was hovering 
 ofi" the coast of Galicia, and had even looked into 
 Vigo Bay ; but it was evidently no match for the 
 Adelantado's united fleet ; and the latter finally, 
 on the 27th October, sailed out of Vigo, with the 
 exception of the Biscay squadron under Zubiaur, 
 which could not weather the point of Bayona."^ Off 
 
 ^ Venetian Calendar, November 3, 1596. 
 
 ^ The following is a statement of the strength of the fleet as it left 
 Lisbon for the invasion of Ireland : — 
 
 Tons. 
 
 15 8190 
 
 9 6320 
 
 53 12,643 
 
 6 470 
 
 15 450 
 
 Spanish royal ships ...... 
 
 Portuguese royal ships ..... 
 
 Dutch and German freighted (or rather pressed) ships 
 Transports ........ 
 
 Caravels ........ 
 
 Men. 
 
 The levies of De Luna 
 ,, „ Lisbon 
 
 „ „ Andalucia 
 
 Adventurers 
 
 Cavalry ..... 
 Adventurers and mercenaries 
 Portuguese . . . . . 
 Men on the Seville squadron 
 In the port of Vigo to be shipped 
 
 
 98 
 
 28,037 
 
 
 Companies 
 
 Men. 
 
 
 17 
 
 1800 
 
 
 13 
 
 1285 
 
 
 16 
 
 1635 
 
 
 32 
 
 3410 
 
 
 -Z^ 
 
 8130 
 
 Men. 
 360 
 100 
 
 2800 
 
 2 5(X) 
 
 35^ 
 
 In all 
 
 16,590
 
 ANOTHER DISASTER 229 
 
 Finisterre a great winter gale swept down out of 
 the bay, and scattered like husks the ships that 
 represented so many months of toil and trouble.^ 
 Over twenty crowded vessels perished in the storm 
 with 3000 souls on board, and those that survived 
 destruction hustled, as best they might, battered and 
 crippled, into Ferrol, where 2000 more men died 
 of pestilence in the next few days. Pestilence, too, 
 scourged the Biscay fleet still remaining at Vigo. 
 The men on both fleets, panicstricken at the evil 
 fortune that followed them, deserted as soon as they 
 were landed from the overcrowded floating pest- 
 houses. Despair again fell upon all hearts but one ; 
 for the elements themselves seemed against the 
 long-suffering King and the Catholic cause. Out 
 of the welter of misery one fact stood clearly : that 
 for this year, at least, England had no cause for fear 
 of any attack from Spain ; and the watchers by the 
 beacons, who had stood, like links of a chain, on 
 every headland along the southern British shore, 
 slept sound of nights in their beds ; for the second 
 Armada had shared the fate of the first, and the 
 Power that ruled the tempest fought still on the 
 side of England. 
 
 But the news that rejoiced the Protestant English- 
 men fell like a death-knell on the hearts of the 
 Irish insurgents, who had looked with such high 
 hopes for the coming of their friends. To make all 
 
 - It was reported by "an honest man from Bilbao" (December 9, 
 Hatfield Papers, vol. vi.) that 40 ships of war and 12 victuallers with 
 over 4000 men were lost. Other accounts make the number of ships 
 wrecked 30 and the loss of life 3000 men. Spanish accounts give the 
 number of ships lost as being " about 24."
 
 2 30 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 things ready for the reception of the new Armada, 
 Captain Cobos had gone in a swift caravel from 
 Corunna to Killibegs some weeks before, carrying 
 with him letters from the King to Tyrone, O'Donnell, 
 and the chiefs, bidding them be of good cheer and 
 courage, for help was now really at hand. Cobos 
 arrived at Killibegs harbour on the 26th September, 
 and invited O'Donnell to meet him. They agreed 
 that the Catholic "Lords" should be summoned in 
 formal assembly at the monastery of Donegal to hear 
 the message from the King whom they had chosen 
 for their suzerain. For a week Cobos remained in 
 the harbour of Killibegs, whilst the chiefs gathered 
 from their fastnesses at the call of O'Donnell the 
 Red, and spies of the English eagerly watched the 
 Spanish caravel as she waited for news of the 
 assembly. 
 
 The truce between the Ulster chiefs and the 
 English still continued, and the Connaught men, 
 with the exception of Mac William Bourke, were 
 holding their hands until they should see what 
 punishment would be meted out by the Government 
 to their terrible persecutor. Sir Richard Bingham ; 
 but Feagh M'Hugh O'Byrne, and not a few Butlers 
 and Kavanaghs in his train of Leinster " rabble," 
 were ravaging the English Pale well nigh in sight 
 of Dublin. False news came almost daily of the 
 landing of large bodies of Spanish troops, now in 
 O'Dogherty's country at Innishowen in the north 
 of Ulster, now at Donegal, now at Mayo, and else- 
 where, and the Lord-Deputy clamoured in vain to 
 the Government in London that the few scattered 
 English troops at his disposal were utterly inadequate
 
 THE IRISH CATHOLICS 231 
 
 to overcome a powerful incursion of foreigners.^ 
 Tyrone and O'Donnell were still under arms, wrote 
 the English officers ; fairly as O'Neil might speak, 
 his sincerity was more than doubtful, and if the 
 Spaniards came he would throw off the mask.'^ 
 Norreys, the commander-in-chief, was at issue with 
 the Lord-Deputy Russell, for the soldier, brave and 
 experienced as he was, saw the urgent need of con- 
 ciliating the Irish before it was too iate. He it was 
 who insisted that an impartial inquiry should be 
 held on the atrocities of which Bingham was accused 
 in Connaught, and urged that even Feagh M'Hugh, 
 the rebel in arms, should be brought to some sort 
 of "composition," so that the Spaniards, when they 
 came, might find the Irish disunited. But still, said 
 Norreys, when O'Connor Don informed him of the 
 arrival of Cobos in Killibegs, it would be well to 
 send one of her Majesty's vessels thither to capture 
 the Spanish caravel and O'Donnell's pinnace with 
 which he communicated with Spain ; " and if her 
 Majesty thinks fit not to endure this underhand 
 dealing of the Earl and O'Donnell, he will attack 
 
 1 Since July the Irish Government had continued to beseech Eliza- 
 beth to send at least 3000 more foot and 300 horse, with victuals, 
 money, and ammunition. At the end of September, when the coming 
 of the strong Spanish fleet was expected every hour, the English in 
 Ireland had only seventeen barrels of powder in store. 
 
 ^ An English officer wrote the following news, September 27, O.S., 
 which gives an idea of the distrust then entertained of Tyrone : — " The 
 Earl of 'I'yrone has ridtlen down in all post haste, very secretly, taking 
 no more than two men who can speak Spanish. Before he went he 
 made proclamation in Dungannnn that, upon pain of death, no man 
 should say anything of the ships that were come, for they were but 
 Scottish. I will not judge for what cause is the Earl's departure." 
 This refers to Tyrone's hurrying down to meet Cobos, whose one small 
 boat in the English reports is magnified to two, three, nine, and even a 
 fleet of vessels.
 
 232 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 them at once, and so handle them before next spring 
 they will be glad to renounce the Spaniards ; and 
 Connanght, with good usage, might be kept from 
 joining them." For Norreys, unlike Russell, dis- 
 believed in the probability of any Spanish fleet being 
 able to attack Ireland at so advanced a period of 
 the year.^ As we have seen, had it not been for the 
 providential storm which caught the Adelantado's 
 fleet ofi" Finisterre on the 28th October, there would 
 have landed early in November, in one of the fine 
 harbours on the Irish coast, a Spanish force very 
 much stronger than any army the English could 
 have brought against it; and, in all probability, 
 Tyrone would then have been victorious and Pro- 
 testant England in deadly peril. 
 
 This was the dangerous state of afi'airs when, on 
 Sunday the 6th October 1596, the Irish chieftains 
 met Captain Alonso Cobos within the ancient and 
 ruinous monastery of Donegal. Jealous eyes watched 
 and zealous runners reported to the English Gover- 
 nors every movement of the greater Irish leaders,^ 
 but we must go to Spanish sources to learn what 
 happened inside the closed doors of the conference 
 chamber.^ Most of the chieftains who attended 
 were still ostensibly at peace with the English ; yet 
 when, after solemn Mass said by the Bishop of 
 
 1 Russell wrote to Sir R. Cecil (Irish State Papers), October 2, Rath- 
 drum, again praying for reinforcements, and offering his resignation. 
 Will do his best when the Spaniards land, if they arrive hereabout, as 
 no doubt the greatest force will, but he leaves the success to God. " I 
 do protest," he says, " before God, that if the piesent forces be not sent 
 to us with all expedition, all the English Pale will be ready to revolt, 
 myself not knowing whom I may trust." 
 
 ^ Irish State Papers of the date. 
 
 ^ Simancas MSS., Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.
 
 THE REBELS MEET AT DONEGAL 233 
 
 Raphoe, Cobos presented to them collectively the 
 King of Spain's letter of greeting and exhortation, 
 and to Tyrone, O'Donnell, Cormack O'Neil, Mac- 
 William O'Neil, and Dennis M'Suyne, Lord of 
 Tyrbane and Chief of Killibegs, special letters of 
 salutation from Philip to his new vassals, each of 
 the chiefs raised the missive to his brow in token of 
 submission, and swore to die, if needs were, " in the 
 service of God and his Majesty." ^ The scene must 
 have been an impressive and pathetic one. Tyrone, 
 O'Donnell, and O'Dogherty were probably dressed in 
 doublets and trunks of silk and velvet and wore gold 
 chains around their shoulders, as Englishmen of 
 their rank would have done ; but behind them, or 
 near at hand, must have been their shaggy bands of 
 gallowglasses with loose, saft'ron-dyed, linen cloaks 
 and leathern jackets and brogues for their garments, 
 a frowsy fringe of mane covering their eyebrows for 
 their only headdress, and their crashing battleaxes 
 for their only weapons. The minor chiefs and the 
 " rabble " of youngsters of chieftains' kindred, with 
 
 1 Dennis O'Rourke and MacWilliam Bourke did not attend the 
 meeting, the former because he was laid up with a gunshot wound in 
 his arm, and the latter " because of the great distance he would have to 
 come, and because he was at feud with a kinsman who claimed his 
 chieftainship and land." Tbe kinsman referred to was the English 
 nominee. The chief himself (Theobald M'William Bourke) is usually 
 referred to by the English officers as " the supposed or pretended 
 MacWilliam." His family was of very variable attachment, but had in 
 the main kept at peace with the English. Theobald was the son 
 of the famous Grace O'Malley. He wrote in June 1596 to Norreys 
 and Fenton saying that " he means, if possible, never to be otherwise 
 than a dutiful subject or to change his own natural prince for any 
 other ; " but in the same letter he hinted very strongly that if the 
 English did not grant him "redress for injuries," the chieftainship and 
 lands of his house, and all the rest of his demands, he should consider 
 rebellion justifiable. (See Irish State Papers of the date.)
 
 234 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 their flowing yellow mantles over their armour and 
 their swords girt to their sides, were the link between 
 the two ; some more savage than courtly, some more 
 courtly than savage. But prince and gallowglass, 
 Oxford scholar and barbarian mountain kern, they 
 were all Irishmen, moved mainly by two overpower- 
 ing impulses — a fierce love of battle and a fine scorn 
 of the Sassenach. 
 
 But alas ! they were Irishmen, too, in their weak- 
 ness ; and Cobos reported, when he came home to 
 Spain, that after the chiefs had fervently thanked 
 God and his Majesty publicly for the aid and pro- 
 tection promised to their land and faith, " each one 
 took me aside separately to assure me that he and 
 his folk would be the first to join the Spanish force 
 when it arrived." "I spoke to O'Neil and O'Don- 
 nell apart," wrote Cobos to the King, " and said 
 that at last the hour they had longed for had come, 
 and that before winter set in, the succour they had 
 so often requested would be there. I urged them to 
 set about making what raids they could to show 
 their zeal, and also to make the necessary arrange- 
 ments secretly for the reception of our force. They 
 thanked his Majesty, and said that they were always 
 ready and waiting, like the faithful vassals they 
 were. They would never fail in their promises. 
 Secrecy was as important, they said, to them as to 
 us. They had been playing fast and loose with the 
 enemy for a long time,, awaiting his Majesty's aid, 
 and a fortnight ago the English came with 1500 
 footmen and 600 horse into their lands to force them 
 to make peace. . . . Norreys left off fighting and 
 tried to make terms, but they would only consent to
 
 THE MEETING OF THE CHIEFS 235 
 
 a truce for a month and a day. All this was solely 
 to await your Majesty's succour, whilst they pre- 
 vented the Queen from sending more forces. I 
 asked them where would be the best place to land 
 the troops, to be most effectual and safe for faci- 
 litating the junction of the forces. They thought 
 on the north-west coast, such a place as Gal way, 
 where there is a company of English in garrison for 
 the last three months. The town is close to the 
 lands of MacWilliam Bourke, and will surrender the 
 moment a fleet approaches. If weather forces the 
 fleet into St. George's Channel, they think it should 
 anchor in Carlingford, thirty Irish miles from 
 Dublin, where they will be in touch with O'Neill's 
 people. All the north is friendly." 
 
 Then followed a closely detailed description of 
 the state of the country from a military point of view, 
 which tallies almost exactly with the accounts to be 
 found in the English State Papers. Every English 
 garrison is enumerated, and the total strength of 
 English troops in the island appears to have been 
 4000 infantry and 600 cavalry. How great was the 
 danger then imminent, with a Spanish fleet carrying 
 more than double that number of men, only waiting 
 for a fair wind to sail for Ireland, will be apparent, 
 and the despondency of Russell was fully justified. 
 Nothing was omitted by Philip to gain the good-will 
 of the chiefs. Not only were Tyrone and O'Donnell 
 addressed in autograph letters full of flattering 
 expressions, but two similar letters with the address 
 in blank were entrusted to Cobos, with which to 
 gratify such other chiefs as he thought would be 
 most useful. He was extremely diplomatic in his
 
 236 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 use of the letters, and handed them respectively to 
 two important Ulstermen, who had usually been 
 friendly to the English, though both of them had 
 rescued and relieved some of the fugitives from the 
 wrecks of the Armada ships in 1588, "One of the 
 letters your Majesty gave me without superscription 
 I gave to a gentleman named O'Dogherty,^ a lord of 
 many vassals, a great soldier and greatly esteemed, 
 who said he was anxious to prove his loyalty by his 
 acts. The other I gave to a gentleman named James 
 Oge M'Sorleyboy, a Scotsman, who holds some ports 
 on this coast opposite Scotland, He is a good 
 soldier and very brave. lie was neutral when I 
 arrived previously, but is now a great friend of the 
 Catholic chiefs, and they thought he would be flat- 
 tered at your Majesty's writing to him." ^ 
 
 The meeting, however, did not pass without some 
 little unpleasantness. It will be recollected that the 
 letter that Cobos had brought from Philip to Tyrone 
 on his previous visit to Ireland had been "lent to 
 Norreys," not to be copied, but simply to prove how 
 the Spaniards were courting him (Tyrone), and how 
 irreproachably loyal he was in spurning their ad- 
 vances. One of the other chiefs secretly told Cobos 
 that Tyrone had sent the King's letter to the 
 Sassenach ; and the Spaniard, distrustful of what 
 certainly looked like treachery, taxed Tyrone with 
 
 ^ He was an Euglisli knight, and the English called him Sir John 
 O'Doherty. 
 
 * This was the son of the famous Sorleyboy M'Donnell, Lord of 
 Dunluce and joint Lord of the Route, who had so sturdily helped the 
 shipwrecked men from tlie Armada. He was nut present at the 
 meet ing, the letter being carried to him by Hugh Boy O'Diivitt, after- 
 wards 'J'yrone's envoy to Spain.
 
 THE MEETING OF THE CHIEFS 237 
 
 it, saying that the King had heard of it in Spain, 
 Tyrone explained the matter truly enough, saying 
 that he had acted as he did in order to deceive the 
 English and make them believe in his loyalty until 
 the Spaniards came ; but Cobos was still indignant, 
 and " warned them to keep their promises better 
 for the future." ^ The chiefs, in their turn, were 
 anxious to know what had happened at Cadiz, 
 " for the enemy said that Essex had sacked and 
 plundered the city and burnt the fleet." " I," says 
 Cobos, "replied that they, being neighbours of the 
 English, should know better than any one that, in 
 order to bring about peace in Ireland, they would 
 invent all manner of lies. It was true, I said, that 
 they had sacked Cadiz, thanks to the weakness of 
 the townspeople, but they did not wait to encounter 
 any force, and only made incursions on unprotected 
 places, and ran away as quickly as they could." 
 And so, leaving the Irishmen full of hope for the 
 
 ^ The letter was entrusted by Tyrone to Captain Warren, who was 
 the officer usually employed to communicate with him. Warren pro- 
 duced it to the Irish Privy Council, who declined to return it, and not 
 only broke the pledge given to Tyrone that it should not even be 
 copied, but sent the original to Queen Elizabeth, who took care to 
 have it conveyed to Philip, in proof of the falsity of Tyrone. The 
 latter and O'Donnell constantly referred to this action as proving how 
 little they could trust the English. Norreys wrote to Sir Robert Cecil 
 in July 1596, when there was a talk of Tyrone going to England, and 
 sending his son to the Earl of Essex to be educated. " Tliis he 
 (Tyrone) hath deferred as he answereth upon detaining the King of 
 Spain's letter : and this I will assure your Honour, that there is not 
 the basest rogue of a rebel in Ireland that hath not ordinarily in his 
 mouth how they may trust us with their lives, when the Earl was 
 deceived in trusting the Lord-Deputy but with a letter. O'Donnell did 
 swear that if that letter had n(jt been detained, either he or the Earl 
 had been in England before Michaelmas" (Irish State Papers). We 
 may doubt this last assertion of O'Dounell's, in view of the Spanish 
 accounts noAv before us.
 
 238 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 speedy coming of the great force which was on the 
 way to free Ireland and make England Catholic, 
 Captain Cobos left Donegal on the 9th October to 
 join his pinnace at Killibegs, carrying with him an 
 interesting sheaf of letters for Spain.^ Nearly every- 
 body with whom Cobos had come into contact in 
 Ireland wanted some separate favour for himself. 
 The Franciscan friars at Donegal wished for money 
 to repair the ruin of their monastery by the English 
 soldiery, and some chalices and church ornaments. 
 Hugh Boy O'Davitt asked for a pension ; Cobos him- 
 self petitioned for a captain's pay as well as the 
 rank, and Cormack O'Neil wanted so much as to 
 fill a long letter with his petition." Tyrone and 
 O'Donnell are mainly concerned in the prompt 
 coming of succour ; but the former, in a fervent 
 letter to the King, explains the circumstances which 
 led him to send Philip's former letter to the English, 
 and concludes thus: "In the name of God, and by 
 my holy baptism, I assert that I did not send the 
 letter to the Viceroy, except for the above-mentioned 
 
 ' Amongst these was one of extreme interest, which I transcribed at 
 Simancas. It has no special bearing,' upon the subject of this book, but 
 I cannot help referring to it. It is in the form of a liumble, illiterate 
 petition, written and signed by eight Sjsanish soldiers, who, having 
 escaped from the mnssacre of the shipwrecked men from the Armada, 
 had lived in the territories of O'Neil and O'Donnell ever since. They 
 hum))ly pray for some wages or aid " to tit out their persons and arm.*, 
 better to serve liis Majesty as guides, inti^rpreters, or otherwise, when the 
 Spanish force lands." These same men had earnestly prayed Cobos, 
 when he came to Ireland some munths previously, to take them bade 
 with him to Spain, but lie had refused, and told them they would be 
 required as interpreters if a Spanish force were sent. 
 
 2 " Your Lordsliip," he wrote to Idiatiuez, " has done me great honour, 
 and now 1 bi-g you to favour me as follows. For I have always fought 
 against the English for the Catholic fuith, and if God give me health I 
 will devote the rest of my life to his Majesty's service. I have many
 
 DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE IRISH 239 
 
 reasons ; and I pray your Majesty to pardon me, 
 without distrust or misgiving. — Donegal, 8tli October, 
 1596." A few days afterwards, Cobos sailed from 
 M'Suyne's harbour of Killibegs, arriving in Spain 
 shortly before the disaster already described to the 
 invading fleet, and the letters and reports that the 
 Captain submitted to his sorely-tried sovereign at the 
 Pardo on the 20th November were but as Dead Sea 
 fruit to Philip, for Heaven was still against him, and 
 no Armada of his could go to Ireland that year. 
 
 Week after week the Irish chieftains watched with 
 straining eyes for the coming of their deliverers. 
 They had gone too far now easily to draw back, 
 and O'Donnell had come down into Connaught with 
 his clansmen to join the Spaniards when they should 
 sail into Galway harbour. Famine was stalking 
 abroad through Ireland, even in the Pale, and the 
 English garrisons themselves lacked food. The Lord- 
 Deputy, Norreys, and Fenton prayed and suppli- 
 cated the politicians in London to send men, money, 
 food, and arms ; ^ " for nothing but force will seiTe 
 
 witnesses who will bear testimony to what I have done against the 
 heretics in all times past ; and I do hope to God that his ^lajesty will 
 remember me for these lands ; " and then follows a long list of estates 
 which Cormack O'Neil covets. " I beg you to ask his Majesty for all 
 these for me, as I have well deserved them, fighting against the Eng- 
 lish. I also ask you to beg his Majesty to please supply me with 400 
 infantry and 100 cavalry for his Majesty's service, as I have great ex- 
 perience in this country." This characteristic letter is badly written in 
 illiterate Spanish by one of the wrecked Spanish soldier.-, and is signed 
 by Cormack O'Xeil in stiff, high-drawn Irish characters, like a row 
 of pikes (Simancas MSS., Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.). 
 
 1 The constant complaint of the Irish Government was that the men 
 sent from England were utterly unserviceable. Binghum, Feutou, 
 Norreys, and all the experienced commanders referred to them constantly 
 as " poor old ploughmen," " rogues," " runaways." Bingham says of one 
 draught , that "many were diseased and many mad;" and Norreys
 
 240 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 now," wrote Russell in January. Armagh was sur- 
 rounded by rebels and in danger of starvation, and 
 news came that the Spanish fleet was still in being, 
 and might sail again. But Tyrone at length saw 
 that he was resting upon a broken reed, and the 
 talk of " composition " and "pledges" began again. 
 Norreys collected such forces as were available, 
 and marched to re-victual Armagh in the middle of 
 January 1597. When he reached Dundalk, he found 
 Tyrone holding the passes between that town and 
 Newry to contest his passage, but when the rebel 
 saw that Norreys really meant business, he suddenly 
 changed his attitude and sent loyal messages to the 
 English general. At first he wished to make con- 
 ditions about the pardon of Feagh M'Hugh, but 
 nothing short of unconditional submission would do 
 for Norreys ; and the next day the two commanders 
 met, with a little shallow rivulet only running be- 
 tween them, not a gunshot away from the English 
 camp. "There," says Norreys, "he made vehement 
 protestations of loyalty, taking God and heaven to 
 witness. . . . His outward shows are fair, and his 
 oaths deep and vehement, but we cannot tell if his 
 heart and inward meaning are agreeable, considering 
 how often he has slipped before." ^ Hostages were 
 sent, pledges were given ; Tyrone was loyalty itself 
 in protestation, though few people believed him, and 
 those who were inclined to do so, like Norreys and 
 
 wrote of another that not twenty men out of two companies were likely 
 to prove good soldiers. They were indeed the mere scourings of the 
 jails, gutters, and hospitals ; and the Irish levies in the English service, 
 excellent soldiers, but distrustcil on account of their nationality, were 
 really the mainstay of English power in Ireland. 
 
 1 Norreys, &c., to the Privy Council, Drogheda, January 24, 1597.
 
 O'DONNELL HOLDS OUT 241 
 
 Fenton, deplored the facility with which he was 
 led by those who were thought to be more deeply 
 pledged to the Spaniards than himself, especially his 
 brother, Cormack O'Neil, and O'Donnell. 
 
 Though Tyrone, as paramount Prince of Ulster 
 and *' great O'Neil," claimed sway over his associated 
 chiefs, his own devout lip-service to the English 
 Queen found but slight echo in the haughty Hugh 
 O'Donnell and the Connaught men, who, in spite of 
 friend and foe, stood through the winter (1596-97), 
 armed and waiting, often almost at the gates of 
 Galway, the coming of the Spaniards, who came 
 not. Whilst O'Donnell, O'Rourke, Mac William, and 
 MacDermot held all Connaught outside the walled 
 towns, and Feagh M'Hugh O'Byrne ravaged Leinster 
 at his will, the English governors of Ireland, in the 
 deepest despondency at the impossibility of obtain- 
 ing the needed resources from England, were quar- 
 relling and mutually recriminating with each other 
 at the general helplessness ; and Philip, in his for- 
 bidding granite palace in the mountains far away, 
 was stolidly toiling at the smallest details of another 
 great expedition, that surely, he thought, before he 
 died, should make him sovereign of Ireland, with 
 the future fate of England in his hands. Then 
 indeed all would be well with his beloved Spain, 
 and his weary lifework would be done.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Fears of a Spanish invasion of England — English preparations — Essex's 
 voyage — Lopez de Soto's letters — Strength of the Adelantado's fleet 
 (1597) — Its inglorious return to Spain — Renewed appeal of the Irish 
 rebels to Spain — Tyrone's discontent with the Spaniards — Another 
 truce with Tyrone. 
 
 In the last chapter we have seen how extremely 
 perilous was the position of the English in Ireland 
 at the opening of the year 1597. This, however, 
 was not by any means the only point at which 
 danger seemed to threaten from Spain, and the 
 slowness of the Queen and her Ministers in respond- 
 ing to the urgent demands of the commanders in 
 Ireland for warlike resources is explained by the 
 fact that in the view of Englishmen at the centre of 
 government the first duty was to provide against 
 the possibility of a successful attack upon the heart 
 of the nation itself; and, moreover, the intelligence 
 they received gave them the incorrect belief that the 
 main Spanish attack in 1596 was to be on the Isle 
 of Wight, the Irish expedition being only a diver- 
 sion.^ Public opinion in England was indeed pro- 
 foundly impressed by the supposed imminence of a 
 renewed attempt at the invasion and conquest of the 
 country by a foreign force, and the breach between 
 the two sections of Catholics was in consequence 
 
 1 As I have pointed out in a previou^i note, this erroneous belief has 
 survived to the present day.
 
 FEELING IN ENGLAND 243 
 
 ever widening.^ "Would to God," wrote one loyal 
 Catholic to Lord Burghley, " that lier Majesty would 
 grant toleration of religion, whereby men's minds 
 would be appeased and join all in defence of our 
 country" (Hatfield Papers, vol. vii.), as had been 
 the case in France by the granting of the Edict of 
 Nantes. But religious animus had been stirred to 
 its lowest depth by contending politicians, and it 
 suited Elizabeth and her Ministers to affect a dis- 
 belief in the patriotism of all Catholics. So the 
 game of priest-hunting and recusant-bating went on 
 as briskly as before, because it strung up the indig- 
 nation of the majority to the war pitch and frightened 
 waverers into the Protestant camp. The Essex war 
 party had now quite gained the upper hand in the 
 counsels of the Queen. Ralegh and Essex had for 
 once patched up their quarrels, and the Cecil interest 
 
 1 Amongst Lord Burghley 's papers there is, for instance, a long and 
 able Latin paper written at this juncture, apparently by Dr. Wright, 
 Dean of Courtrai, one of the I'ugitives in Flanders, discussing pro and 
 con the question as to whether it is licit for Catholics in England to 
 oppose by arms and otherwise an attack upon the country by Spain. 
 The conclusion arrived at is that English Catholics are in duty bound 
 to protect their country against any foreigner whatsoever, and the 
 author, pensioner though he was of Philip, expresses doubt as to the 
 sincerity of the King's profession that his concern was mainly for the 
 Catholic religion (Appendix to Strype's " Annals," vol. iii.). See also an 
 interesting letter from an English Catholic fugitive to the Queen (Hat- 
 field Papers, vol. vii. p. 34), written in January 1 597, begging her to con- 
 form to the Catholic faith, but expressing undying loyalty to her. In 
 the same collection (p. 86) there is a letter written by Harry Constable, 
 a Catholic from Paris, to the Earl of Essex (February 1597), protesting 
 his loyalty, and saying that he has written to Rome to dissuade the Pope 
 from giving credit to those English Catholics who favour the designs of 
 Spain. This, he said, was the wish of most Englishmen in Rome, and 
 it was suggested that loyal English Catholics abroad should bind them- 
 selves by oath to oppose all violent proceedings under the guise of 
 religion.
 
 244 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 almost for the first time smiled upon the Earl's war- 
 like ardour. 
 
 For during Essex's absence on the Cadiz expe- 
 ditions, Sir Robert Cecil had at last received the 
 Secretaryship which he had coveted so long, and 
 everything had gone smoothly. The Earl's rashness 
 and irascibility also exposed him in every expedition 
 to mistakes which on his return irritated the Queen 
 against him. All this suited the Cecils, and instead 
 of opposing Essex, they were now willing that he 
 should have his way. At least they would be relieved 
 of his jealous ill-temper and the constant discord he 
 created at court. As usual, his plan was to strike a 
 hard blow at Spain before England could be attacked ; 
 but the soldiers differed from the seamen as to how 
 or where the blow should be dealt. The recent 
 traditions of England pointed to another naval ex- 
 pedition, similar to that of the previous year, only 
 now directed against the north-western ports, where 
 Philip's new armada was being laboriously fitted out ; 
 but Essex had usually been in favour of land attack. 
 The Spaniards had captured Calais before his eyes 
 only a year before, and even now the harbour was 
 filled with flat-bottomed fiyboats, which threatened 
 an invasion of England. The King of France, too, 
 offered the Queen the possession of Calais if she 
 could wrest it from the Spaniards, though we may 
 be quite certain that there was a reservation behind 
 the Bearnais' proposal, and the soldiers clamoured 
 unanimously for a great land army to be sent from 
 England to capture again England's ancient gate to 
 the Continent. Sir Francis Vere especially urged 
 Essex to undertake this task with adequate forces,
 
 ESSEX'S FLEP:T, 1597 245 
 
 as being the surest way to cripple and disable 
 Spain. 
 
 But there were other considerations. All the 
 recent glory of England, all her new-born potency 
 and increasing wealth, had been gained on the sea ; 
 the people themselves were stirred at the idea of 
 naval adventure and abundant loot ; and the cost 
 of fitting out a fleet would be largely met by 
 "adventurers" on the chance of private gain; 
 whereas the Queen herself would have to pay the 
 entire cost of an army. Ralegh, now hand-in-glove 
 with Essex for a time, wrote a masterly essay called 
 " Opinion on the Spanish Alarum," in which he 
 quite coiTectly expressed incredulity of an attack 
 in force upon England, but strongly advocated the 
 fitting out of a fleet suflicient for protection and 
 offence. Ten ships were hastily put into com- 
 mission for the protection of the coast (February 
 1597), but as alarmist news came from the spies 
 of the vast preparations being made in Ferrol for 
 the sailing of a Spanish Armada,^ Essex's mind was 
 made up, and he tlirew his influence on the side of 
 
 1 Sir Robert Sidney wrote from Flu.sliing to E^sex, April 14, 1597, 
 that Philip had ordered the construction of twenty-eight ships of 
 800 tons each, and had sent 50,000 ducats to begin the work. One 
 thousand soldiers, he reported, had been sent to Ferrol to be embarked 
 for Brittany and Calais to make war upon England in the summer, 
 and he speaks of other preparations in the Spanish ports (Hatfield 
 Papers, vol. vii.). Sir Edward Norreys wrote in the same month from 
 Ostend of the powerful Armada in preparation, with great levies of 
 ti'oops of all nationalities to attack England. There were twenty great 
 ships, he said, at Corunna, sent by the Pope and the Italian princes, 
 ready to sail with the first wind. " They prepare 40,000, wherewith 
 they have swallowed up the poor island of England in their conceit" 
 (ibid., p. 187). This, as we shall see, was untrue, but it greatly disturbed 
 people in England.
 
 246 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 the sailors, though to Sir Francis Vere's openly- 
 expressed disgust (Hatfield Papers, vol. vii. p. 212). 
 Essex laboured diligently, beset with many diffi- 
 culties, mainly born of the Queen's parsimony, to 
 commission and provision his new fleet. Soldiers 
 were pressed with difficulty, for already the levies 
 for Holland and Picardy had weighed heavily upon 
 the adult male population of the south and east 
 coast ; but at length in June Essex found himself 
 in command of a fleet consisting of three squadrons, 
 one under his immediate orders, another under Lord 
 Thomas Howard, and the third under Ralegh.^ 
 Besides these experienced commanders the best of 
 the young Protestant nobility were included in the 
 officers on board. ^ There are twenty Queen's ships, 
 ten Dutch men-of-war, and a large number of mer- 
 chant ships and victuallers, the entire force consisting 
 of 120 sail with 5000 soldiers on board. Essex's 
 
 * The Lord Admiral Howard declined to take part in the command 
 of the expedition, in consequence of his discontent at his share of the 
 plunder of Cadiz. He was not well pleased either at Essex's behaviour 
 towards him, though the deadly quarrel between them did not take 
 place until the return of the expedition of 1 597. 
 
 2 John Chamberlain wrote to Dudley Carleton on the 11/21 June : 
 " We have great preparations here for a sea viage which troubles our 
 discoursers how or where it shal be imployed. The common sort of talke 
 of Calais, others of the island Terceira, but most likelie in my opinion 
 is set upon tlie King of Spaine's navy wheresoever they can find it 
 or meet with the Indian fleet. Theire whole number consists of 
 fifteen Queene's shippes besides the two Spanish shippes that were 
 taken last yeare (which be new fashioned after the English manner) 
 and of two and twentie men of warre of Holland and some foure 
 and twenty flyboats for carriage of men and victuals. They have with 
 them 4000 prest men and 1200 nmskettiers that come with Sir Francis 
 Vere out of Holland." It will be seen that the otlicial accounts of the 
 strength of the expedition differ somewhat from Chamberlain, but the 
 former is most likely to be correct (John Chamberlain's Letters, 
 Camden Society).
 
 ESSEX'S FLEET DRIVEN BACK 247 
 
 commission was strictly confined to the destruction 
 of the Spanish fleet in Ferrol, or wherever he might 
 find it, but failure dogged him from the first 
 Alternate calms and contrary gales kept him for a 
 fortnight between the Downs and Plymouth, then 
 supplies ran short and victuals went bad, and Essex 
 was obliged to send Fulke Greville to the Queen to 
 beseech her " of her princely wisdom " to grant them 
 another month's provisions.^ This with some demur 
 being granted, Essex again grew hopeful ; but such 
 a summer " as was never seen by man " raged in the 
 Channel, and although Essex managed to sail out of 
 Plymouth on the loth July, he encountered during 
 the next ten days such foul weather as to reduce him 
 to despair. The squadrons were scattered, and more 
 than once the commanders "gave themselves up to 
 God." At length Essex's squadron, battered, crippled, 
 and disabled, regained Plymouth, whilst Ralegh's 
 ships, in even worse case, sought shelter in Falmouth. 
 Lord Thomas Howard's squadron crossed the Bay of 
 Biscay almost to the Spanish coast, but he too was 
 driven back and returned to England."' 
 
 London was panicstricken at the disaster ; for all 
 men had been told that the Adelantado's fleet might 
 appear on the English coast at any time ; but the 
 Queen, through her fears, wept for joy when she 
 learned that Essex and Ralegh at least were safe ; and 
 even the Lord x'^dmiral earnestly prayed the former 
 to return post haste to court,^ where, he says, " we 
 are like a naked flock without a shepherd." Again 
 
 1 Hatfield Papers, vol. vii. 
 
 2 State Papers, Domestic, Ralegh to Cecil, July i8, 1597. 
 
 ^ State Papers, Domestic, cclxiv.
 
 248 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 the hard task of persuading the Queen to spend the 
 necessary money to refit the fleet, to allow her 
 favourite to leave her, and to undertake the respon- 
 sibility of attacking Spain, had to be done afresh. 
 Essex and Ralegh went to court, and together joined 
 their prayers ; but they found the Queen more frac- 
 tious than ever. The season was far advanced, the 
 enemy was now on the alert, and she positively 
 refused to allow her men and ships to be exposed to 
 risk. After much tearful begging, Essex at length 
 persuaded her, for his own honour's sake, to allow 
 him to sail to the Spanish coast with a reduced 
 force, for the sole purpose of sending some fire- 
 ships into Ferrol harbour and burning the Spanish 
 vessels there. But to make quite sure that he did 
 no more than this, the Queen insisted upon his 
 landing all the English troops but the veterans 
 from Holland before he sailed, and he had to pledge 
 himself to her on his honour not to venture one 
 of her ships or himself into Ferrol. Ralegh 
 might enter the harbour if he pleased, but Essex 
 was to remain outside, or he should not be al- 
 lowed to sail at all. Fretful, discontented, and 
 peevish, the Earl was forced to obey, and finally, 
 on the 17th August, he sailed again with his cur- 
 tailed force. 
 
 Once more a terrible westerly gale assailed him 
 in the Bay, and disabled the great San Mateo, the 
 Spanish prize he had captured at Cadiz. She was 
 obliged, in a water-logged condition, to stagger back 
 to England as best she might, whilst the rest of the 
 fleet, disheartened and damaged, was at length swept 
 out of the Bay by an easterly gale which efi"ectually
 
 FAILURE OF ESSEX'S FLEET 249 
 
 prevented any of the ships from approaching Ferrol. 
 Ralegh and his squadron of thirty sail was lost sight 
 of altogether. The next day (August 24), Essex 
 received false news from one of Ralegh's captains to 
 the effect that the Spanish fleet had alread}' sailed 
 out of Ferrol under the Adelantado to the Azores, 
 for the purpose of escorting the treasure-fleet home ; 
 and on the faith of this Essex sailed at once towards 
 Terceira, sending despatch-hoats to order Ralegh to 
 follow him. Through some blunder the latter re- 
 mained for a week longer on the Portuguese coast, 
 whilst Essex awaited him at Flores. There the 
 commander-in-chief was informed that the treasure- 
 fleet was, after all, not coming that way, and when 
 Ralegh at length joined him, it was decided to sail 
 for Fayal and St. Michael's to endeavour to intercept 
 the Indian flotillas there. Ralegh lost sight of his 
 chief and reached Fayal first, and, after waiting 
 three days, imprudently took upon himself to cap- 
 ture and plunder the island, greatly to Essex's indig- 
 nation when he arrived the following day, and bad 
 blood was again brewed between the rival favourites. 
 The fleet remained at sea a month longer in the 
 hope of meeting the treasure-ships, but in vain, 
 and came back to Plymouth, October 26, with only 
 three rich merchantmen as prizes, barely sufficient 
 to cover the cost of the expedition. Black looks 
 greeted Essex at court, for he had not performed 
 or seriously attempted either of the tasks for which 
 he went, the pecuniary result of his eff'orts was in- 
 significant, and, worst of all, whilst he had been 
 beguiled by false information to sail on his wild- 
 goose chase to the Azores, the Adelantado with the
 
 250 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 dreaded Armada of Spain had been almost within 
 sight of the English coast. ^ 
 
 No more vivid picture can be found of the utter 
 demoralisation which had taken possession of Spanish 
 officialdom than that presented in the series of 
 papers and letters now in the British Museum^ relat- 
 ing to the preparations for the great Armada, which, 
 as we have seen, in 1597 created so much alarm in 
 England. They are mainly the letters and reports 
 of Pedro Lopez de Soto, the Secretary of the Ade- 
 lantado of Castile, who was to command the fleet ; 
 and their perusal enables us to understand fully, 
 for the first time, the almost insuperable difficulties 
 which Philip's system had created for himself. 
 Lopez de Soto was the executive officer through 
 whom all orders passed, yet he was kept absolutely 
 in the dark as to the intentions of the King. He 
 writes to the Council of War (July 2, 1597) recom- 
 mending that all the merchant ships loaded with 
 Spanish produce destined for the Channel or Flemish 
 
 ^ The final estrangement of Essex from the Queen dates from this 
 period. In his absence the previous year the Secretaryship had been 
 given to Cecil ; on his return on this occasion, he found that Lord 
 Admiral Howard had been made Earl of Nottingham, and now took 
 ])recedence over Essex. The latter, therefore, stormed and flouted until 
 the whole court was in a turmoil. He challenged the aged Lord 
 Admiral and his sons ; was reproved by the Queen, and absented him- 
 self from court for many months, alternately insulting and tearful to his 
 mistress. The Queen, sometimes in a rage at his obstinacy, sometimes 
 grieved at his serious illness, was profoundly disturbed and unhappy ; 
 and though she finally forgave liim in December 1597, and granted 
 him precedence over Howard, she expressed herself detei'mined to 
 break his spirit before she finished with him. 
 
 2 British Museum, Add. MSS. 28,420. Some of these papers, giving 
 an account of the actual strength of the fleet, have been transcribed by 
 me, and included in the Calendar of Sj^anish State Papers, vol. iv. 
 The rest are unpublished.
 
 THE THIRD ARMADA, 1597 251 
 
 ports should be embargoed, in order that the English 
 might not make use of them, but that the Spaniards 
 might do so if they needed them. This, he insists, 
 should be done swiftly and without notice, as the 
 Portuguese and Andalusiau nobles and merchants, 
 whose oil, wine, and produce filled the ships, would 
 not, he said, like it. He then continues as follows : 
 " It is not to be expected that the English fleet will 
 come to Spain this year, even if they had the 20,000 
 soldiers to land, and the 12,000 men for the ships, 
 and the supplies needful for the purpose. But it is, 
 nevertheless, very desirable that we should make a 
 show of preparation and arming on our side (which 
 seems to have stopped as soon as the news came 
 that no fleet would be raised in England this year),^ 
 and that forces should be collected sufficient both 
 to gain a footing in England and to defend our own 
 country. Thus, if the attack against England be 
 successful, we shall be able to reinforce our men, 
 and if it be not successful we shall have a reserve. 
 As your Lordships are carrying on everything so 
 secretly, no one can be sure if he is correctly in- 
 formed, and I have no means of knowing whether 
 the opinions I express will be apposite or not. Time 
 is thus frittered away. I, for my part, have decided 
 to take the plunge, and say plainly what I think. 
 . . . The only way out of all this confusion that I 
 can see is for us to gain a footing in England this 
 year. This will be to strike at the trunk, all the 
 rest is simply climbing in the branches. All diflS- 
 
 1 It should be recollected that Essex at this date actually had, aa we 
 have seen, a powerful fleet ready to sail for the Spanish coast as soon 
 as the wind served.
 
 252 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 culties disappear before resolute, courageous, and 
 timely action. The stores and men we can get 
 together between this time and the loth August 
 will be sufficient to effect a landing during that 
 month, and I feel confident that, if we go to Wales, 
 which is only forty leagues farther from Ferrol than 
 Plymouth, and is a better place to land in, we can 
 manage to avoid meeting their fleet. This is borne 
 out by all practical seamen. Even if 300 English 
 ships were to go to Milford fifteen days after we 
 were established there, and land 10,000 men, they 
 would find the mouth of the port defended (which 
 could be done in two days), and the place ready to 
 repel an attack from the sea. It is not to be ex- 
 pected that the English could on such short notice 
 land a force capable of battering the place on the 
 land side, as we shall be strongly situated and 
 on the defensive. Besides this, the conformation 
 of the land is in our favour, so that the only thing 
 to be feared is our delay in deciding to take this 
 course. 
 
 " In any case, it will be well to press forward 
 energetically the supplying of our fleet with stores, 
 and to send constant instructions to the places 
 whence the stores are to come. Especially should 
 the guns from the Lisbon foundry be hurried for- 
 ward, because with the forty pieces ordered we can 
 arm the new galleons. The Council of War should 
 consider and decide upon all points that have been 
 submitted about the fleet, and the Council of State 
 should take the necessary action to provide the 
 money, the troops, the siege artillery, the cavalry, 
 and especially to decide upon the point where we
 
 THE THIRD ARMADA. 1597 253 
 
 shall land. This should be kept strictly secret in 
 the breasts of your Lordships and the Adelantado." 
 
 It will be seen by this letter that everything was 
 unready in July, at the time when, for many weeks 
 past, people in England had been expecting the 
 fleet oflf their own coasts. The bad morale of 
 Philip's officers is conspicuous in the series of 
 petulant letters written by Lopez throughout the 
 whole spring and summer to Esteban de Ibarra, 
 Secretary of the Council of War. He threatens to 
 retire unless he is entrusted with the destination 
 and objects of the fleet. Nothing, he says, must 
 be kept back from him, or he will have no more 
 to do with it. Why should not he know as much 
 as others? He is never consulted : his opinion is 
 never asked ; nothing but orders are sent to him ! 
 Once in June he wrote a most insolent letter to 
 Ibarra, trying to pick a quarrel with him, because 
 he had not informed him (Lopez) of what orders 
 had been given for wheat and biscuits. More than 
 once Ibarra gravely rebuked, and even covertlv 
 threatened him ; but Lopez always retorted with 
 a fresh string of grumbling complaints. On the 
 30th June he wrote that everything was in com- 
 plete confusion : uniforms for the men were lack- 
 ing, and there was no cavalry fit for service. " There 
 is no money to provide anything, no meat, no wine, 
 no siege artillery, hardly any guns for the ships." 
 And so, from day to day, follow new discontents 
 and fresh demands. In a postscript to a letter of 
 4th July he says that on the previous day he had 
 seen Don Cristobal de Moura, the principal Secre- 
 tary of the King, who had gone to Ferrol to put
 
 254 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 matters straight, and who had told him that the 
 Adelautado had declared that there was no fleet, 
 or any possibility of going out and facing an enemy. 
 Lopez demurred at this, and promised to send to 
 Moura an exact statement of the position of the 
 fleet, which, he said, would be, within five weeks, 
 sufficient for the purpose which he (Lopez) had 
 proposed, viz., for landing a force at Milford. "The 
 Adelantado's general statement that he lacks every- 
 thing is only his usual style of putting things. . . . 
 Of course, if we could reinforce it (the fleet), so 
 much the better ; but if we cannot, we must make 
 the best use we can of it." 
 
 Here we see the principal executive officer of the 
 arsenals and dockyards absolutely in the dark as to 
 the kind of force he will have to provide, the des- 
 tination and length of voyage of the expedition, 
 and quite unprepared for a prompt sailing. It is 
 probable that Philip had not the slightest intention 
 at the time of sending his fleet to Milford, or of 
 seriously invading England direct ; as how could he 
 hope to do with the material then at his disposal ? 
 The statement sent by Lopez to Cristobal de Moura 
 sets forth that the fleet will be ready to sail from 
 Ferrol by the middle of August, and should effect 
 a landing by the 8th September. The whole force, 
 according to Lopez de Soto's estimate, would consist 
 of 93 ships. Of these, 23 were to be of 600 to 1000 
 tons burden, 25 of 300 to 600 tons, 26 of 100 to 
 200 tons, with 20 galley zabras of 50 to 100 tons, 
 besides pinnaces, victuallers, &c. The number of 
 men which Lopez proposed to send in the fleet was 
 20,000 soldiers and 4000 sailors ; and he advocated
 
 THE THIRD ARMADA, 1597 255 
 
 the seizure of a large number of pinnaces to enable 
 the men to be thrown rapidly on shore. He also 
 professed to have invented a new sort of galley, 
 capable of making long ocean voyages and carrying 
 17 big guns. "They will live," he said, "through 
 heavy weather as well as high-built ships, which 
 they could accompany anywhere." " If your Majesty 
 had 30 of these galleys, you would be entire master 
 of the coasts of England and France ; as 4000 men 
 might be thrown on shore unexpectedly at any 
 point ; and any place, however large, may be sacked 
 by such a force if it be surprised." ' 
 
 So evident was the demoralisation in Philip's pre- 
 parations, however, that close and well-informed ob- 
 servers like the Venetian ambassador, Nani, expressed 
 to his Government disbelief in the possibility of the 
 Adelantado's expedition being intended to attack 
 England, as "the English ships are far quicker and 
 handier than the Spanish," and " the nature of the 
 Spanish fleet is such that it is better suited for 
 transport than for an attack on England, where they 
 would find a fleet far superior to their own." For 
 these reasons the ambassador believed that the real 
 object was to attack the African port of Larache, or 
 to convey a strong force to Brittany ; ~ whilst a few 
 weeks afterwards (24th July 1597) the preparations 
 were so backward and chaotic that the same am- 
 bassador was of opinion that the preparations were 
 only for defence, as many of the troops were being 
 disbanded, " and the King's intentions about the 
 attack on England are cooling down." The Adel- 
 
 1 Spauisli Calendar, vol. iv. and British ^luseum, Add. 28,420. 
 '^ Naui to the Doge, June 1 597 (Venetian Calendar).
 
 256 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 antado, a hot-headed Catholic zealot, was in prin- 
 ciple all for a crusade against the heretic, but was 
 alternately despairing of going anywhere at all with 
 such a force, and exalted with the idea that the 
 sacredness of the cause would make up for all 
 deficiencies. Philip himself was thought to be 
 dying, though not even the Nuncio had the courage 
 to tell him so ; but as he could only work inter- 
 mittently, and not even the most trifling detail 
 could be settled by any one else, almost complete 
 paralysis had fallen upon his officers at the time 
 tliat Essex, but for the unlucky Biscay gales, would 
 have had the Spanish ports at his mercy. 
 
 At length, when terrifying news came that the 
 English had sailed in force again under Essex, and 
 were first on the coasts of the Peninsula, and then 
 cruising round the Azores to capture the treasure 
 fleets, a last desperate effort was made by the Adel- 
 antado ; and the much-talked-of Spanish Armada of 
 1597, all incomplete as it was, put to sea from 
 Corunna on the i8th October (N.S.) ; but with a 
 military force very diffeient from that foreshadowed 
 by Lopez de Soto's sanguine estimate.^ The season 
 was late and stormy ; the preparations had been so 
 long protracted that many of the ships were ex- 
 tremely foul and worm-eaten ; but the orders of the 
 
 ^ The report sent by the Venetian Ambassador to the Doge (28th 
 October) says that the force that left Ferrol for Corunna consisted of :■ — 
 
 44 royal galleons, of an aggregate tonnage of 12,686 tons. 
 
 16 merchantmen, „ ,, ,, 5880 ,, 
 
 52 German and Flemish hulks for stores, ,, 15,514 ,, 
 
 76 small craft. 
 This fleet was to have carried 8634 soldiers and 4000 sailors ; but as 
 will be seen in the text, at least 600 of the former with 22 caravel.^ 
 failed to join from Lisbon.
 
 THE THIRD ARMADA, 1597 257 
 
 King on this occasion, as before, were sternly per- 
 emptor}^ notwithstanding the expressed unwilling- 
 ness of the Adelantado to put to sea under the 
 circumstances. Essex's fleet was known to be on 
 the way home to England, and if it encountered 
 that of the Adelantado, the latter was certain to be 
 beaten, considering the bad morale of the Spaniards.^ 
 
 ' 111 a most iuteiestiiig account of the expedition given by the 
 confessor of the Adelantado, Father Si cilia, wlio was supposed to 
 be a natural son of Philip II. (Venetian State i^apers), he speaks of 
 the "unwillingness to sail whicli filled the minds of every one, when 
 they thought of the season far advanced, and of the absolute lack ol' 
 all that was essential to the success of the enterprise." The ambassador, 
 writing to the Doge after tlie return of the Adelantado's fleet, says that 
 the whole blame of the failure was being cast on the Adelantado. The 
 design, he said, which had been kept a close secret for two years, was 
 now public ; and could never be attempted again. " However, im- 
 partial persons know full well that this violent resolution could ha^•e 
 met with no other result than it did. It was adopted rather on a 
 punctilio than in hope of success. . . . The King was swept away by 
 a passion for revenge for all these insults which he is constantly re- 
 ceiving : and so in a bad season, with a weak Armada, and without 
 waiting for reinforcements, he resolved to cany out his object, relying 
 on the secret intelligences which he firmly believes he has establislied 
 in that island" (Venetian State Papers). A clue to the meaning of 
 the last paragraph will be found in the voluntary confession of an 
 English sailor named Love (State Papers, Domestic, April 20, 1598), 
 who tells an extraordinary story. A Devonshire seaman called Captain 
 Elliot, who commanded a flotilla of ])rivateerp, in which Love sailed, 
 appears to have been in close communication with Lord Beauchamp 
 (eldest son of the Earl of Hertford by Katharine Grey, and con- 
 sequently by the will of Henry VIII. heir to the crown of England), 
 and much mysterious intercourse is detailed as having passed between 
 them. Elliot captured a prize in the Channel and took her into 
 Helford haven. To the dismay of the corsairs, they found the Queen s 
 revenue-cutter there. The pirates tliought they were caught red- 
 handed, but Captain John Killigrew, who was in command at Fal- 
 mouth, said they need have no fear : he would "square" matters witli 
 Captain Jonas for ^100, which he did, receiving as his own payment 
 ten bolts of (stolen) Holland cloth. Killigrew himself had bought tlie 
 pirates' previous prize : and Elliot, after touching at Cork, then sei 
 sail for Corunna, riding thence post haste to see Philip, whom lie told 
 
 R
 
 258 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Muddle reigned supreme from the first. A fly- 
 boat was lost at the mouth of Corunna harbour, two 
 pinnaces were lost sight of immediately afterwards, 
 and four others which were sent to Ferrol for a 
 supply of biscuits never came back. Twenty-two 
 decked caravels left behind at Lisbon to ship 600 
 soldiers failed to join the fleet : but at length the 
 Adelantado, with such forces as he had, came almost 
 within sight of the Lizard on the 22nd October 
 (N.S.), a fortnight before Essex landed at Plymouth 
 (26th October 0.8. ). The day after the Adelantado's 
 ships had lost sight of Spanish land, a pinnace was 
 sent round the fleet with the King's final orders, 
 which had been kept under secret seal until then. 
 Philip, as the Venetian said, swayed by a thirst for 
 vengeance alone, had listened to the tale of the false 
 Englishman, and had altered his mind. He was no 
 longer sending a halting aid to the Irish rebels. Un- 
 warned by his dire experience of the past, in face 
 of the wretched condition and insufficient strength 
 of his fleet, the utter demoralisation of his men and 
 the faint-heartedness of his commanders, the King 
 had for once forgotten his proverbial prudence, and 
 had determined to stake everything, almost in his 
 dying hours, upon one doubtful turn of fortune. 
 And the orders that went round were, that in the 
 name of God and St. James of Compostella, the 
 fleet was to sail for Falmouth, which they were to 
 
 that lie had " bought " Falmouth Castle from Captain Killigrew. 
 Elliot and his men entered the Adelantado's Heet, and Elliot himself 
 appears to have been the |)rincipal guide and inspirer of the expedition, 
 the deponent Love acting as pilot to the flagship. Killigrew himself 
 was cast into prison, protesting his innocence. There are several 
 letters from him to Cecil, &c., iu the Hatfield Papers, vol. viii.
 
 TO ATTACK FALMOUTH 259 
 
 take by surprise, or by the betrayal of its com- 
 mander, and a land force was to march towards 
 Plymouth. 
 
 Nothing short of desperation or a bigotry which 
 blinded Philip to practical events could have dic- 
 tated such orders at such a time if he had really 
 meant to attempt to conquer England. His troops 
 in France were straining every nerve to hold their 
 own, whilst a peace inglorious for Spain was being 
 patched up by priests and friars ; and it was almost 
 certain that any serious aggressive action on the 
 part of Philip against England would have pre- 
 vented Henry IV. from consenting to a pacification, 
 upon which the Spanish King's last remaining hopes 
 were based. The favourite eldest daughter, whose 
 promotion to a throne had been one of the passions 
 of his life, was to marry her cousin, the Cardinal 
 Archduke Albert, and to assume the sovereignty of 
 the Spanish Netherlands. If the matter were not 
 finally arranged before his death, which might 
 happen any day, Philip's dearest wish might be 
 frustrated, and he desired, of all things, that it 
 should be carried through without delay. Whilst 
 he was at war with France, and above all, if he 
 launched into a new aggressive or invasive war 
 against England as well, he could not hope to estab- 
 lish the new sovereigns of Flanders, nor could they 
 have withstood for a week the combined forces of 
 Holland, France, and England, which in such case 
 would certainly have been directed against them. 
 Philip was absolutely yearning for peace before he 
 died, and the conclusion forced upon us is, that 
 his plan for seizing Falmouth by surprise, or by
 
 26o 
 
 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 questionable betrayal with a force s() utterly in- 
 adequate as that at the disposal of the Adelantado, 
 was not meant for an attempt at the serious inva- 
 sion or the conquest of England, but as a means 
 of frightening Elizabeth into an arrangement with 
 him at the same time as Henry IV. ^ 
 
 Whether the Adelantado knew this or not is 
 doubtful ; probably he did not ; but he must have 
 known, and all his company must have known, that 
 to have landed his seven or eight thousand men, 
 at most, on English soil, whilst an English fleet 
 stronger than his own was on the sea between 
 him and his bases of supply, would have been 
 simply suicidal, both for troops and fleet. So, 
 although we are told by one of the company,^ that 
 on the King's orders being known, "joy filled each 
 heart with content, and even the sick forgot their 
 ailments," little joy was manifested when they 
 reached the mouth of the Channel. There was a 
 
 ' The French had iu September recaptured Amiens from the 
 Spaniards, and the Vatican, with Philip's connivance, was now 
 making desperate efforts to bring about a peace between Spain and 
 France, absolutely necessary for both countries. Elizabeth and the 
 Dutch were furious at Henry's listening to such overtures without 
 their consent. The Spanish King even offered to include Elizabeth 
 in the treaty ; but, as will be related in the next chapter, on con- 
 ditions quite impossible for England to accept. Still, the fact that 
 Philip made the ofler at all shows how desirous he was to leave his suc- 
 cessor at peace, and tends to prove that the expedition of the Adelantado 
 was never really intended for the conquest of England by invasion, 
 but rather to alarm Elizabetli into the peace negotiation on the terms 
 agreeable to Spain. 
 
 - Carrera, the Adelantado's courier. The Adelantado had continued 
 to insist that he could not put to sea without great risk of losing the 
 Meet, and had stood out strongly against the order to sail. When the 
 news came to Spain that Essex was at the Azores, positive commands 
 were sent to the Adelantado to sail immediately at any risk, ^'^for the 
 purpose of effecting/ a diversion." His orders were to land at Fnlmoutli
 
 THE ARMADA DRIVEN BACK 261 
 
 stiff" head wind blowing, which soon showed up the 
 weak points of the Spanish ships. "The admiral^ 
 wished to lie to, and see if the weather would mode- 
 rate sufficiently to allow him to proceed. But seeinj^: 
 the wind freshening steadily, and a pinnace having 
 brought word that the San Marco's seams had gaped 
 under stress of the storm, he was obliged to stand 
 by her. . . . He resolved to cruise about all night, 
 keeping an eye on the weather, if it would allow 
 him to push forward, and having all the fleet gath- 
 ered about him. At this moment another pinnace 
 arrived at the Adelantado's flagship, with news 
 from the admiral that his foremast had been carried 
 away, and as he could not hold on his course, he 
 asked for orders. The Adelantado, recognising 
 how dangerous it would be to risk the life of the 
 admiral, of his officers, and the 70,000 ducats on 
 board the galleon, gave orders that the admiral 
 should put about, and, as best he could, make for 
 
 and fortify himself, " on the site of the castles, neither of them of 
 much importance, and then, leaving a sufficient garrison, he was to 
 retire to the Scilly Isles, and await the return of the English fleet. If 
 lie learnt that the Spanish Indies flotilla had been captured, he was to 
 give battle to the English ; and on winning a victory, as was expected, 
 he was again to enter Falmouth and land the rest of his troops. From 
 Falmouth he was to press forward and capture all he could.'' When 
 the Adelantado returned, he assured Philip that if he had pushed on 
 Nvith his fleet in the weak unprovisioned state in which it was, he 
 would have suff"ered more damage from the enemy than from the 
 storm. The Adelantado was quite right. It was not on the cards 
 for a moment that he could so entirely annihilate the English fleet 
 as to have been able to go to Falmouth a second time, and quietly 
 land his men. In any case, even if he had done so, they would have 
 been caught like rats in a trap, from which they could not have 
 escaped. (See report of Carrera, the Adelantado's courier. Father 
 Sicilia, the Adelantado's confessor, and the letters of Nani to the 
 Doge, all in the Venetian State Papers.) 
 1 Don Diego Brochero.
 
 262 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Spain." ^ We are told that the Adelantado waited 
 until two hours after sunrise next morning (23rd 
 October, N.S.), intending, as the weather would not 
 allow him to approach Falmouth, to make for Nieu- 
 port, or, if that was impossible, to run for Water- 
 ford or Cork, or even Brest. But he decided at 
 last that he could do nothing but get back to Spain 
 as quickly as possible. This is the best story that 
 his own apologetic confessor can make of it, but 
 in another account by an eye-witness the picture of 
 demoralisation is a more vivid one. "The Armada 
 began to part company and to scatter (i.e. in the 
 night of 22nd October), each one thinking of his 
 own safety ; the sea unshipping their rudders, 
 breaking their yards, carrying away their masts, 
 and most gave themselves up for lost. For two 
 days they knocked about without being able to 
 make any harbour," and then, with a fair wind 
 astern, they ingloriously sailed back in driblets 
 to Corunna, beaten and cowed, though they had 
 never seen an enemy nor fired a shot.' 
 
 It was Philip's last dying effort,' and nothing 
 
 1 Account of Father Sicilia (Venetian State Papers). 
 
 ' At first it was supposed that a large number of the ships iiad been 
 lost, but most of them subsequently turned up in the various Spanish 
 ports, though greatly damaged. The actual number totally wrecked 
 seems to have been about ten vessels. An English spy in Spain re- 
 ported on the return of the Armada to the coast : "There is nothing 
 but confusion and stories of misfortune ; yet brags of what they will 
 do before next spring" (State Papers, Dom., October 1597). 
 
 ^ Philip was thought to be moribund for some days before the news 
 of the failure reached his court. Paralysis had seized him, and he was 
 only kept alive by the exertions of his devoted daughter, who blew 
 liquid nourishment down his throat. The moment he regained con- 
 sciousness he sighed, " Oh, will he never be ready ? What more can 
 Martin (t.c. Martin de Padilla, the Adelantado) want?" (State Papers, 
 Dom., October 1597).
 
 FRESH PRAYERS FROM CONNAUGHT 26 
 
 J) 
 
 shows more clearly than this how the boasted 
 strength of sovereign and people had dwindled 
 under his hidebound rule. For two years, as we 
 have seen, this Armada had been painfully got 
 together, under the innumerable difficulties that 
 have been mentioned. That it should be scattered 
 by the severe gale of the previous year was at least 
 understandable. All fleets at the time were liable 
 to such accidents ; but the head winds encountered 
 in October 1597 were not sufficient reason for the 
 utter abandonment of the objects of the expedition. 
 The Spaniards had lost their crusading zeal, and 
 they no longer had the moral stamina which alone 
 had formerly waiTanted their sovereign's claim to 
 dictate to Christendom the minutiee of its belief. 
 
 The readiness of TjTone to make friends with 
 the English had aroused considerable distrust in 
 Philip's mind, for he admitted no divided allegiance, 
 and he knew that whilst O'Neil himself stood aside 
 no rising in Ireland could hope to be successful 
 against the English rule. After waiting impatiently 
 all the winter (1596-97) for the promised Spanish 
 aid, the Connaught chiefs despatched an envoy 
 named Thomas Lalley in June 1597 to beg Philip 
 to send them promptly the aid he had promised. 
 But he brought no letter from Tyrone (or O'Donnell), 
 and his demands, over and above the formal and 
 general prayer for aid, were more concerned with 
 the individual profit of his principals than with the 
 final triumph of the Catholic cause. Thus Lalley's 
 father-in-law, James Kelly, writes to the King a 
 bombastic letter, saying how much he and Lalley 
 have done against the English, and begijing for pen-
 
 264 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 sions on the strength of it. MacWilliam Bourke 
 asks that "the land he hokls, and all those he may 
 acquire from the heretics, shall be secured to him 
 in fee ; and that when the Spaniards arrive in Ire- 
 land his clansmen shall be received into the King's 
 service and be paid the same as Spanish soldiers. 
 As he is the chief man in Connaught, he asks that 
 he should be made governor of the province for the 
 King of Spain. " He requested that all Irish ships 
 in Spanish ports belonging to English sympathisers 
 should be confiscated, and the value of them given 
 to Lalley to carry to Ireland.^ It was demanded, 
 too, that if Galway surrendered to the Spaniards, 
 the whole of its privileges should bo confirmed by 
 them. Kelly not only petitioned for a large money 
 grant for himself and Lalley, but that "all his 
 people, and also his noble neighbours, should be 
 confirmed in their privileges ; " and Lalley wanted 
 a grant of " heretics' " land and some of the King's 
 English prisoners to enable him to ransom a son of 
 his in the hands of the Queen's Government 
 
 Most of these personal petitions were readily con- 
 ceded by Philip, for they were, with the exception 
 of the pensions, which he did not grant, not at his 
 own expense ; but upon the margin of the principal 
 letter from MacWilliam Bourke speaking of Spanish 
 armed aid to the Catholic cause, Philip scrawled an 
 ominous direction that they " should be encouraged 
 with generalities." We know what that meant in 
 his vocabulary, and Tyrone certainly appraised at 
 
 ' This petition, which was granted by Philip "as they are enemies' 
 ships," Avould practically put a stop to the considerable business carried 
 on between Ireland and Si)aiii, as most of the merchants, ti-aders, and 
 titizens wore on the side of the English.
 
 COBOS AGAIN AT KILLIBKGS 265 
 
 their true value the bland " generalities " of the 
 Spaniards. He had grown more and more free 
 with his talk of composition and pledges as the 
 winter wore on and the spring brought no Spanisli 
 force to his aid. But though with words of loyalty 
 ever on his lips, there was no possibility of mis- 
 taking his rebellious spirit behind the mask. Lord- 
 Deputy Russell insisted upon being relieved of the 
 government. "He would not," he said, "have 
 petitioned to be revoked if he could have found any 
 good tokens of desire in Tyrone to be a subject. 
 The Earl abuseth the commissioners to win time 
 till the Spaniards come" (March 6, 1597, Irish 
 State Papers) ; and though Norreys was all for 
 making such terms as would satisfy Tyrone, it was 
 mainly from a brave soldier's impatience at the petty 
 persecution and injustice which self-seeking civilians 
 and clerical politicians in Dublin inflicted upon the 
 Irish, making rebellion almost inevitable, whilst the 
 preparations to combat it were quite inadequate.^ 
 
 At the end of March there was a great scare that 
 twenty Spanish ships had entered Killibegs with 
 men, arms, and money, and that Tyrone had gone 
 down to meet them, issuing a proclamation calling 
 for recruits at i2d. per day wages, which Fenton 
 thought might attract most of the Irish soldiers in 
 the English pay, though he still did not believe that 
 the '' Irishry " would allow any Spanish army to 
 invade Ireland. Gradually the twenty Spanish ships 
 
 ' The appointment of Sir John Norreys as Lord-Deputy was much 
 desired by Tyrone, who said that if it was made all f|ne-tion.s could be 
 settled. The appointment of Lord Borough, he said, made him de- 
 spair of fair dealing (ilarch 20, 1597, State Papers, Ireland).
 
 266 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 dwindled to one small pinnace ^ with some powder 
 and messages of encouragement, more "generalities," 
 from the King. Even O'Donnell, who was still in 
 rebellion, Avas disgusted at this paltering, and re- 
 fused even to speak to Cobos until the latter had 
 been taken to see Tyrone. The Earl was cool and 
 dignified. He had made peace with the Queen of 
 England, he said, and meant to keep it, and he 
 swore a " great oath " to the English Captain 
 Warren, " that if all the Spaniards in Spain should 
 come into Ireland, they could not alter his mind 
 from being a dutiful subject to her Majesty if 
 promise were kept to him." " 
 
 When the new Viceroy, Borough, arrived in May, 
 tlie Earl was just as emphatic to him. He was, he 
 said, as he always had been, ready to make his sub- 
 mission. " He did not look for any Spaniards, and 
 he would not join with any foreign nation against 
 his natural prince. The Spaniards are a nation only 
 for themselves and for none other;" whilst O'Donnell 
 himself, in his bitter disappointment at the insigni- 
 ficant aid sent in the one ship to Killibegs, told 
 
 ^ The most extravagant and lying reports were sent to the English 
 on this subject. James Barnewall wrote, on April 3, that twelve 
 Spanish vessels had arrived, and that Tyrone was gathering vast 
 quantities of cattle to feed the Spaniards. On the same day a spy, 
 signing his name "Taff," reported that Tyrone had secretly threatened 
 great penalty to any one who should mention the coming of the 
 Spaniai'ds, of whom 1000 had landed, with bishops and priests and a 
 great store of armour and munition. Then eight Spanish ships had 
 arrived in Loch Foyle ; and these or similar misstatements were con- 
 tinued far into the summer. 
 
 ^ The Lord President of Munster to the Viceroy, &c., March 28, 
 1597 (State Papers, Irish). Tyrone, in evidence of his desire to please 
 the English, sent formal notice to the Viceroy that the Spaniards had 
 informed him of a great force being jjrepared in Spain under the 
 Adelantado \xy be sent into Ireland.
 
 IRISH DISAPPOINTMENT 267 
 
 C'obos " that the Spaniards were but a deceitful 
 nation and they had cosened the Irish. After all 
 his promises the King of Spain had sc^nt them 
 nothing but a little powder. 'I'he Irish knew that 
 all that the King could do was little enough to 
 strengthen himself against the Queen of England, 
 and it were good for them (the Irish) to depend no 
 longer upon the King's succour." 
 
 But with all these professions against the Spaniards 
 the relations between the English and the Irish 
 chiefs gi'ew ever more strained. The last hope 
 of a permanent peaceful settlement vanished when 
 i3orough was appointed Viceroy. Tyrone always 
 made his loyalty dependent upon the English pro- 
 mises being kept to him, and the rights of the Irish 
 respected.^ Borough would have no parley in such 
 matters as good faith and justice, llepentance, he 
 told Tyrone, was his only course. It mattered not 
 to the English how much or how little he depended 
 upon the Spaniards. Complete submission to the 
 Queen's mercy, not only of him, but of all the Irish 
 chieftains, was the only road to peace. This tone 
 made an arrangement impossible, for the grossest 
 bad faith had been practised towards the Irish 
 leaders. Bingham, the scourge of Connaught, was 
 
 ^ Early in this year the Countess of Tyrone's lady-in-waiting reported 
 to the English that the Earl had said, when he had submitted to the 
 Queen, " That he had done it to serve his own turn, as they have done 
 it to serve theirs ; but let me be hanged and confusion come to all my 
 posterity if ever I trust either to pardon or aught else that they may 
 offer, for I know the Council of England to l)e arrant knaves and 
 heretics, to whom there is no more credit to be given than to the 
 veriest infidels in the world. I will keep myself out of their fingert; 
 till time serve, and then, peradventure, they shall have more of me " 
 (Irish State Papers, February 12, 1597).
 
 268 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 still impunislied, truces were broken with impunity 
 by the English, the hostages given by the chiefs 
 were still held tightly, even after stipulations had 
 been fulfilled, and Tyrone boldly prepared now to 
 face the inevitable and, witli or without Spanish aid, 
 to head the Irish against English rule. 
 
 Feagh MacHugh once more went out rieving and 
 ravaging until he fell into the hands of the English, 
 and Kiissell, as the last act of his viceroyalty, sent 
 in May the head of the lieinster rebel in pickle to 
 Queen Elizabeth, who was greatly indignant at the 
 gift/ But the raids into the Pale still went on, and 
 the black clouds of the coming great rebellion banked 
 higher and higher in the north and west. Tyrone 
 and O'Donnell, in close union now, were busy in 
 their inaccessible fastnesses of bog and mountain 
 gathering their friends for the life and death struggle 
 of the coming year. For one short period after the 
 death of Borough in October peace was made, at 
 least in appearance. Borough had obtained a some- 
 what important success over Tyrone's forces on the 
 Blackwater in the summer, and had pressed the rebel 
 liard — the running beast, as he called him — until 
 death put an end to the stern Lord-Deputy's efiorts. 
 O'Eourke resented the too openly asserted overlord- 
 ship of OT^onnel], and was inclined to submit to the 
 English conditions, and the Connaught men gener- 
 ally were not enthusiastic in the support of a move- 
 ment which, unless Spain took the lead, would make 
 
 ' Sir Robert Cecil writing tu the new Viceroy, Borougli : " Her 
 •Nrajesty ... is surely not well contented that the head of so base a 
 llobin Hood should be sent so solemnly to England. It is no such 
 irophy of a notorious victory, and yet his friends make great advantage 
 of it here'' (Cecil to riorongh, Irish State Papers, May 26, 1597).
 
 TYRONE STANDS ALONE 269 
 
 an Ulsternian paramount over tliem.^ So 'iyione 
 considered it wise to make a two-months' truce in 
 the winter with the Earl of Ormonde, commissioned 
 by the Queen. But his demeanour was vastly 
 changed from his former courtliness. When the 
 parley took place, " he stationed his forces on several 
 hills in proud and insolent manner," as if to threaten 
 the Queen's representatives ; and when he was asked 
 what pledges he proposed to give for his future good 
 behaviour, he told them they held his hostages 
 already. Then breaking out he said, " I know what 
 you mean. You want one or both of my sons. 1 
 had rather see them dead." He told them bitterly 
 how he had been held in silken bondage and made an 
 Englishman, whilst his father's enemy, Tirlogh, was 
 raised to the chieftainship by the Queen's Govern- 
 ment. And thus haughtily he contested point by 
 point of his demand,^ bating nothing, and the sus- 
 
 ^ We have seeu a manifestation of this in ihe desire expressed iii 
 their petitions sent by Thomas Lally, stipulating that their lands should 
 be held by them in direct fee-simple from Tbilip himself. 
 
 - Tyrone's conditions do not appear to iao<lern eyes very unreason- 
 able : — 
 
 1. He demanded freedom of conscieme of all Irishmen. 
 
 2. Her Majesty's full pardon to himself and his adherents, and the 
 lestoration of himself in blood and dignity by Act of Parliament. 
 
 3. That it may please her Majesty, for that the abuses of her bad 
 officers hath been the beginning of all these troubles, and the Irishrv 
 (cannot away with the rigour of the law vipon every small occasion, 
 their bringing up being barbarous, to grant unto his Lordship authority 
 that Tyrone ma_\- be made a County Palatine, as the like is granted to 
 others in Ireland. 
 
 4. The withdrawal of all English garrisons from Tyrone '-and all 
 other parts of the Irishrv, for they are so terrified that they will not 
 account themselves in safety so long as her Majesty's forces are so near 
 at hand." 
 
 5. That all his adherents should be included in the nrrangement. and
 
 270 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 pension of hostilities that resulted hardly pretended 
 to be a peace. Tyrone had made up his mind to 
 fight, but to fight for his own hand, and no longer, if 
 he could avoid it, as a vassal of the King of Spain. 
 So long as he held to that resolution effective help 
 from Philip was impossible, and Tyrone hoped to do 
 without it- We shall see in a subsequent chapter 
 how he was driven by circumstances again to link 
 his cause with that of Catholic supremacy. 
 
 be confirmed iu their hereditary possessions, the Moores and Connors 
 also to have a reasonable portion of their predecessors' land. 
 
 6. That the former hostages he had given should be restored to him, 
 iK'W ones being given (Irish State Papers, December 23, T597). 
 
 J
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 The two sections of English Catholics and the succession — Arabella 
 Stuart versus the Infanta — Lord Beaucharap — Party conflicts in 
 England with regard to the peace with Spain — The iiims of the 
 Jesuits — Paralysis of the Spanish naval administration — Renewed 
 alarm in England — Its L;roundlessness — Parleys with Tyrone— 
 His renewed appeals to Spain — Critical condition of the English 
 rule in Ireland — The battle of Armagh. 
 
 The repeated threats and attempts at the invasion 
 of England and Ireland by Spain, and the constant 
 intercommunication between the disaffected Irish 
 chiefs and Philip's Government, had now (1597-98) 
 completed the estrangement of the majority of Eng- 
 lish Catholics at home and abroad from the irre- 
 concilable Jesuit faction. The string upon which 
 the latter had always harped was the natural repug- 
 nance of Englishmen to submit their country to the 
 yoke of a Scottish king ; but so long as Elizabeth 
 persisted in her strong determination to allow no 
 official decision or discussion as to her successor, 
 there were other alternatives open besides King 
 James and the Infanta, and every political move 
 of the last four years of the Queen's reign was 
 influenced by the open and covert intrigues which 
 were actively proceeding for the reversion of the 
 crown of England. 
 
 The Catholics in the country were still very nume- 
 rous, especially in the north, notwithstanding the 
 ruthless persecution of priests and recusants since
 
 272 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 i593j whilst the openly demonstrated dislike of the 
 Queen to the Puritans and to a frankly Protestant 
 service, kept alive the hope amongst the professors 
 of the ancient faith that some measure of toleration 
 might after all be conceded to them. But it must 
 have been evident to them that the much-longed-for 
 end could never be attained w^hilst to their religion 
 was attached the reproach of disloyalty to the Queen, 
 whose successful rule had made her personally 
 powerful beyond any of her predecessors : and the 
 English Catholics as a body, with their leaders the 
 secular priests, tried by might and main to convince 
 the Government that they had neither part nor lot 
 in the attempts at foreign invasion or in the murder- 
 plots, genuine and otherwise, which were so much 
 talked of by the few extremists in Flanders. Unfor- 
 tunately for the success of their cause, these loyal 
 Catholics were themselves divided, and possessed no 
 chief of sufficient authority and character to unite 
 them for a common end ; the energies and attention 
 of their priestly leaders being entirely occupied in 
 the long and violent altercation with the Jesuit 
 faction, which sprang out of the old dispute, and 
 came to a head in England in what is called the 
 Wisbech Stirs. ^ Whilst such men as Dr. Bagshaw, 
 
 ' Tlie first opiai rupture amongst the (Jatholic priests under arrest at 
 Wisbech took place in 1595, when the Jesuit Father Weston, disgusted, 
 as he says, with the "wlioring, drunkenness, and dicing" that went 
 on, was elected by eighteen of the priests who thouglit like himself, 
 "agent" or superintendent, and drew up rules for the decent govern- 
 ment of the prisoners. A minority, led by Dr. Bagshaw, repudiated 
 his elective authority, and a violent quarrel ensued. A temporary 
 reconciliation was j)atched up at the end of the year 1595 by Dr. 
 Dudley and Father Mush, but matters soon became more strained than 
 evei-. The priests desired the appointment of a Inshop with the Papal
 
 ENGLISH CATHOLICS DIVIDED 273 
 
 Fathers Mush and Bluet were hurling vituperation 
 at the Jesuits, and Fathers Persons and Lister were 
 repaying them with interest, the vital question for 
 them of the future religion of England was being 
 quietly settled behind their backs by clever poli- 
 ticians, who were practically of no religion at all. 
 
 Probably the majority of the "loyal" Catholics, 
 if it had been possible to poll them, would have 
 declared in favour of the succession of the King of 
 Scotland, whose artful professions of adhesion to 
 Rome and the known Catholicism of his wife had 
 greatly influenced the Papal, Italian, and Frencli 
 Churchmen, who dreaded an increase of Spanish 
 power. We have seen how persistently this section 
 of Catholics had worked ever since the death of 
 Mary Stuart to attain their ends, and how they had 
 been effectually checkmated by the political power 
 and money of Philip, whose main point of policy 
 was the exclusion of James at any cost. As the 
 Queen's age increased, and the demise of the crown 
 became ever more imminent, however, it is not sur- 
 
 episcopal authority over all the Catholic clergy, but this the Jesuits 
 prevented, and late in 1 597 the English seculars drew up a passionate 
 exposure of the Jesuit aims and methods for presentation to the Pope ; 
 but Persons, as we have seen in the text, had gone to Rome to quell 
 the cognate disturbances in the English College there, and persuaded 
 Cardinal Gaetano, the " Protector " of England at the Vatican, to 
 appoint Father Blackwell, a known ally of the Jesuits, Archpriest over 
 the English clergy. The dignity was a new one ; the appointment was 
 imderhand and irregular, and a large number of English secular priests 
 rebelled at once. Fathers Bishop and Charnock were sent to Rome to 
 lay their grievances before the Pope in 1598, but on their arrival 
 there they were arrested by the influence of the Jesuits, and their 
 prayer was angrily rejected by the Pope. Thenceforward the battle 
 between Jesuits and seculars went on for years with increasing bitter- 
 ness. The effects of this dispute upon the progress of events in Eng- 
 land wiU be noted in the text as they occur. 
 
 S
 
 274 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 prising that efforts should have been made by the 
 friends of other possible candidates, and by those 
 Englishmen who, whilst indignant at the idea of 
 submission to Spain, hated the idea of a Scottish 
 King ruling over what they considered the superior 
 nation, to discover some means of obtaining their 
 desires under a native sovereign. By the will of 
 Henry VIII. the heir to the throne was Lord Beau- 
 champ, the elder son of the Earl of Hertford, by 
 Katharine Grey, granddaughter of Mary Tudor, 
 Duchess of Suffolk ; but Hertford was timid and 
 unenterprising ; his marriage with Katharine was 
 of very doubtful legality, and in the case of his 
 father, the Protector Somerset, he had witnessed the 
 danger of aiming too high. His son had, therefore, 
 fallen into the background as a possible candidate^ 
 and the strong Protestant traditions of the family 
 would not be likely in any case to recommend him 
 to Catholics. Descending from Eleanor, the second 
 daughter of Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suffolk, were 
 the Earls of Derby and Cumberland, the former of 
 whom had frequently been mentioned, especially 
 by his kinsman Sir William Stanley, as a suitable 
 claimant for Catholics to adopt before the Infanta's 
 candidature was openly announced. He, however, 
 it will be recollected, had repudiated the approaches 
 made to him by Hesketh (p. 102), and for the 
 present stood aside. 
 
 The only other serious claimant was Lady Ara- 
 bella Stuart, the daughter of Darnley's younger 
 brother, Charles, Earl of Lennox, and consequently 
 first cousin to James VL She lived with her 
 imperious old maternal grandmother, the Countess
 
 ARABELLA STUART 275 
 
 Dowager of Shrewsbury (Bess of Hardwick), at this 
 time almost like a State prisoner, for she had 
 offended the Queen by her pride, her Mightiness, and 
 the constant hints at political and foreign intrigues 
 of which she was to be made an instrument She 
 was now a self-willed, passionate, clever young 
 woman, in her twenty-third year, angrily resenting 
 the severe restraint under which she suffered. In a 
 later chapter we shall see the extraordinary and un- 
 explained mystery in which she involved herself. 
 Her hysterical hints at some great State secret, com- 
 bined with a love affair in which she was the princi- 
 pal person, made most people think her mad ; but 
 though she talked in riddles — in evident imitation 
 of the Queen herself — there was probably much 
 more behind her babble than was believed at the 
 time or since. Sir William Stanley, in one of his 
 boasting conversations in Flanders in 1594, had said 
 that he should soon be in the service of a lady in 
 England, and when asked what lady, he replied, 
 Lady Arabella ; and in a letter written in October of 
 the same year from Francis Derrick, one of the 
 English refugees in Flanders, to one Henry Wick- 
 ham, a " servant " of Essex, we catch a glimpse of 
 some important negotiation about her. On page 
 221 reference is made in the address of Father 
 Persons to the King to an agent named Sterell, who 
 had been sent twice during the previous winter 
 ( 1 595) by certain English Earls to Flanders. Sterell 
 was a member of the household of the Earl of W"or- 
 cester, who, although he was not of royal blood, was 
 afterwards, as we shall see, the favourite native 
 candidate for the crown at the Spanish court ; and
 
 276 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 his servant, Sterell, who acted as spy in England for 
 the English refugees in Flanders, was really in the 
 pay of Phellips, the Government spy-master. From 
 the series of letters from Derrick above referred to, 
 it is evident that Sterell's mission from the " Earls " 
 in 1595 had reference to Arabella Stuart. 
 
 Political quidnuncs had proposed all sorts of 
 matches for her since her early childhood ; but in 
 1 591 we get in touch with a really important secret 
 negotiation, in which some of the highest English 
 nobility were evidently concerned, and which, if we 
 could get at the bottom of it, would explain many 
 things now obscure. Moody, who was a Catholic 
 agent in the Netherlands in the interests of Essex, 
 wrote to the Earl in October 1591,^ asking whether 
 he knew of a negotiation that was being carried on 
 by one Barnes " " touching the Lady Arabella," and 
 begging Essex to send him her portrait, " as there 
 was some one there (in Flanders) very desirous of see- 
 ing it." This some one was the Duke of Parma ; and 
 the plan of the moderate party was to bring about a 
 peace and alliance by marrying Arabella to Ranuccio, 
 the eldest son of Parma, whose descent gave him a 
 better claim than that of Philip to the English 
 crown, and to assure the sovereignty of Flanders to 
 Parma independent of Spain. This would have 
 been a master-stroke of policy, for it would effectu- 
 ally have shut the French out of Flanders, and have 
 given England a preponderant voice there, whilst 
 freeing her from all apprehension from Spain. To 
 
 1 Hatfield Papers, vol. iv. p. 144. 
 
 - This was the name of a man used by Sir R. Cecil for the transmis- 
 sion of spy letters. See letter from Paget to Cecil, April 27, 1598 
 (State Papers, Dom.).
 
 ARABELLA STUART 277 
 
 Moody a reply was sent by a scribe of Essex's,^ that 
 the latter knew nothing of the negotiation in ques- 
 tion, but would be glad to hear more about it from 
 the spy. That Arabella's portrait by Hilliard was 
 sent for Ranuccio's inspection is known," but the 
 ajffair was promptly nipped in the bud, as may be 
 imagined, when it came to the ears of Essex ; and 
 the innocent lady herself was sent from court to 
 the semi-imprisonment of Hardwick Hall under the 
 keeping of her gorgon grandmother. 
 
 By the efforts, doubtless, of her young Catholic 
 aunt, the Countess of Shrewsbury, who was her 
 great friend, and some of her Talbot and Cavendish 
 uncles, however, it is clear, as we have seen, that 
 communications were again opened in the autumn 
 of 1594 between Arabella's friends and the Anglo- 
 Spanish fugitives in Flanders. The Spanish Govern- 
 ment was assured that she w^as a Catholic ; ' and in 
 the letters from Derrick to Wickham, already 
 referred to (October 1594), the latter is informed 
 that the proposal with regard to Arabella is accepted, 
 and that all communications are to pass through the 
 hands of Father Sherwood. With the formal adop- 
 tion of the Infanta's claim shortly afterwards by the 
 Spanish party, the candidature of Arabella was 
 temporarily dropped by them, but at the time of 
 which we are now writing (1598), a considerable 
 number of English Catholics had come round again 
 to the idea that an arrangement for peace and 
 alliance with the new sovereign of Flanders, in 
 
 1 Hatfield Papers, vol. iv. p. 156. 
 -' Miss Bradley's Life and Letters of Arabella Stuart. 
 ^ Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. She professed to be a Pnritan in 
 England.
 
 278 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 which the marriage and succession of Arabella to 
 the English throne should form a part, would be a 
 good solution of all their troubles.^ This was a 
 return to the old idea of the Cecils. An English 
 sovereign in close alliance, politically or matrimoni- 
 ally, or both, with a " Duke of Burgundy," reigning 
 in Flanders independently of Spain, would be a 
 renewal of the balance of power in Europe, which 
 had held good for centuries until disturbed by the 
 calamity of the marriage of the heiress of Aragon 
 and Castile with the heir of Burgundy. It was 
 instinctively felt, too, that the Infanta's chance of 
 winning England by Spanish arms would grow less 
 than ever on her father's approaching death. Her 
 half-brother, the new king, would certainly not 
 plunge his already bankrupt country deeper into the 
 slough to win a crown for a relative whom he dis- 
 liked ; and the new dominion of Flanders that 
 would fall to the Infanta and her husband, the 
 Cardinal Archduke, would occupy all their attention, 
 without the need for seeking risk and adventure 
 elsewhere. 
 
 So as the star of the Infanta waned in England, 
 that of Arabella Stuart seemed to rise, and the party 
 of "loyal" Catholics was thus further divided by the 
 adhesion of a section to the candidature of the King 
 of Scots, whilst another portion was secretly working 
 
 * An English Catholic refugee in Flanders writes to Cecil (State 
 Papers, Dom., February lo, 1598), when sending him a book: "The 
 bearer will inform you how different our cogitations be from what our 
 adversaries would make the world believe. We desire peace, and only 
 wish these two kingdoms might flourish again in the old amity." This 
 is one of many similar declarations to be found in the State Papers at 
 this period.
 
 RIVAL CLAIMANTS 279 
 
 for Arabella Stuart.^ The mesh of the iutrigue was 
 tangled in the extreme, and will probably never be 
 entirely unravelled ; but this much may be adduced 
 from the evidence which will be quoted in its proper 
 chronological order : that some of the most power- 
 ful of the nobility of England before the Queen's 
 death intended, with Spanish support, to raise Ara- 
 bella and a fit husband to the throne jointly on 
 the demise of the crown : that Cecil and some of 
 the Howards were cognisant of this plan and did 
 not oppose it, their intention from the first being 
 to betray it and sacrifice their friends ; and that 
 Essex with his Puritan party, being naturally ex- 
 cluded from participation in such a scheme, did his 
 best to frustrate it, and was himself crushed in the 
 attempt. 
 
 We have seen (p. 257) that when Captain Elliott 
 left the Cornish coast in the summer of 1597 on his 
 treasonable voyage to Spain to direct the Adelantado's 
 fleet to Falmouth, he was in close communication with 
 Lord Eeauchamp, the heir to the crown by the will 
 of Henry VIII. ; and Elliott subsequently expressed 
 his regret that he had not carried the nobleman to 
 
 ^ An intercepted bundle of letters (quoted in State Papers, Dom., 
 May 1598, contained a letter dated February 1597 from an English 
 Catholic in Spain, speaking of the going of the Adelantado's fleet to 
 England, says : " When the fleet would be ready, as they prayed for 
 the day when the good Prince of Spain might be placed in England 
 and married to the gentlewoman there, so that they (the refugees) 
 might go and end their lives in their own country." This suggestion 
 for a marriage between the young Philip III. and Arabella was pro- 
 bably notiiiug but loose talk. We know it was never seriously intended 
 by Spain, but doubtless it had many well-wishers amongst the Spanish 
 party of English Catholics, and perhaps was one of the dreams of 
 Arabella herself.
 
 28o TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Spain with him.^ At the same period Father Cecil, 
 writing from Madrid to the Earl of Essex, told him 
 of the project of carrying "two great personages" 
 out of England, Father Gordon, the Jesuit uncle of 
 Huntly, having informed him some time before 
 "that Lady Arabella was shortly to be conveyed to 
 Spain." When Father Cecil arrived in Spain, he 
 had met there a Captain North, who had been sent 
 on this business, and who said that Arabella her- 
 self was in favour of it, "her common speech being 
 that she thought no match in England good enough 
 for her." North asserted that he had been sent by 
 her to Rome, Germany, and Spain on his matri- 
 monial errand, and had negotiated with the younger 
 Archduke Albert, the son of Archduke Charles. A 
 suggestion at the same time was made by one 
 Sakill in Spain to carry thither the eldest sister 
 of the Earl of Derby ; but Father Cecil very justly 
 observes that no favour was likely to be intended 
 to these pretenders, "but to lessen the number of 
 their (the Spaniards') antagonists, and to reserve 
 them, in any event, in case their own card {i.e. the 
 Infanta) should fail them." 
 
 These various suggestions for aiding the Infanta's 
 cause by cajoling or kidnapping to Spain rival 
 English claimants probably never passed beyond 
 the stage of harebrained schemes : but it is certain 
 that any efibrt that Essex, James Stuart, or the 
 French could make to prevent an arrangement with 
 
 ^ In a letter written by the sugan Earl of Desmond to the King of 
 Spain in 1 599, printed in Pac.ata Hibernia, he mentions that a certain 
 Captain Roche would have carried the heir-apparent of the crown of 
 England to Spain, but that he had been betrayed by his own men. 
 This probably refers to the plan for abducting Lord Beavxchamp.
 
 DYNASTIC INTRIGUES 281 
 
 the Archduke in Flanders, which would also have 
 the effect of bringing Arabella to the front, would 
 be exerted to the utmost. The mere suggestion of 
 such a thing set a flood of gossip loose about the 
 intention of Henry IV. himself to marn^ Arabella, 
 with the blessing of Elizabeth and the acknowledged 
 succession to the English crown. This alarmed the 
 Spaniards, and probably explains their renewed ap- 
 proaches to Arabella at this period (1597-98). It 
 was obvious, however, that the Cecil party and 
 Elizabeth herself would never countenance such an 
 arrangement ; and when Henry IV. had made peace 
 with Spain and settled upon his Italian marriage, 
 the purely Spanish party had no farther use for 
 Arabella until the Infanta's candidature for the 
 crown was finally dropped. At a later period, as 
 we shall see, the Spanish interest coalesced to some 
 extent with the traditionary conservative elements 
 in England itself, as against the Scottish, Italian, 
 French, and English Puritan interests, which sided 
 with James's candidature. It was the cunning 
 secrecy of Cecil towards the moderate party that 
 his father and he had created which finally raised 
 James to the throne, with Cecil as his all-powerful 
 Minister, and extinguished the high hopes of Ara- 
 bella Stuart and others. 
 
 The efforts of the two divergent interests were 
 clearly seen during the negotiations for peace in the 
 winter of 1 597-98. After the recapture of Amiens by 
 the French in the autumn, it was quite evident that 
 both France and Spain were utterly exhausted, and 
 could fight no more. The Pope and the general of 
 the Cordeliers had long been striving to bring about
 
 282 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 peace, and at length their overtures were listened 
 to. Henry IV. obtained all he wanted or could ask 
 for, a return territorially to the status quo in 1559, 
 and there was no reason for him to continue fight- 
 ing. It will be remembered, however, that he had 
 pledged himself positively by the treaty of 1596, 
 which had so much offended Lord Burghley, to make 
 no separate peace without including Elizabeth and 
 the States ; and a hundred questions were raised by 
 the English before they would consent to join in 
 such negotiations. It was a vital matter for Henry ; 
 and the Pope told him that he need keep no faith 
 with heretics ; but the gallant Bearnais determined 
 to make an effort to include his allies in the treaty, 
 in pursuance of his pledge. His envoy, De Maisse, 
 came to England in December 1597 to persuade 
 Elizabeth to join in the negotiations. Essex had 
 long been in disgrace, and his first sulky appearance 
 at court coincided with the presence of De Maisse. 
 He was, of course, all for prosecuting the war with 
 renewed vigour, for sending Henry large subsidies, 
 and so forth ; for he dreaded, as did Henry himself, 
 that Elizabeth and Burghley would now revert to 
 the traditional policy and themselves make a sepa- 
 rate peace with Spain, leaving France out. De 
 Maisse was received by Elizabeth four times, and 
 even then, in her old age, the consummate skill and 
 invincible vanity which had made her the great 
 Queen she was showed more conspicuously than 
 ever. She bared her withered bosom to the pit of 
 the stomach for the Frenchman's delectation ; ^ she 
 
 ' Journal de Maisse, Archives Affaires Etrangeres. Quoted by Prevot 
 Paradol.
 
 RIVAL ENGLISH PARTIES 283 
 
 talked of her foolishness and ugliness to provoke 
 compliments, which she swallowed ; she apologised 
 for her dowdiness when she was clothed in silver 
 tissue and loaded with jewels. She was coquettish, 
 gay, frivolous, and indelicate ; but she Avas dignified, 
 and keenly alert when the question of English inte- 
 rests was at issue, and she lost no point in the game. 
 De Maisse saw that she was playing with him, and 
 at length he told Lord Burghley that the long delay 
 in giving him an answer, yea or nay, as to the Queen's 
 willingness to negotiate for peace, relieved his master 
 of his pledges to refrain from making a separate 
 treaty. It was impossible, Elizabeth said, for her 
 to negotiate finally with an Archduke ; she could 
 only make peace with the King of Spain himself; and 
 how could she tell that the Archduke's powers were 
 sufficient even to negotiate ? All this was simply to 
 delay, whilst she aroused the fears of the Dutch, and 
 played her own game during the month or more that 
 De Maisse was being kept dangling about Whitehall. 
 Both he and his master knew that the " loyal " 
 English Catholics in Flanders, under the leader- 
 ship of Charles Paget, were busy with separate 
 negotiations between Elizabeth and the Archduke 
 himself. 
 
 Approaches had been made by Cecil's agent, 
 Barnes, for an understanding in the previous year, 
 but had been rejected by the Archduke ; but on the 
 26th December (1597) Paget wrote to Cecil, at the 
 Archduke's request, expressing a desire for a friendly 
 settlement with England, and thenceforward a brisk 
 exchange of notes took place. In one of the last State 
 Papers that old Lord Burghley wrote, he sets down
 
 284 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 by his favourite method, in opposing columns, the 
 advantages and disadvantages of a peace as pro- 
 posed by France. It would be an advantage that 
 France should have Calais restored ; but it would be a 
 disadvantage that the English could not then hope to 
 recover it. English trade and wealth would be vastly 
 increased by a peace, and the Queen could then 
 " avoid the insolence of the King of Scots ; " but it 
 would be inconvenient to suddenly disband so many 
 soldiers. The main difficulty, however, was that 
 the Dutch States would not listen to any peace in 
 which their absolute independence was not assured, 
 and this Spanish pride would not brook. It was, 
 moreover, not to the advantage of England that the 
 new Republic should become friendly with France 
 and at peace with Spain, for that would have left 
 England isolated indeed now that Henry was a 
 Catholic. So, although Sir Robert Cecil went on a 
 hollow embassy to France, he did nothing but re- 
 proach Henry for his desertion of his allies ; and 
 whilst on the one hand the States were encouraged 
 by Elizabeth to continue their resistance a outrance, 
 the English Government on the other became more 
 and more amiable to the Archduke, and the hopes 
 of all sections of " loyal " English Catholics rose 
 higher and higher. 
 
 Their plans were various, and mostly visionary. 
 Constable, the ardent young poet in France, was full 
 of the notion that he could by persuasion convert 
 the Queen herself.^ Charles Paget had a proposal 
 to request Henry IV., as one of the conditions of 
 peace, to urge upon the Pope the withdrawal of 
 
 ^ Petit to Phellips, State Papers, Dom., October 21, 1597.
 
 THE MODERATE CATHOLICS 285 
 
 all the Jesuits from England, prohibiting them to 
 return. In a violent attack upon the Jesuit methods 
 he says to Cecil, " I can assure you that the prin- 
 cipal Catholics, both in England and on this side of 
 the sea, that have longest endured for the cause will 
 be glad thereof, for as the said Catholics will not 
 receive them (the Jesuits) in their houses, they are 
 termed by the Jesuits * politics ' or old Catholics." ^ 
 He assured Cecil that it would not be difficult to 
 persuade the Pope to do this, " for if Persons had 
 not gone to Rome just when he did, with great re- 
 commendations from Spain, it would have been done 
 before." The idea evidently was that, if Jesuit 
 methods were banished from England, and the loyalty 
 of the mass of the English Catholics was demon- 
 strated, toleration for their religion would follow. 
 The foreign Catholics of the King of Scots' party 
 also were not idle. Cardinal Malvasia, the Nuncio, 
 whom we saw conferring with Pury Ogilvie in 
 Brussels, submitted (October 1597) a long discourse 
 to the Pope in favour of investing James with the 
 crown of England, on the assurance that both the 
 King and his wife would be "converted." "But 
 to execute this plan the Pope should recall from 
 England all Jesuits, and such priests as are known 
 to be of the contrary faction, leaving only those who 
 are in favour of the Scot." The same informer (Petit) 
 says that Lord Dacre had gone to France, hoping to 
 make his peace with Elizabeth, and his son was to 
 follow him ; " and some day the Earl of West- 
 moreland will take the same course. They like her 
 Majesty's religion better than they like the Scot." 
 
 ' State Papers, Doni., June 1598.
 
 2 86 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 It must have been evident now to all English 
 Catholics that the Jesuit plan of forcing Catholic 
 supremacy upon England by violent aggressive action 
 and foreign invasion had resulted in utter failure. 
 As each successive loudly vaunted Spanish fleet had 
 crept back baffled and disgraced, not only had the 
 growing impotence of Spain been proclaimed to the 
 scoffing world, but the popular Queen and the 
 Protestant cause had become stronger in their con- 
 fidence to resist attack. The Catholic cause at the 
 same time had grown increasingly odious to the 
 mass of Englishmen, because it had been possible to 
 blacken it by connecting it with treason and lack of 
 patriotism. This had been the cause of the ruin of 
 the Catholic League in France, and had ended there 
 in the triumph of the Moderates, with religious 
 toleration under a mild Catholic supremacy, and the 
 expulsion of Jesuits from the realm. It was no 
 wonder, therefore, that the English Catholics should 
 be anxious, by a somewhat similar process, to obtain 
 at least toleration, and to dissever themselves from 
 extreme methods and aims which, after eighteen 
 years of constant effort, had only brought to them 
 increased sufferings, and had rendered ultimate suc- 
 cess more hopeless than ever. The great majority 
 of the Catholics would have been content now to 
 work for freedom of religious observance, trusting 
 that time, patience, and opportunity might at some 
 future time enable them to gain the upper hand in 
 the State ; and, as we have seen, even many of those 
 who had grown old in exile were wishful for a re- 
 conciliation which should restore them to the land 
 of their birth and to their duty as subjects, whilst
 
 JESUITS OPPOSE TOLERATION 287 
 
 assuring them against persecution on account of 
 their faith. 
 
 But compromise, or any other agreement with the 
 " heretic," was of all things that least desired by the 
 Jesuit faction.^ Domination of the State was what 
 they aimed at, in which the whole national life was 
 to be bound up with and subjected to the sole over- 
 lordship of Christ — of whom they were the officers. 
 Kings, potentates, even popes, were to be dwarfed 
 "finally by the rule of Christ alone ; and when Jesuits 
 served kings, as they served Philip, it was only for 
 the purpose of using his power to humble in the 
 long run the caste to which he belonged. No doubt 
 the Dominican order had similar dreams, with the 
 Inquisition as its instrument in Spain, but the secular 
 sovereigns had been able to turn this great engine 
 to their own ends. The Society of Jesus was founded 
 on principles specially devised to prevent this in its 
 own case ; and it was perfectly consistent with those 
 principles in utterly rejecting and opposing the efforts 
 of the secular and regular clergy to arrive at a modus 
 Vivendi in England, which might leave the question 
 of Catholic supremacy in the country to be decided 
 in the future. 
 
 1 A very interesting treatise, written at this period (January 1598) 
 from Rome by Henry Tichborne, S.J., sets forth the Jesuit view. Their 
 hopes of siiicess in England, he says, are founded on the high credit in 
 which Father Persons is held in Rome, and Cresswell and Holt in 
 Madrid and Brussels. He rejoices in the persecutions in England as 
 the principal source of Jesuit strength. The only thing to be feared, 
 h(i says, is the granting of liberty of conscience in England, " which is 
 supposed to proceed from some deeper brain than our ordinary wits are 
 wont to yield."' The writer then warns his fellows against " such as 
 gape after that liberty," which, he says, will be so " dangerous that what 
 rigour of law could not compass in so many years, liberty and levity 
 will effectuate in twenty days" (State Papers, Domestic, Eliz. cclxii. 
 Printed in full in Law's " Jesuits and Seculars ").
 
 2 88 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Whilst, therefore, the mass of Catholics at home 
 and abroad were striving to prove their loyalty to 
 the crown, the Spanish Jesuit faction, with undi- 
 minished boldness and ability, were working still to 
 obtain possession of England by means of foreign 
 forces. 
 
 The Adelantado's fleet had straggled back to Spain, 
 disheartened and plague-beset, in November 1597. 
 The King was slowly dying, in agonies almost beyond 
 human endurance ; his exchequer was drained ; his 
 people literally starving ; land untilled ; industries 
 ruined ; corruption and demoralisation supreme in 
 the administration, and the whole country was a 
 prey to spiritual disillusionment and pagan reaction, 
 under the guise of writhing devotion. But, withal, 
 the indomitable spirit of Philip himself burned 
 brightly in his decaying body, and the Adelantado 
 was summoned quickly, not as the news-letters and 
 spies reported, to be hanged, but to consult for the 
 despatch of a new expedition in the following 
 spring. A Scottish sea-captain, coming from Lisbon 
 in January 1598, reported to the English officers 
 that the fleet making ready at Ferrol was "to be 
 double the strength of that which came last year," ^ 
 and that the purpose was to invade England in 
 April or May, whilst in Lisbon itself twelve ships 
 were being fitted out, and twenty-two bands of 
 soldiers training. 
 
 There is amongst Lopez de Soto's papers,' a 
 discourse or report for the King's guidance, written 
 soon after the Adelantado's return from his interview 
 
 ^ state Papers, Domestic, of the date. Report of Wilson. 
 2 Britisli ^Mufieum, Add. MSS. 28,420, 122.
 
 PLANS FOR A FOURTH ARMADA 289 
 
 with Philip in the winter of 1597, with recom- 
 mendations as to the measures to be taken for the 
 success of the new Armada of invasion. The paper 
 could never have been written by Lopez de Soto 
 himself, as it ignores all the practical difficulties ; 
 and its obvious and sanctimonious generalities 
 almost prove it to have been one of those inept 
 ^^ consultas" which the Councils usually drew up 
 after the King decided upon any course in principle. 
 But it is extremely instructive, nevertheless, as 
 showing how entirely affairs were managed from 
 hand to mouth, and how the King's secretive 
 monopoly of initiative paralysed all action. " As 
 his Majesty has decided to take the course de- 
 manded by the good of Christendom," says the 
 document, "we will proceed to consider and report 
 upon the best means by which the success of the 
 undertaking may be assured. The first is to re- 
 commend it to God, and to endeavour to amend 
 our sins ; but since his Majesty has already given 
 a general order to this effect, and has appointed a 
 commander who usually insists upon this point, 
 it will be only needful to take care that the order 
 is obeyed and to promulgate it again. It must be 
 borne in mind that the enemy is very vigilant and 
 alert, and that he is well exercised. This, together 
 with the need for fitting out our expedition, since 
 we cannot divert him by going out and meeting 
 him, necessitates that, both in Spain and elsewhere, 
 we should be ready at all points, so that every place 
 should be able to defend itself without calling upon 
 others." This bland beginning leads up to a re- 
 commendation equally silly, considering the appalling 
 
 T
 
 2 90 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 state of exhaustion into which the country had sunk. 
 " All these necessities everywhere," it is sagely 
 pointed out, will call for a vast expenditure, for 
 which the money must be collected " with extra- 
 ordinary rapidity, and by every licit means that can 
 be devised. In order to examine what means are 
 licit, a committee of theologians must be summoned, 
 to whom so great a matter may be confided, and 
 their opinion should be adopted." The order 
 already given to Count Santa Gadea to land and 
 drill the army is approved of, so that it may be 
 all ready for the spring ; and in the meanwhile he 
 must be supplied with money and victuals from 
 Galicia. " If progress is made in Ireland this 
 winter, as is hoped, this army may be increased in 
 the beginning of the summer by a sufficient number 
 of Irish troops, and we may then cross over from 
 there (Ireland) to Wales ; and if at the same time 
 galleys be sent to Calais, whence a powerful army — 
 collected ostensibly for other purposes by the Arch- 
 duke — can be carried across, it will be a godsend 
 to the main enterprise. At the same time the 
 negotiations of Father Persons and other Catholics 
 will help." The consulta then dictates, at great 
 length, the diplomatic steps to be taken to dissuade 
 the King of Scots, ^ the Dutch, the Danes, the 
 
 ^ Excuses are proposed to be adopted for sending embassies from the 
 Arcliduke to the various Protestant j^otentates on this matter, the pre- 
 text in the case of the King of Scots being " to inform him of that liar 
 that came here." This refers no doubt to the mission of Pury Ogilvie. 
 The proposal to send an envoy to Scotland appears to have been 
 adopted. The notorious George Ker, accompanied by a secretary of 
 the Archduke named Don Diego de Spinoza, went from Flanders to 
 Scotland via Calais in February, and were shortly afterwards followed 
 by another emissary named Cunninghajue. Full information of these
 
 ENGLISH PREPARATIONS 291 
 
 Italians, and the Shereef of Barbary from aiding the 
 English ; but it ends, as it begins, with the opinion 
 that " the principal thing is the money which can be 
 collected legally, since what is illegal is prohibited ; 
 and this is a time when no licit means must be spared." 
 Let us contrast this mealy-mouthed impracticability 
 with the methods adopted in England to meet the 
 threatened new attack. The recommendation to 
 send the Spanish galleys to Calais was adopted 
 rapidly, doubtless in order to make use of the port 
 in landing large reinforcements for the Archduke, 
 before the signature of the treaty with France 
 deprived the Spaniards of it. In any case, England 
 was cast into a renewed ferment by the news 
 received in February 1598 that a Spanish fleet had 
 arrived unmolested in the narrow seas. From a 
 Spanish sailor captured and carried into Dover 
 it was learnt that 38 llyboats full of soldiers, 5000 
 of them, had sailed under the veteran Admiral 
 Bertondona from Corunna to Calais. The sailor 
 said that they had left 18 large well-appointed ships 
 at Corunna, and that 5000 Italian troops v»ere in 
 the neighbourhood ready for embarkation, but 
 many of them were dying of dysentery. After the 
 troops had been landed at Calais, the 38 flyboats, 
 he said, were to return to Lisbon to be re-victualled, 
 and then to sail under Diego Brochero.^ 
 
 embassies were sent by Colville in Boulogne to Essex, and the intelli- 
 gence aroused great uneasiness in England, the belief being that James 
 Avas now in close negotiation with Spain. As we have seen above, the 
 object of the Spaniards was simply to prevent James from aiding the 
 English against them. (See Colville's letters in Hatfield Papers, vol. 
 viii.) 
 
 1 Examination of Pedro Martinez. State Popers, Domestic, Feb- 
 ruary 16, 1598.
 
 292 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 All this was alarming enough, for it was known 
 that the peace was as good as signed between 
 France and Spain, and Secretary Cecil himself was 
 crossing the Channel on his mission to Henry IV. 
 Essex seems to have been the first to receive the 
 news, and he wrote post-haste to Cecil, telling him 
 that the Spaniards were in Calais roads. The Earl 
 of Cumberland had been ordered to go thither 
 immediately with such ships as he could collect, 
 and to follow the Spaniards wherever they went. 
 The Lord Admiral, with his kinsman Lord Thomas 
 Howard, had rushed down to Gravesend and Queen- 
 borough to fit out fresh vessels with all speed. 
 Lord Cobham had ridden as hard as horses could 
 gallop to Dover Castle ; the Lord Chamberlain had 
 gone to the Isle of Wight with equal speed, and 
 Sir Walter Ralegh was commissioned to furnish 
 provisions all along the coast ; whilst Essex him- 
 self was to stand ready to repel attack at any 
 point. " Above all, the Queen commands that you 
 (Cecil) are not to put to sea." This, be it recollected, 
 w^as only one day after the news came that the 
 Spanish flyboats were in English waters. A letter 
 bringing at the same time the intelligence to his 
 father and the Lord Admiral had also come from 
 Cecil himself,^ who had safely crossed to Dieppe. 
 Burghley was dying, and was only useful now in 
 council ; but Howard wrote to him from Graves- 
 end (February 17) deploring that so few English 
 ships had remained in the Straits of Dover, most 
 
 ^ The letter bore the superscription, " For life, for life, for very 
 life," and had a gallows drawn upon it as a hint to the postman of the 
 consequences of delay.
 
 ENGLISH ACTIVITY 293 
 
 of them having gone west to escort Cecil to Dieppe 
 — "and yet," he says, "her Majesty commanded 
 me to lessen them. In my opinion these ships 
 (the Spaniards) will watch a turn to do something 
 on our coast ; and if they hear our ships are gone 
 to Dieppe, I think them beasts if they do not burn 
 or spoil Dover or Sandwich. What 4000 men 
 may do on a sudden I leave to your Lordship's 
 judgment. I hope it shall cost them dear if they 
 attempt it. There is nothing here, at Gravesend, to 
 impeach anything but two silly forts." ^ 
 
 There was no dismay here ; no boggling about 
 the theologian's views of what was licit in a 
 moment of national emergency : only a determina- 
 tion to resist invasion to the death, unprepared 
 though England was.' Warned by the threat at 
 Falmouth in the previous year, Sir Nicholas Parker 
 had been sent to fortify the place. Sir Francis 
 Godolphin had mustered his Cornish levies and 
 was standing ready ; whilst, as we have seen, not 
 an hour was lost, when the danger in the narrow 
 sea was known, in buckling on the national armour 
 to resist. But there need have been no fear. The 
 wind blew dead off Calais, and eighteen of the fly- 
 
 1 Lord Admiral to Lord Burghley, February 17, 1598. State Papers, 
 Domestic. 
 
 - Even Cecil and Essex pulled together in this hour of danger. The 
 Earl had promised the Secretary that he would not take advantage of 
 his absence to injure him or to bring about any change, and he kept 
 his "word. We liave seen that he wrote to Cecil the hour that he heard 
 the news, and Cecil wrote to him, on the day of his arrival at Dieppe : 
 " As the Queen's affairs must have a good portion of our minds, 1 do 
 hope, now that God has disposed us to love and kindness, we shall 
 overcome all petty doubts about what the world may judge of our 
 correspondency ' (State Papers, Domestic, Cecil to Essex, February ig, 
 1598).
 
 294 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 boats, huddled under the guns of the fortress to 
 escape the Earl of Cumberland's ships, were lost. 
 The rest of them, when they got into the harbour, 
 and the main English squadron came up from 
 Dieppe, dared not venture out again for fear of 
 the English, and their absence crippled the arma- 
 ment fitting out in Spain. 
 
 In April an English Catholic of the Jesuit faction 
 wrote from Lisbon already casting doubt upon the 
 possibility of any attempt being made upon England 
 that year. " Alas ! " he says, " the King is not well 
 provided with means for recovering our country 
 and establishing the Catholic religion there." The 
 theologians had probably not yet settled what were 
 the "licit" ways of raising the wind. The celerity 
 of the English methods had already, in the six 
 weeks that had elapsed since the flyboats came to 
 Calais, enabled the Earl of Cumberland to assume 
 the offensive. " The archpirate Cumberland is re- 
 ported to be on the coast," writes the Catholic in 
 Lisbon, " so that the five great carricks for the 
 East Indies dare not go forth. Pray entertain all 
 good Catholics in devotion, and what the King 
 cannot do this year, he will do next. Want of 
 skill in the mariners' last voyage and the sending 
 of those ships to Calais has weakened his naval 
 force, and sickness his land forces. However, 
 the heretics are defending their coasts at home, so 
 there is no fear o\' their making any attempt here." 
 
 In fact, famine and pestilence, in combination 
 with the administrative incompetence, of which we 
 have seen instances in the documents quoted, had 
 already made another expedition to England im-
 
 SPAIN'S UTTER EXHAUSTION 295 
 
 possible in 1598. So abjectly terrified were the 
 Spaniards, moreover, at the mere presence of Cum- 
 berland's ships in their waters, that the five great 
 Indiamen outward bound were brought again to 
 the quay at Lisbon and discharged, their cargoes 
 coming as a very boon from heaven to the famished 
 city. The annual fleet for America, too, dared not 
 sail from Seville for fear of capture ; ^ and thus the 
 whole great commerce of Spain for the year was 
 stopped, to the ruin of merchants and the despair 
 of Philip's treasurers, because a few English ships 
 were on the coast,^ although a much stronger force, 
 45 ships, we are told, were now ready for sea in 
 Corunna harbour, and the Adelantado's fleet of 20 
 great ships and 140 small craft still lay in Ferrol 
 unable to get crews. ^ 
 
 A foe thus dispirited and so exhausted in moral 
 and material resource was ludicrously incapable of 
 forcing Catholic supremacy upon England at the 
 sword's point. Spain, like a bankrupt ex-millionaire 
 or a palsied prize-fighter, continued to inspire respect 
 or fear by the tradition of her former potency, 
 which itself had largely depended in her best days 
 upon the artificial spiritual exaltation bred of re- 
 ligious intolerance. But the strengthening effects of 
 the stimulant were mostly gone now, except amongst 
 
 ^ Van Harnack to Cecil from Lisbon, May i, 1598. State Papers, 
 Domestic. 
 
 - A shipmaster from Lisbon reports to Cecil in .lune (State Papers, 
 Domestic), that the Adelantado with 20 great ships and 140 others 
 was at Ferrol, but had no mariners. Two forts had been built at the 
 mouth of the harbour for fear of the English attacking the ships as 
 they lay at anchor. There were 1 5,000 soldiers, but sickness was very 
 prevalent, and every one was greatly afraid of the English fleet. 
 
 ^ Report of Savage, February 18, 1598. State Papers, Domestic.
 
 296 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 the very ignorant. Gross superstition and a slavish 
 obedience to religious forms barely veiled the blackest 
 paganism. There was no longer a confident belief 
 that the Spaniards were the chosen militia of the 
 Lord, for they themselves saw that the contemned 
 "heretic" worked his will with them on the sea 
 whenever he met them. Priests and friars might 
 urge as before upon Spaniards the sacred duty of 
 making other nations as perfect in the eye of Heaven 
 as they were themselves. It still flattered their 
 native pride and the vanity of a people sunk in 
 poverty, sloth, and ignorance to be told that their 
 sovereign was the richest and most powerful on 
 earth, and that they themselves were a people in- 
 finitely superior to all others. But they individually 
 were content to sit down and enjoy the fact. They, 
 poor wretches, like other peoples of their time, were 
 pressed for service when the King deigned to need 
 their carcasses, but they were no longer upheld, as 
 they had been in 1588, with the assurance of inevit- 
 able heaven-sent victory over the enemies of the 
 Lord. They went forth now trembling with fear at 
 the " devilish folk," and with dumb misgivings that, 
 sacred banners and blessed beads notwithstanding, 
 the powers of darkness were stronger than the 
 powers of light. Thus one by one the weapons by 
 which Philip had dreamed of forcing religious uni- 
 formity upon the world were bending in the hands 
 of their wielders. The spiritual exaltation of his 
 people had faded in the face of repeated failure, the 
 national ambitions behind his devout professions had 
 been found out, and the English Catholics, who had 
 so long served him for a stalking-horse, were yearn-
 
 HOPES OF PEACE 297 
 
 ing for concord under their national flag on almost 
 any conditions which would leave them unmolested 
 for their faith. 
 
 This was the feeling that prompted most moderate 
 men in England during the spring of 1598 to hope 
 and believe that means would be found to bring 
 about peace between England and Spain, even if it 
 meant the abandonment by Elizabeth of the Dutch. 
 " We are all of opinion that the peace goes for- 
 ward," wrote John Chamberlain on the 20th May. . . . 
 Barnevelt, the agent and advocate of the States, is 
 here, and hath had audience these tw^o days to- 
 gether, but I fear we are deafe on that side and 
 no musike will please us unles it be to the tune of 
 peace." ^ Essex, as usual, struggled against a paci- 
 cation which would draw England into any com- 
 promise with Spain and the Catholics, and Lord 
 Burghley, almost with his dying breath, solemnly 
 rebuked the young Earl for his attitude ;" but the 
 signature of the peace of Vervins and the vigorous 
 renewed action of the Archduke against the States 
 finally made it necessary for Elizabeth to continue 
 her active support of the latter, whilst still making 
 the approaches towards Spain invariably resorted to 
 by the Cecil party when France was at peace. ^ 
 
 1 Letters of John Chamberlain. Camden Society and State Papers, 
 Domestic. 
 
 ^ Essex wrote an elaborate and eloquent " Apology " for his action at 
 this time. It was reprinted in 1603, and is usually included in Francis 
 Bacon's works, although it is not by him. 
 
 ^ In July the States sent three representatives to beg the Queen to 
 continue the war vigorously in their aid, " as in her Council there are 
 not lacking those who recommend this course, chiefly the Earl of Essex, 
 but the Lord Treasurer is opposed, and more important still the Queen 
 herself is inclined to peace " (The Venetian Ambassador in France to 
 the Doge).
 
 298 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 The principal argument used by tiie advocates of 
 a settlement, besides the obvious advantages it vrould 
 bring to commerce, and the need for national tran- 
 quillity, was the threatening state of afi'airs in Ire- 
 land.-^ We left Tyrone at the close of the year 1597 
 enjoying a two-months' sulky truce instead of the 
 two years' cessation for which he had asked. The 
 Irish Government had continued to press the Queen 
 for strong reinforcements, for it was evident now 
 that Tyrone meant to head a great rising of the 
 north and west. The Council in Dublin, whose 
 policy towards Tyrone made peace impossible, to 
 the despair of soldiers like Norreys and Fenton, 
 were inept and doubly unable to conduct the war 
 they provoked, first, by reason of their own slow 
 bureaucratic stupidity, and secondly, because the 
 home Government sent the resources they prayed 
 for in grudging driblets, which always made large 
 operations impossible. In the meanwhile Leinster 
 was being ravaged by O'Connors, O'Mores, Molloys, 
 and O'Byrnes with the assistance of numbers of 
 
 ^ John Chamberlain writes (May 20) : " Another motive to the peace 
 is the troubles of Ireland, which are like to put the Quene to exceding 
 charge, and, withal, there appears to be a black clowde in Scotland 
 that threatens a storm." " Matters in Ireland grow daily worse and 
 worse, so that unles they have round and speedy succour, all is like to 
 go to wracke. The Council have consulted about it these three or fower 
 days, but I hear of no resolution, but only that 4000 men shal be sent at 
 leisure." On the 31st May the same indefatigable gossip writes to his 
 friend : " In the meane time tlie state of Ireland,stands on ill terms, for 
 we are so wholly possessed with this imaginary peace that we cannot 
 attend it. Not past eight days since it was decreed that Sir Richard 
 Bingham, Sir Samuel Bagnol, and Sir Henry Docwra should be sent 
 thither with each a regiment of 2000 men, but that course is altered, and 
 now they talk that Sir Walter Ralegh and Sir George Carew should 
 undertake it; but how long that will hold is uncertain" (Chamberlain's 
 Letters).
 
 THE IRISH REBELLION 299 
 
 Ulstermen from Tyrone's country, whilst the English- 
 Irish garrisons ^ in Newry, Dundalk, and Cavau, iso- 
 lated and starving, were in despair, Ormonde during 
 the truce had managed to re-victual the important 
 fort on the Blackwater and had done his best to 
 pacify Leinster, but when he met Tyrone in con- 
 ference at Dundalk (March 14, 1598), he found that 
 the "arch-rebel" had been even more than busy. 
 
 Around Tyrone now were grouped all the hoarded 
 discontents of Ireland, looking to him for redress. 
 For four days the Queen's commissioners met Tyrone 
 on the " parley hill," by Dundalk, and told him that 
 the sovereign, " having seen his submission, had 
 condescended to pardon him on certain conditions." 
 This was very well as far as it went, but Tyrone 
 insisted upon terms being granted to his confede- 
 rates. Many of these were still in arms ; O'Donnell 
 himself was skulking in his mountains of Donegal ; 
 but the claim gave to Tyrone what he wanted most, 
 namely, a farther delay in which he might con- 
 centrate and arm his bands for the struggle. 
 Ormonde strove to please him, giving way on most 
 points, and condoning for his sake even the Lein- 
 ster ravages of the O'Connors and O'Mores ; for, 
 truth to tell, the Anglo-Irish were not strong enough 
 now to fight the rebel, and the latter knew it well.^ 
 
 1 Not above a fifth of the soldiers on the Queen's side in Ireland at 
 the time were English, and suspicions of their steadfastness were con- 
 stantly expressed by the English governors. 
 
 2 Brian Roe O'More, writing shortly after this to Tyrone, asking him 
 to procure the release of Morris Oge O'Connor, who had been arrested 
 by Ormonde, said of the English, " By God's grace, there is no stand in 
 the churls, if your honour would set upon them now ; for all Ireland 
 would have been at your command by this, if it had not been for your 
 parleys and truces" (Irish State Papers).
 
 300 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Still it suited his present purpose to defer open 
 warfare; and when, a month later (April 14), he 
 again met the Queen's men in parley, this time with 
 O'Donnell by his side, another six weeks' truce was 
 concluded. 
 
 But there was no possibility of deception any 
 longer as to his high aims. " A traitor will always 
 be a traitor " (wrote one of the commissioners), " do 
 what a man may. Tyrone's unhappy successes in 
 some bickerings against us, the knowledge of his 
 own strength, expectation of foreign help, and the 
 confidence he hath in the multitude of his par- 
 takers . . . hath puffed him up with such pride 
 and haughtiness of mind as cannot be reformed but 
 by chastisement and correction. " ^ And the soldier 
 Fenton wrote even more emphatically : " Now the 
 traitor being discovered to the bottom, and his 
 conspiracies, practised in effect with all the Irish in 
 the realm, made apparent, her Majesty seeth now 
 what to trust unto ; not to depend more upon 
 treaties and parleys, but to turn her mercy into 
 revenge, and proceed really to his prosecution." 
 During the first parley the Bishop of Meath, re- 
 proaching Tyrone with his evident wish to delay 
 matters, said : " It is likely you look for the Span- 
 iards, and it is like enough they will deceive you, 
 as they have done ; and if they keep touch with 
 you, you and they shall find her Majesty cares little." 
 Then Tyrone drew his sword, and swore on the 
 cross of its hilt, " I look neither for Spaniards nor 
 Scots to help me, but I would not have it be said 
 that I should be counted a perjured wretch to those 
 
 1 The Bishop of Meath, April 18, 1598 (Irisli State Papers).
 
 TYRONE AND THE SPANIARDS 301 
 
 that I am sworn unto, and to leave them in the 
 danger." ^ 
 
 It was possibly true that Tyrone at this juncture 
 had no desire or expectation of receiving in Ireland 
 Spanish forces powerful enough to make him a 
 vassal of Philip, but he must have been fully alive 
 to the advantage which would accrue to his cause 
 if he could identify it with those of Catholicism and 
 Irish patriotism. As a pure fact, both this rising 
 and those of the Desmonds thirty years before, were 
 mainly prompted by a desire of the greater chieftains 
 to return to a state of things which formerly had 
 given them the position of petty princes, holding 
 the smaller chiefs and the people in vassalage, from 
 which the English rule had to a great extent eman- 
 cipated them. But this, as an avowed object of a 
 rebellion, would have been unwise, and patriotism 
 and religion were necessary fuel to set the revolu- 
 tion in motion. Tyrone must have known that the 
 domination of Spain over Ireland would have been 
 infinitely more grinding than that of England ; but 
 to link the cause of Ireland with that of Catholic 
 supremacy, and thus to gain the sympathetic support 
 of England's most powerful enemy, was a diplomatic 
 move which was no doubt considered of the highest 
 importance to his success. We have seen that Philip's 
 Council, in the winter of 1597, had counted upon 
 Tyrone's being sufficiently successful against the Eng- 
 lish in the spring to be able to ship an Irish force upon 
 the Spanish fleet intended to invade England. That 
 fleet, as has been related, had already (in April or May 
 1598) been reduced to impotent hopelessness by mis- 
 
 ^ The Bishop of Meath, April i8, 1598 (Irish State Papers).
 
 302 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 management, pestilence, poverty, and fear of the 
 English, and doubtless Tyrone was kept well in- 
 formed of the progress of events. Thomas Lalley, 
 who, it will be recollected, had been sent to Spain 
 by the Connaught chiefs in the previous year, had 
 remained at Philip's court, and continued to send 
 advices, and the Bishop of Killaloe was still cease- 
 lessly urging the Irish cause in Lisbon/ 
 
 But what caused much more anxiety than this to 
 the Anglo-Irish Government at the time was the 
 presence in Spain of Tyrone's secretary, Brimingham. 
 The special cause for anxiety in this case was the fact 
 that James Stuart, having been informed by Essex of 
 the secret plans of the moderate Catholic party, pro- 
 bably with the connivance of Cecil, to come to an 
 understanding with the Archduke, in which the suc- 
 cession of Arabella Stuart should form a part, had 
 begun to show increasingly the " insolence " of which 
 old Lord Burghley spoke in his discussion as to the 
 advantages of peace. Tyrone was glad to welcome 
 any aid, and in September 1597 sent Brimingham 
 to Scotland to seek James's co-operation, in union 
 with that of Spain and the Catholics, who in return 
 would assure him the succession to the English 
 throne. James was delighted, and sent Brimingham 
 to Spain with a Scottish companion." If Tyrone 
 
 ^ Van Harnack reported to Cecil from Lisbon (April 29) that the 
 Griffin flyboat was carrying to Ireland a suspicious Jesuit by order 
 of the Irish bishop (State Papers, Domestic). 
 
 ^ The Scotsman Fleming was an agent of Tyrone, sent to purcliase 
 powder and munitions. Both he and Brimingham had a narrow escape 
 from capture by the English and Huguenots in Rochelle ; but Fleming 
 managed to run some cargoes of ammunition from Bordeaux to Loch 
 Foyle, whilst Brimingham went on his mission to Madrid, where tlie 
 King's mortal illness, and the complete disorganisation that reigned
 
 JAMES FAVOURS ITRONE 303 
 
 had only understood it, this was an infallible means 
 for eft'ectually stopping Philip from sending him 
 any valid aid. But both he and James himself 
 failed to see this, and the latter especially gave 
 himself great airs on what doubtless appeared to 
 him a certain way of gaining Catholic support for 
 his claims. He went so far as to make a statement 
 of his rights and hopes in the Scottish Parliament 
 in the last days of 1597 which stirred Elizabeth to 
 positive fury. She sent Sir William Bowes to him 
 with a letter, which remains still an almost un- 
 rivalled specimen of her powers of vituperation. 
 "Look you not, therefore, that without large 
 amends," she said, "I may or will skipper up such 
 indignities." ^ But even to Bowes himself James 
 could hardly attempt to disguise his elation that 
 Tyrone and he were in alliance," and that Spain 
 would certainly be on their side, though to Elizabeth 
 herself he wrote a whimpering apology and semi- 
 
 (added to the fact that James Stuart was now concerned in the business) 
 prevented his success so far as material aid was concerned (Irish State 
 Papers). 
 
 1 Leiters of Elizabeth and James (Camden Society). 
 
 ^ Petit, the spy in Antwerp, wrote to Phellips, June 4, 1598 : "If I 
 were not acquainted with Scottish brags, I might believe that England 
 was already more than half theirs. The King of Denmark's brother is 
 going to do wonders. The Duke of Mayenne is to be general in 
 England," &c. (State Papers, Domestic). In a letter written by 
 Nicholson to Cecil in August (John Colville's Letters) he details a 
 conversation he had had with Secretary Elphinstone relative to the 
 complaint made by the English Government to James on the presence 
 in Scotland of agents of the Irish rebels " The King said he sought no 
 purgation in that matter. There were none (Irish envoys) here ; and 
 if there were, or MacSorley, or yet Tyrone, or yet O'Donnell, why 
 might not they go as well in Edinburgh streets as Bothwell and John 
 Colville in London?" The next day Nicholson saw James himself, 
 who told him he knew of no Irish agents there, but still harped upon 
 the welcome accorded by Elizabeth to his own fugitive subjects.
 
 304 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 denial. So whilst Brimingham wrote " comfortable" 
 letters from Spain to his master, and James Stuart 
 was promising armies and navies to Tyrone in the 
 hope of obtaining the subsequent aid of Ireland and 
 Spain to his pretentions to the English crown, the 
 " arch-rebel " waxed in strength and pride. Thirteen 
 thousand English infantry would be needed in Ulster 
 alone, reported experienced English officers, before 
 Tyrone could be put down. The rebel wealth in 
 cattle must be raided, for Ulster will never be 
 established in dutiful obedience " so well by the 
 dent of the sword as if it should also come by the 
 cruelty of famine." ^ But the Government in London 
 refused to understand the gravity of the position, 
 and continued to send reinforcements in drafts 
 of hundreds, instead of by thousands. In vain the 
 alarmed Council in Dublin wrote that they them- 
 selves were in daily danger of massacre, and 
 bemoaned weakly to Lord Burghley their " miser- 
 able and distressed estate." The Leinster chiefs, 
 whose rebellion had been condoned, broke out 
 worse than ever ; and as soon as Tyrone's last 
 truce expired in June he sent a strong force of 
 Ulstermen down to help them, whilst with other 
 detachments he surrounded the important fort on 
 the Blackwater and isolated the castle of Cavan." 
 
 ' Irish State Papers. It was estimated by Captain Mostyn that 
 400,000 head or more of cattle could be lifted. He says that he him- 
 self saw O'Donnell take 30,000 head in one morning a little above 
 Eoscommon. Tyrone's secretary also told Mostyn that if the Earl 
 levied a subsidy of one shilling on each milch-cow in county Tyrone 
 alone, he could raise between ;^6ooo and £yooo. 
 
 2 Fenton wrote to Cecil, June 11, 1598, detailing the plans for 
 succouring Cavan and protecting the Pule, but saying, " But yet 
 touching the Blackwater I see not but it must be left to the valour
 
 BATTLE OF ARMAGH 305 
 
 There were not sufficient English forces in Ireland 
 to withstand him effectually anywhere, and the 
 most that could be done by Ormonde was to defend 
 Leinster and repel the incursions into the Pale. 
 All the north and centre outside the walled garrisons 
 was in open rebellion against the Queen. Panic- 
 stricken messengers rushed daily into Dublin with 
 false news of Spanish fleets anchored in Loch Foyle ; 
 of great victories gained by Tyrone ; of fresh risings 
 in Connaught, and the like ; whilst the miserable 
 Council of Regency could only continue to write 
 despairing letters to London. In the meanwhile 
 Tyrone's dispositions were skilfully made. He 
 pushed bodies of men down on the west of the Pale 
 to Longford, and on the north to Meath and Dundalk, 
 whilst he raised the clans of Lower Leinster, and the 
 English Governors soon found themselves in danger 
 of being entirely surrounded by land. The English 
 reinforcements, when at length they came in July, 
 reached only 2000 men,^ not sufficient to defend 
 even the province of Leinster, with which Ormonde 
 was chiefly concerned ; but the indignant remon- 
 strances of the English officers at the orders that the 
 fort on the Blackwater should be surrendered to 
 Tyrone, forced the Government to divert a portion 
 of the English reinforcements to that point. 
 
 and fortune of tlie garrison there, for there is no means here to put 
 an army on foot to rescue it." 
 
 ^ These men deserted as soon as they could, and great complaints 
 were made that the captains quickly filled up their places with " mere 
 Irish," for whom they drew the same pay. As a matter of fact, when 
 it came to actual fighting, the Irish, though of doubtful allegiance, 
 were worth a great deal more. At the crucial moment of the battle of 
 the Blackwater, the newly arrived English levies refused to fight at all,, 
 casting away their arms and bolting (Irish State Papers). 
 
 V
 
 3o6 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Tyrone in person had for a month past strained 
 every nerve to secure possession of the fort, which 
 was held with great gallantry by Captain Thomas 
 Williams. Every approach to the place had been 
 entrenched and fortified to prevent its relief, and 
 the Council hesitated long before they would allow 
 it to be attempted. At length a force of 3500 foot 
 and 300 horse, under Sir Henry Bagenal, reached 
 Armagh (August 13, 1598), and marched the next 
 morning to relieve the neighbouring fort. An in- 
 credible want of skill in the disposition of the force 
 was displayed. The ground was extremely difficult ; 
 Tyrone had an army almost double the strength of 
 the English, and had posted men in every position 
 whence a relieving force could be attacked. Bage- 
 nal divided his little army into three divisions 
 following each other, each divison composed of two 
 regiments, with intervals between the divisions of 
 140 paces each. This was the first and most fatal 
 mistake, as the path taken lay through a country of 
 broken hills flanked by bogs and woods, and one 
 division was too far distant to help another in case 
 of sudden attack. The three divisions had thus 
 successively to run the gauntlet of a galling flank 
 fire from concealed enemies during the march from 
 Armagh to the first of Tyrone's trenches, a distance 
 of some two miles. The vanguard, by abandoning 
 the path and deploying to the flank, managed to 
 carry the long trench at one point, but only after 
 considerable loss and confusion, owing to the boggy 
 nature of the ground at the point of attack and the 
 flank fire from the woods on each side. The second 
 division, encumbered with a field-piece, stuck in the
 
 BATTLE OF ARMAGH 307 
 
 bog before reaching the trench, and Bagenal sent 
 orders to the leading division to retreat. The retreat 
 turned into a rout, and many of the men of this 
 division were put to the sword by the pursuing 
 rebels. Bagenal, endeavouring to stiffen the flying 
 vanguard with his central division, waved his helmet, 
 but at once received a bullet through the forehead 
 which laid him low, and almost immediately after- 
 wards two barrels of powder exploded in the second 
 division and completed the demoralisation of the 
 men. 
 
 In the meanwhile the new English levies, galled 
 with the flank fire and dispirited by the confusion, 
 threw away their arms and fled helter-skelter, whilst 
 several hundreds of the " mere Irish " deserted to 
 the enemy. It was then decided to withdraw the 
 survivors of the three divisions to Armagh, and, 
 leaving some of their cannon hopelessly bogged, the 
 rear division led the retreat. But the pursuit be- 
 came so hot and deadly upon the remnants of the 
 former vanguard and centre, that the rear and now 
 leading division turned about and charged the enemy. 
 A second powder explosion had happened in their 
 ranks just before, and the men were unsteady, so 
 that their charge upon the Irish failed. The remains 
 of the other regiments attempted to come to their 
 assistance, but the long distance between the 
 divisions prevented close or efi"ective co-operation ; 
 the Irish were numerous enough to isolate them, 
 and the rearguard was practically destroyed. The 
 rest of the force fought their way back, foot by foot, 
 almost to the walls of Armagh, where, before they 
 ■could proceed further, they found themselves sur-
 
 3o8 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 rounded. A body of English horse cut their way- 
 through to the Pale to carry news of the disaster. 
 Between 1500 and 2000 men, with nearly all the 
 oflBcers and standards, were lost ; and to the panic- 
 stricken Council in Dublin, to dying Philip at the 
 Escorial, and to all Christendom flew the pregnant 
 news that the English rule over Ireland was totter- 
 ing, for the only considerable body of English armed 
 men in the kingdom had been swept clean away. 
 
 The Irish Council lost its head entirely and de- 
 scended to the depth of sending a whining prayer 
 to the "arch-rebel" to be merciful, and "let them 
 (the English survivors) depart without doing them 
 any further hurt. . . . And besides, your ancient 
 adversary the Marshal (Bagenal) being now taken 
 away, we hope you will cease all further revenge 
 against the rest." ^ To this Tyrone agreed, and 
 all the Queen's forces marched from the borders 
 of Ulster, leaving rebellion triumphant and O'Neil 
 a sovereign prince. 
 
 Almost the last letter that was dictated by Philip 
 in his dying torments was one to Tyrone and 
 O'Donnell, giving thanks to Heaven and to them 
 for the steadfastness and valour which had enabled 
 
 1 The Council, when they grew cooler, appear to have been ashamed 
 of this letter, and said that it had never been delivered. This is still 
 doubtful ; but the Queen was in a towering rage when she learned 
 of its being written. " We may not pass over this foul error to our 
 dishonour," she wrote to the Council, "when you framed such a letter 
 to the traitor after the defeat, as was never read the like either in form 
 or substance for baseness. ... If you shall peruse it again, when you 
 are yourselves, you will he ashamed of your own absurdities, and 
 grieved that any fear or rashness should ever make you authors of an 
 action so much to your sovereign's dishonour and to the increase of the 
 traitor's insolence" (Irish State Papers, August 16 and September 12, 
 1598).
 
 TRIUMPH OF TYRONE 309 
 
 them to gain this signal victory for the Catholic 
 cause. ^ Failure, utter and complete, had for forty 
 years attended the King's struggle to make England 
 Catholic, that she might become a fit instrument 
 for Spanish aims. He alone had never lost faith 
 in ultimate victory, as one catastrophe had followed 
 another with heartbreaking iteration of disaster ; 
 and now, in the awful sufferings of his last hours, 
 he must have thought that Heaven was relenting 
 towards him, for the Catholic cause in the domi- 
 nions of Elizabeth for once was triumphant. 
 
 * MS. Siraancas (Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.).
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Letters of John Colville — James intrigues with the Catholic Powers — 
 The " Wisliech Stirs" — Recriminations against the Jesuit faction — 
 The murder plot of Squire and Rolls — Father Walpole's con- 
 nection with it — The desire of the Archduke for peace with 
 England— Successes of the Irish rebels — Discontent of Essex — 
 His government in Ireland — The march through Munster — His 
 parley with Tyrone — His disobedience and return to England — 
 His arrest. 
 
 The jangling policies and factions in Elizabeth's 
 court, and the threatening state of affairs in Ireland 
 in the summer and autumn of 1598, brought ad- 
 ditional hopes and energy to the two schools of 
 Catholics, who, in their dififerent ways, were striving 
 to undo the work of the Reformation on the death 
 of the Queen. John Colville ^ was writing almost 
 weekly alarming letters from his retreat in France 
 to Essex, telling of the coming and going of Papist 
 envoys to James. Robert Bruce, the ex-Spanish 
 agent, was in Scotland, with George Ker, Father 
 Gordon the Jesuit, and a number of French Catho- 
 lics of the Guise faction, who, according to the 
 reports furnished by Colville, were arranging for 
 armed aid to be sent to James to establish him as 
 Catholic King of England. There is no doubt that 
 James was now, as ever, quite ready to coquet with 
 
 ^ Letters of John Colville in Hatfield Papers, vol. viii. Colville, a 
 former ambassador of James, was a member of the Puritan party who 
 had offended the King and had taken refuge in England, whence he 
 had been forced to go to France in order to avoid giving offence to 
 James. He was an agent of the English Government.
 
 JAMES STILL INTRIGUING 311 
 
 the Catholic party, and that he was, as we have 
 seen, in close sympathetic correspondence with 
 Tyrone ; but the movements of the Catholics to- 
 wards him at this juncture — with the exception 
 of the embassy from the Archduke, of which the 
 real object is revealed in the consulta quoted in 
 the last chapter — may be confidently traced to the 
 French and Italian, or anti-Spanish, influence, which 
 saw in his conversion and succession the only safe- 
 guard against the Spanish domination of England 
 or the perpetuation there of the Protestant supre- 
 macy.^ 
 
 This was, of course, not fully understood at the 
 time, and Colville, like all the members of the 
 extreme Puritan party, saw the evil hand of Spain 
 in everything. James himself, moreover, undoubtedly 
 preferred to look with most amiability to the ad- 
 vances of the faction from which alone he could 
 hope for armed support to his claims. He was 
 willing enough to receive doles and blessings from 
 the Pope, or from any one else who would send 
 them to him ; but, after all, he knew that armies 
 and fleets, if he needed them, could only come 
 from Spain, and to Spain he looked with a yearning 
 gaze over the heads of Scottish Italianate priests 
 and Guisans. Colville himself to some extent saw 
 
 ^ Colville wrote to Essex on the 31st May a long letter relative to 
 the intrigues then being conducted by James's ambassador in Paris, 
 the aged Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow, The King of France, he 
 said, was sending kind letters to James, with others from the Con- 
 stable, the Duke of Mayenne, the Duke of Guise, and many other high 
 personages. '' The chief practices for the King of Scots will come from 
 hence {i.e. France) by means of the Bishop of Glasgow and the House 
 of Guise, the French King being disposed to do no more for England 
 than shall be for his own weal" (Hatfield Papers, vol. viii.).
 
 312 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 the difficulty of reconciling the interests of James 
 and Philip in England, and wrote to Essex in 
 April 1598 (Hatfield Papers, vol. viii.) : "For the 
 opinion liolden that friendship is incompatible be- 
 twixt him and Spain, shooting both at one mark, 
 there be three arguments which shall — if they have 
 not done so already — bUnd him in that point. 
 First, the revenge of his mother's death. Second, 
 the assurance that they whom he most trusts, both 
 at home and abroad, shall give him, that Spain 
 means not to punish him. And last, how you (i.e. 
 England) shall be invaded, which is intended to 
 be by the King of Spain's money, but with few of 
 his men, the body of the army to be Scotsmen and 
 other nations lifted ... by the House of Guise, 
 unto whom he sends a man called Ker every half 
 year. And so the army being at his command- 
 ment, he need not fear that Spain can punish him. 
 To prove that he wishes you to be invaded in this 
 sort only, peruse the latter end of the project, 
 written in his own hand, which Mr. Geddie did 
 present." ^ 
 
 There is no doubt that James would dearly have 
 loved to obtain Spanish aid on such easy terms, and 
 on every opportunity he endeavoured to do so. But 
 we see now that there never was the remotest possi- 
 bility of Philip finding either money or men for the 
 purpose of establishing James on the throne of 
 England. The policy of Spain was fully as selfish 
 as that of James, and was conducted by diplomatists 
 
 ' It was also laid down in the instructions of Pury Ogilvie which I 
 have quoted. The stipulations with regard to the composition of the 
 army of invasion were always treated by Philip and his Ministers with 
 ridicule and scorn.
 
 JAMES STILL INTRIGUING 313 
 
 for whom the King of Scots, with all his cunning, 
 was no match. Though intense indignation ^ and 
 some alarm were caused in England, therefore, by 
 this active trafficking between James and the Catho- 
 lic parties, the matter was in truth not nearly so 
 dangerous as it looked. 
 
 As a counterbalance to it, the Protestant party in 
 Scotland, who were deeply concerned at this back- 
 sliding on the part of their King, made a curious 
 proposal to Elizabeth. Early in the spring (1598) 
 two Scottish gentlemen on the Border (Carlton and 
 Graeme) suggested to an English official named 
 John Udall, that a great Scottish personage (who 
 appears to have been the Earl of Argyll) was willing 
 and able to " do a great service " in Ireland. This 
 " service " was nothing less than the capture and 
 delivery to Elizabeth of Tyrone : the person who was 
 to undertake the task at Argyll's bidding being Sir 
 John MacLean.'^ For some weeks active negotiations 
 
 ^ Essex and his party were naturally the most disturbed at James's 
 •dallying with the Catholics, especially with the Spanish faction, as he, 
 James, was the principal instrument upon which they (the English Puri- 
 tans or Liberals) counted to defeat the Moderates and Catholics, who 
 were intriguing for a Spanish alliance with Arabella Stuart as Queen. 
 Essex's secretary, Cuffe, in his declaration on his master's impeach- 
 ment, declared that the main object of the Earl's correspondence with 
 James, was to " staye him from irreligious courses, in declining from 
 his religion, which of late hath been somewhat feared ; and next, that 
 he might hinder the designs of the Infanta, w^hose pretensions to the 
 succession hee did utterly mislike" (Cuffe's answers to the Council, 
 Hatfield MSS. uncalendared, vol. Ixxxiii.). 
 
 - Early in August Sir John MacLean and all his kin were surprised 
 in the island of Islay, where he was conferring with the son of Angus, 
 and murdered. "James MacSorley (James Oge M'Sorley-boy M'Don- 
 nell) hud directet out of Ireland privelie the nowmber of foure hun- 
 dredcht Ireland men, wha wer principall executeris of this con- 
 spiracie " (The Laird of Glenorchy to Colville, Bannatyne Club, 
 Colville Letters).
 
 314 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 to this end proceeded in Scotland ; but as Argyll, 
 when he came to the English court in May, avoided 
 the subject, the Queen and Essex distrusted the good 
 faith of the proposers, and the negotiation came to 
 nothing. 
 
 Whilst the Catholics of the Scottish faction were 
 endeavouring to bring their King to an open accept- 
 ance of their faith, and James, though smiling upon 
 them, was looking rather towards Spain and Tyrone 
 for effective help, the uncompromising Jesuit-Span- 
 ish party were still ceaseless in their efforts to for- 
 ward their own objects. The appointment of the 
 Jesuit nominee. Father Blackwell, as Archpriest 
 of England,^ and the high-handed action of Father 
 Persons in Rome with regard to the wishes and 
 demands of the English Catholic clergy, had finally 
 driven the great majority of the secular priests and 
 Catholic laymen into open denunciation of the 
 Jesuits and all their works. In Wisbech the two 
 sections of prisoners kept apart, reviling each other 
 heartily. The scandal was so great that the Puri- 
 tan party naturally turned it to their own advantage, 
 and demanded the closer imprisonment of the 
 Jesuit sympathisers, whom their very co-religionists 
 and fellow-prisoners denounced as accomplices in 
 treason. Father Weston and several others of the 
 Jesuit party were consequently moved from the 
 loose restraints of W^isbech to the strict seclusion of 
 
 ^ One of the secular priests thus wrote of the appointment: "All 
 Catholics must hereafter depend upon Blackwell, and he upon Garnet 
 (the Superior of the Jesuits), and (jarnet upon Parsons, and Parsons 
 upon tiie Devil, who is the author of all rebellions, treasons, murders, 
 disobedience, and all such designments as this wicked Jesuit hath 
 hitherto designed against her Majesty, her safety, crown, and life."
 
 CATHOLIC RECRIMINATIONS 315 
 
 the Tower, whilst the leading priests of the loyal 
 faction, especially Dr. Bagshaw, opened up friendly 
 communications with the Queen's Council, with the 
 object of defeating the machinations of their enemies.^ 
 The natural result of this was a recrudescence of 
 the religious agitation and of the accusations and 
 counter-accusations against Catholics of complicity 
 in real or supposed plots for the murder of the 
 Queen, and for other treasonable ends. 
 
 As was the case in 1593, most of these accusations 
 were the exaggerations of over-eager spies, or the 
 deliberate inventions of scoundrels who sought gain 
 or consideration for themselves by the denunciation 
 of others ; this latter motive being much stronger 
 now than before, owing to the increasing hatred 
 between the two sections of Catholics. A large 
 number of English prisoners and others were re- 
 leased or allowed to escape from Spain on the 
 accession of the new King (September 1598), and 
 they were mostly eager to gain solid reward as well 
 as pardon for themselves by telling sensational 
 
 ^ Their great fear apparently was that the letters which they 
 expected to come from Rome, as a result of their appeal against the 
 appointment of the Archpriest, would command them to obey Weston, 
 who would swear them all to be true to the Infanta of Spain, as Per- 
 sons had caused the priests in Spain to be sworn; which rather than do, 
 said one of them (Bluet), he would starve to death in the castle of Wis- 
 bech (Manuscripts in Inner Temple, Hist. MSS. Com., Report ii. 
 part 7). Father Watson some months afterwards (early in 1599) 
 wrote a refutation of Persons' book on the succession, which was read 
 by the Queen, Essex, and Cecil. The latter (according to Watson) 
 only took exception to the word "toleration," which was expunged. 
 He (Cecil) said that her Majesty would not grant it. Essex, on the 
 other hand, apparently anxious to conciliate even the Catholics who 
 were opposed to Spain, said " that he could wish with all his heart 
 that we might have liberty of conscience " (Law's "Jesuits and Seculars").
 
 31 6 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 stories of what they had seen and heard abroad.^ 
 Plymouth was " sold " by Gorges, they said, as well 
 as Falmouth by Killigrew. Pickford, the master- 
 gunner at Lisbon, had undertaken to kidnap " Sir 
 William Beville out of his house." Lists of the 
 Englishmen in receipt of pensions in Spain were 
 given ad nauseam, with embellishments as to the 
 character and designs of the recipients. Most of 
 this was the loose talk of uneducated men ^ desir- 
 ing to add to their own value, but it was given 
 an importance out of due proportion in order to 
 strengthen the Essex party, who were now deter- 
 
 ^ Many of them liad served as pilots, gunners, &c., on the Spanish 
 ships, and had with apparent eagerness sought the favour of Spaniards. 
 For this they had been denounced by others to the English Govern- 
 ment, and now sought to make their peace by extravagant professions 
 of loyalty, and of their intention from the first to betray their Spanish 
 paymasters. They were very anxious too to give particulars of their 
 countrymen in Spain, and the names and descriptions of a large 
 number of them are given in the Spanish State Papers of the period, 
 and in the Hatfield Papers, vol. viii. 
 
 2 Patrick Strange of Waterford, an Irish shipmaster, who was in 
 Spain, reported in October 1598 that the new King Philip III. had 
 acceded to the request of Tyrone and O'Donnell to send them men, 
 munitions, and money. Six thousand men were to land in Limerick 
 and 6000 in the Isle of Wight whilst the English fleet was elsewhere. 
 A great navy was to be raised by Spain finally to conquer England, 
 and the King had sent " wise men " to the courts of France, Germany, 
 Italy, and Rome to seek aid for a general Catholic crusade. Great 
 preparations, he said, were already afoot for Ireland, under the com- 
 mand of the Adelantado. " Every gentleman expects to be a Don and 
 every parson a bishop" (State Papers, Domestic, February 3, 1599). 
 Most of this was merely the loose talk of the seaports, and the ignorance 
 of the informer is seen by his reference to the aid to be demanded by 
 Spain from the other Powers. He also makes the aged Bishop of 
 Clonfert Philiji's principal adviser in Irish afi^airs, which he certainly 
 was not. Hugh Boy O'Davit first carried the news of Tyrone's victory 
 to Spain, and it was he who, during the winter and spring of 1598-99, 
 was urging Philip to send the 6000 men to Limerick (Irish State Papers 
 of the date).
 
 MORE SPANISH "PLOTS" 317 
 
 mined, if possible, finally to defeat Cecil. The 
 young Earl himself was alternately flouting at Court 
 and sulking at Wanstead House. He coveted the 
 late Lord Burghley's offices, he wanted to ruin Cecil, 
 he wanted his enormous debts paid, he wanted, in 
 fact, to have his own vain, wrong-headed way in 
 all things, and this the aged Queen, in spite of her 
 affection for him, was determined he should not have 
 at any cost. 
 
 xlt a time when Essex was in deep disgrace, the 
 circumstances of which will be related farther on, 
 an Englishman, named John Stanley, arrived in 
 London from Spain (September 1598). He at first 
 addressed himself to Essex, but being unable to 
 obtain audience of the Earl, he went to Ralegh, and 
 told him an extraordinary story, to the effect that 
 when he was in prison in Seville he had met there 
 one Francis Sparry, a sailor, whom Ralegh had left 
 on the Orinoco, when he had gone on his voyage 
 of discovery thither. This Sparry, he said, had dis- 
 covered some valuable gold mines unknown to the 
 Spaniards, and had given Stanley a map, which 
 would enable Ralegh to find them. Stanley, more- 
 over, said that he had escaped from Spain, and bore 
 two letters from Fitzherbert, the King of Spain's 
 English secretary, and Father Richard Walpole,^ the 
 Rector of the English College at Seville. He de- 
 sired a private audience of the Queen, to whom he 
 professed to have some important secret to impart. 
 Ralegh, who, no doubt, was constantly being pes- 
 
 ^ He was a brother of the Jesuit Father Henry Walpole, whose 
 execution is mentioned in a former chapter. See Dr. Jessop's " One 
 Generation of a Norfolk House."
 
 3i8 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 tered by such approaches, referred the man to Secretary 
 Cecil, to whom he gave two letters he had received 
 from Walpole and Fitzherbert, and he made a long 
 statement about his communications with the King 
 of Spain's Ministers and Father Walpole, with re- 
 gard to the betrayal of Flushing or Ostend to the 
 Spaniards. 
 
 In the meanwhile the spies and some of the Eng- 
 lishmen from Spain had some curious stories to tell 
 about Stanley. He had come out of Spain with a 
 false passport ; there were many circumstances of 
 suspicion about him, and he and a companion who 
 had come from Spain with him, one Munday, were 
 haled to the Tower. There they were examined by 
 Sir John Peyton, Sir W. Waad, and Francis Bacon. 
 They had agreed together in the Spanish prison, 
 they said, to pretend to Father Walpole that they 
 would turn Catholics, and do some service to the 
 King of Spain, in order to get their liberty. When 
 he asked them what service they could do, they 
 suggested the betrayal of one of the Flemish for- 
 tresses ; and were carried to Madrid to see Idiaquez, 
 who sent them on their mission, and gave them 
 money for their journey. Father Creswell, they 
 said, had blessed and commended them ; the sacra- 
 ment had been partaken of by them in company of 
 Captain Elliot and Fitzherbert himself, the celebrant 
 being an Irish bishop.^ 
 
 A little pressure, however, and perhaps a taste of 
 the rack, brought out something more important. 
 
 ' The only two Irish bishops in Spain at the time were Cornelius 
 O'Neil, Bishop of Killaloe, and the Bishop of Clonfert, who lived at 
 Burgos.
 
 MORE SPANISH "PLOTS" 319 
 
 Stanley told an utterly ridiculous story, whicli bears 
 indications of its falsity on every line of it. On 
 the 5th of August previously he had, he said, been 
 carried before the King of Spain himself, and after 
 being sworn to secrecy, he was instructed by Philip 
 to go to one Munday, who was then in Spain, and 
 to receive from him a certain perfume, which he 
 was to scatter in the way of the Queen of England, 
 who would then be "cut off from life." Stanley 
 declared the King's instructions were that he was 
 to approach the English Government with some 
 feigned proposals for peace, and was to inform the 
 King by letter of the reception his approaches met 
 with, especially from the Earl of Essex ; and the 
 King also enjoined him to aid his colleague, Mun- 
 day, to "burn her Majesty's navy." He was, more- 
 over, to go to Sir Thomas Arundell and other 
 Catholic gentlemen, if he needed aid. "After I had 
 been sworn, the King said my gain would not only 
 be much money, but that he and his son would be 
 my friends. Creswell said to the King that they 
 had often been deceived by taking the bare oath on 
 the Sacraments, and, therefore, they had sworn me 
 by the Lord, and as I hoped to be saved." There was 
 much more talk of the same sort implicating Philip 
 II., Walpole, Fitzherbert, and Creswell; although 
 Stanley, of course, professed that he had undertaken 
 the murderous task only for the purpose of betray- 
 ing it. What was more important than all else was 
 that both the prisoners declared that Walpole and 
 Creswell had at different times angrily denounced 
 two men then in England, named Squire and Rolls, 
 who they said had received a large sum of money in
 
 320 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Spain to kill the Queen and Essex, but had betrayed 
 their trust and had done nothing. 
 
 Apart from the gross improbability of Philip at 
 any time receiving such men for such a purpose as 
 Stanley professed, the King on the day mentioned 
 (5/1 5th August 1598) was lying at the Escorial hope- 
 lessly ill and quite unable to see any one on business. 
 When on the following day the Nuncio came to give 
 him the Pope's last blessing, he found that Philip 
 had practically finished with the world. Thence- 
 forward, until he died {13th September), prayers, 
 masses, and an agony of devotion occupied his 
 every thought ; and it is quite incredible that he 
 would have sent a man on a journey of murder from 
 his death-bed at such a time.^ The two letters from 
 Fitzherbert and Walpole, Stanley subsequently con- 
 fessed were forgeries ; ^ and the whole story, when 
 looked at in the light of our present knowledge, 
 will not stand a moment's investigation. 
 
 But loose as the denunciations were, they came 
 in the nick of time for the party of Essex, to which 
 Bacon and Waad belonged ; for Squire and Eolls 
 were at once laid by the heels in the Tower, and by 
 
 1 The following extract is from the present writer's " Philip II." : 
 " On the i6th August the Nuncio brought him the Papal blessing and 
 plenary absolution. Philip by this time was incapable of moving, a 
 mere mass of vermin and repulsive wounds." From the beginning of 
 July until his death he was quite disabled. " The pain of his malady 
 was so intense that he could not even endure a cloth to touch the 
 parts, and he lay slowly rotting to death for fifty-three dreadful days 
 without a change of garment or the proper cleansing of his sores." 
 This is the textual account given by an eye-witness of the King's last 
 days, and of itself is a sufficient refutation of Stanley's absurd story of 
 his long interview witli Philip on the 5/1 5th August 1598. 
 
 2 State Papers, Domestic. Examinations of John Stanley, October 
 1598.
 
 ANOTHER "MURDER PLOT" 321 
 
 means of the rack, upon which Squire suffered for 
 five hours at a stretch/ a story was torn out, which, 
 if true, surpasses all the rest in unavailing villainy, 
 and, what was more important still, coupled the 
 name of Essex with that of the Queen as the 
 intended victims of a Jesuit plot. Squire, it appears, 
 had been captured from Drake's fleet, and was im- 
 prisoned in Seville. On the rack he told his story 
 thus: "Walpole persuaded me to be employed 
 against her Majesty's person. He asked me Avhether 
 I could compound poisons ? I said no, but that I 
 had skill in perfumes, and had read of a ball the 
 smoke whereof would make a man in a trance, and 
 some die." Walpole thought this a difficult way, 
 and told Squire that he would give him better 
 directions later. Squire then went on to say that 
 Walpole gave him written instructions to buy cer- 
 tain poisons in England, which writings he pro- 
 fessed to have destroyed. Opium and other drugs 
 were to be macerated and steeped in w^hite mercury 
 water, put into an earthen pot and stood in the sun 
 for a month. The mass had then to be put into a 
 double bladder, one side of which was to be pricked 
 full of holes in the upper part and carried in the 
 palm of the hand upon a thick glove for the safety 
 
 ^ Lingard (" History of England "). When Squire was first arrested, 
 and apparently prior to the racking, he wrote down at "Waad's instance 
 a long statement, " very well set down for so bad a matter," says Waad, 
 of the methods used by the Jesuits in Spain to pervert Englishmen 
 who fall into their hands, "and to induce them to adventure their 
 lives to cut short tyrants."' Whilst he detailed the persuasions of 
 Walpole for him to commit the crime, he brought forward many 
 assertions to prove that he had neither sought nor obtained any oppor- 
 tunity when he arrived in England of carrying out the plot. (See 
 Hatfield Papers, vol. viii., and State Papers, Domestic, October 1598.) 
 
 X
 
 32 2 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 of the user's hand. " And then I was to turn the 
 holes downward, and to press it hard on the 
 pommel of her Highness's saddle." Squire pro- 
 fessed that Walpole had directed him to cause the 
 five ingredients to be bought by different persons 
 and at different places, for fear of suspicion ; and, 
 according to his own account, he procured two 
 drachms of opium and five of mercury water at an 
 apothecary's shop in Paternoster Row, towards the 
 farther end, an ingredient at the Plough in Buck- 
 lersbury, and the other two in Newgate Market. " I 
 carried them about with me six or seven days, and 
 then compounded them in an earthen pot, which I 
 set it in a window of my house at Greenwich. I 
 applied a part of it to a whelp . . . and never saw 
 it afterwards ; and therefore I think it died thereof." 
 This was in July 1597, and Squire had then en- 
 listed in Essex's fleet, bound for the Azores, giving 
 to the Earl, as he says, much information with 
 regard to Spanish preparations and plans. On the 
 rack he confessed that during the voyage he had 
 anointed the arms of Essex's chair with the poison ; 
 but, as may be supposed, without the least evil 
 effect. On his return he obtained some under-post 
 in the Queen's stables, where he managed to smear 
 his composition on the pommel of her Majesty's 
 saddle ; but again ineffectually. Urged by the 
 great persuader, the poor wretch became quite com- 
 municative about the share of Walpole and others 
 in the proposed crime. The Jesuit, he said, had 
 urged upon him how easy and safe the plan was 
 of execution. "It was a meritorious act, he said, 
 to stab the Earl of Essex; but this against the
 
 SQUIRE'S CONFESSIONS 323 
 
 Queen is all in all, for there shall need but little 
 else than to do that well, which I charge you to per- 
 form above all other things." ^ 
 
 At a somewhat later period, when Squire was in 
 the confessional, Walpole had taxed him with an 
 intention not to commit the crime. " I protested to 
 him that I verily meant to do it. Then he laid 
 before me the danger that I was in if I did not 
 endeavour to the utmost to perform it, and that I 
 must not now fear death. . . . If I did but once 
 doubt of the lawfulness or the merit, it was suffi- 
 cient to cast me down headlong to hell ; and then, 
 taking me by the arm, he lifted me up, and took 
 me about the neck with his left arm, and made a 
 cross upon my head, saying, ' God bless thee, and 
 give thee strength, my son ; and be of good courage. 
 I will pawn my soul for thine, and thou shalt ever 
 have my prayers, both dead and alive, and full 
 pardon for all thy sins.' He also used a speech 
 over my head, which I could not understand, save 
 the first word, Dominus." But the most astounding, 
 and, it must be admitted, the most suggestive part 
 of the whole confession, was that Squire declared 
 that Walpole handed him a letter addressed to Dr. 
 Bagshaw at Wisbech Castle — which letter Squire 
 
 ^ Dr. Lingard greatly ridicules the conduct of the Crowii counsel at 
 the trial. It was, however, no worse than usual in siich cases, which 
 were nearly always prejudiced, and were marked by the grossest brow- 
 beating and injustice towards the accused. Coke, on this occasion, 
 made a theatrical display of being overcome by his feelings of horror, 
 and closed his speech abruptly, as if unable to proceed. His junior 
 then dwelt tipon the extra danger to which the Queen had been 
 exposed by reason of the attempt having been made in hot weather, 
 "the veins being then open to receive any malign tainture." Although 
 it must have been patent to many, no word was said of the absurdly 
 inept and inadequate nature of the attempt itself.
 
 324 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 said that he had destroyed with the poison formula ; 
 and, in answer to some doubt expressed by Squire 
 as to his ability to carry through such a mission, 
 Walpole is represented to have said : " Tush ! let Dr. 
 Bagshaw but see your intent and be assured of your 
 resolution, and all your wants will be supplied." ^ 
 
 When Squire was placed on his trial (November 
 9, 1598) public feeling was at fever heat, and the 
 Attorney-General Coke and his colleagues made 
 the most of the opportunity. Squire passionately 
 protested that the untrue avowal of his guilt had 
 been torn from him by the torture ; and that, whilst 
 he admitted having promised Walpole to attempt 
 the crime, he had never intended to ejSect it, nor 
 had he done so. Cecil told him that his confession 
 was enough to hang him, and in due course he 
 sufifered at Tyburn (November 13), protesting with 
 his last breath that what he had confessed under 
 torture was untrue. 
 
 The consideration that arises in the case, apart 
 from the complete absurdity of Stanley's second 
 confession about Philip's personal directions to him 
 with regard to the poisoned perfume, &c., which may 
 be dismissed as untrue, is, that while Squire appears 
 to have been sent on a fool's errand by Walpole so 
 far as the actual commission of the crime was con- 
 cerned, the reference and letter to Dr. Bagshaw, 
 which would hardly have been invented by Squire 
 on the rack, point to a desire on the part of the 
 
 ' The declarations of Stanley, Mnnday, Squire, and Rolls will be 
 found in the State Papers, Domestic, for September, October, and 
 November 1 598, and abstracted in the Calendar for that period. 
 Several other papers connected with the case are calendared in the 
 Hatfield Papers, vol. viii.
 
 SUGGESTED EXPLANATION 325 
 
 Jesuits to strike a fatal blow at the leader of their 
 opponents. Dr. Bagshaw, as we have seen, was 
 then, and for years afterwards, the champion of the 
 " loyal " clergy, and was precisely the least likely 
 man to connive at the murder of the Queen by a 
 Spanish agent. On the face of it, therefore, it 
 certainly looks probable that Walpole did prompt 
 Squire to undertake some utterly impossible and 
 harmless attempt at murder, simply that he might 
 on discovery or confession discredit and ruin Bag- 
 shaw.^ When it was found by Walpole that after 
 Squire had been in England for a year and a lialf, 
 W^eston and the other Wisbech Jesuits were incar- 
 cerated in the Tower, whilst Bagshaw and his friends 
 were more leniently treated than before, Walpole 
 probably came to the conclusion that Squire had 
 betrayed him whilst saving Bagshaw. Hence his 
 bursts of indignation to Stanley and Munday about 
 the falsity of Squire, and hence also Stanley's voyage 
 to England for the purpose of divulging Squire's 
 plot, so that the rack might drag from the latter 
 a mention of Bagshaw's name. If we accept this as 
 a possible explanation of an extremely obscure affair, 
 it follows that the real object of the Jesuits on this 
 occasion was not primarily the murder of the Queen, 
 for it must have been obvious to a man of learning 
 and culture like Walpole that such a means as that 
 
 ' John Chamberlain, in his gossiping account written to Carleton, says 
 Squire died very penitent. Chamberlain, doubtless voicing the general 
 opinion of the time, attributes the coming of Stanley and Mimday to 
 Walpole's belief that Squire had betrayed him, and to the desire of the 
 Jesuit to be revenged upon his false instrument. It will be seen in 
 the text that I suggest what seems to me a more adequate reason for 
 Walpole's action.
 
 326 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 employed by Squire was not likely to be effectual, 
 but rather the connecting of the " loyal priests " with 
 an attempt at assassination. Stanley's and Mun- 
 day's voyage was probably prompted by Walpole 
 mainly with this object, as the denunciation and 
 arrest of Squire, which was the real purpose, would 
 necessarily force from him some declaration con- 
 cerning the letter and message from Walpole to 
 Bagshaw. That all the accused men talked wildly 
 and falsely on the rack is almost certain and natural, 
 but the Bagshaw incident is one that would hardly 
 have been invented by them, and he was certainly 
 not suspected by the examiners ; so that the germ 
 of truth in all the confessions seems to be that Wal- 
 pole was willing to blacken himself personally with 
 the reproach of having incited men to regicide for 
 the purpose of securing the infamy of the "loyal" 
 Catholics opposed to the Jesuits/ 
 
 ^ As in the case of the Lopez plot, the Essex influence in the Govern- 
 ment caused an account of Squire's so-called attempts on the lives of 
 the Queen and Essex to be jiublished broadcast, presenting the heinuus- 
 ness of the Jesuit incitement to murder in the blackest possible light. 
 Father Wal^Jole wrote a spirited refutation of this account, in which 
 he said that Squire was a prisoner of war, and had been incarcerated 
 in a Carmelite convent (probably by the Inquisition for heresy), and 
 had sent to Walpole to profess a desire for conversion. Walpole de- 
 clares that he distrusted him, and refused to ask for his release. He 
 denies strenuously that he ever had any conversation with him about 
 the Queen's assassination, and declined to give him a letter for any 
 Catholic in England. Squire had then escaped, and had gone to Eng- 
 land. The confession of Squire, before torture was applied, that 
 Walpole had incited him to commit the murder and had provided the 
 means, seems, however, damning as against the Jesuit. Unlike others 
 in similar case, he had not come with sensational " confessions" for the 
 purpose of gaining money and credit. He had been eighteen months 
 in England, and had not said a word until Stanley's and Munday's de- 
 nunciation of him caused his arrest. (See Waad to Cecil and Essex, 
 Hatfield Papers, vol. viii. p. 382.)
 
 DR. BAGSHAW AND THE JESUITS 327 
 
 The effect of Squire's revelation, that Walpole had 
 given him a recommendation to Bagshaw to aid in 
 the plot, caused the immediate despatch of orders 
 to the local justices to send Bagshaw from Wisbech 
 to London for examination. How bitter the feeling 
 was between Jesuits and Seculars was seen even in 
 this hour of trial. One of the former confined in 
 the Tower, named Ralph Ithel (or Udal), told 
 Waad, when he knew of the suspicion against 
 Bagshaw, that in his room at Wisbech there was 
 a hiding-place in a certain part of the wall " where 
 he bestows his letters and books that are sedi- 
 tious which he disperses abroad. He further tells 
 me (Waad) of a priest there called Blewit, who 
 is of counsel with Bagshaw in all his doings, in 
 whose chamber are like private conveyances." ^ The 
 Council, however, seem to have been persuaded of 
 the innocence of Bagshaw, although he remained 
 in the Gatehouse Prison, W^estminster, until Feb- 
 ruary 1599. There is ample reason to believe that 
 during the period he was there he gave to Cecil the 
 fullest information with regard to the case of the 
 loyal clergy against the Jesuits, and doubtless laid 
 the foundation for the general understanding which 
 was afterwards effected between the Government and 
 the appellants against the Archpriest's authority.^ 
 
 1 Waad to Essex and Cecil, Hatfield Paj^eis, vol. viii. Ithel was a 
 personal enemy of Bluet. Persons in his " Apologie " says that Bluet 
 iu his conversation at this time with the keeper of Wisbech Castle, had 
 asked the latter, when he wrote to Waad, to warn him against Ithel, 
 who he said was still in correspondence with Gerard, who had escaped 
 from the Tower. Persons, who blackens Bluet's character as a drunkard 
 and a brawler, relates that he came to fisticuffs with Ithel and another 
 priest at Wisbech. 
 
 ■^ An interesting letter written to him from Yorkshire by his friend 
 Father Mush shortly after this (May 1 599) proves the fear that Bagshaw's
 
 328 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 This persistent talk of renewed Jesuit murder 
 plots in the autumn of 1 598 was rendered the more 
 alarming by the reports of the English spies already 
 referred to with regard to the aggressive intentions 
 of Spain. The Mayor of Boulogne continued to 
 write frequently to the Earl of Essex, giving him 
 details of the warlike plans of the Cardinal Arch- 
 duke Albert.^ John Colville was still equally in- 
 dustrious in assuring him that the Bishop of 
 Glasgow in Paris was " marvellously busie with 
 the Cardinal " to persuade him not to do anything 
 against James's claims to the English crown. 
 Huntly and Lennox were now in high favour in 
 Scotland, and Catholic agents were speeding back- 
 wards and forwards daily between Scotland and 
 France. "The Cardinal" (reported Colville on the 
 4th September) "doth expect some more forces from 
 Spain, and it is yet unconcluded whether they 
 invade England by entering in Scotland or the Low 
 
 negotiations with the Council aroused. "Jesu ! what vile rumours and 
 slanders are cast all over touching you. . . . For God's sake be wary of 
 your tongue, that no advantages be taken of you ; and be sure of them 
 you impart your mind unto. It is said you are notably circumvented 
 by one you trust ; one of our own cloth, who deals verj^ cunningly with 
 you. . . . Since your departure Waad hath had all the priests in 
 prisons before him, his chiefest questions and threats were about this 
 Arch(priest) and accepting of him. A plot, as he saieth of Fa. 
 Parsons to make all priests co-operate for brin,^ing in the Infanta for 
 to be our Queue. , . . Wonder they make no proclamation against it ; 
 but I muse they ar so senseless as not to thinke upon some toUeration, 
 with conditions w''-'' might free vs from this jelosye " (Petyt MSS. 
 xlvii., printed in full in Law's "Jesuits and Seculars"). 
 
 * See these letters in Hatfield Papers, vol. viii. Even Charles 
 Paget, in a letter written (November 30) to Cecil's agent, Barnes, 
 about the secret negotiations — probably relating to Arabella Stuart — 
 then afoot, said that the King oi Spain had prepareil a force of 8000 
 men to send to Ireland, and had seized all Hollander ships in Spanish 
 ports for a similar purpose (State Papers, Domestic).
 
 A FRESH INVASION SCARE 329 
 
 Countries." An English pilot captured in a Spanish 
 ship confessed that "a kinsman of the Earl of 
 Tyrone had been with the King of Spain, from 
 whom he had obtained six galleons, certain Flemish 
 ships, and pataches, wherein shall be transported 
 3000 old soldiers from the garrisons of Calais, 
 Blavet, and others, whereof was gathered at the 
 Groyne (Corunna) before this examinant's coming 
 from thence eight companies, and the ships were 
 graven and rigged." ^ A French agent of the Earl 
 of Essex assured him that the Archbishop of Glas- 
 gow was his enemy, and was in daily confabulation 
 with Cardinal Lorraine and other princes of the 
 House of Guise. France and Spain, he said, were 
 endeavouring to form a league against England ; 
 and John Colville capped this intelligence with the 
 news that James had sent the Laird of Spynnie and 
 other Catholic agents to Paris and Brussels in order 
 to associate Scotland with the Catholic Powers, and 
 facilitate an invasion of England,'^ 
 
 * Depi^sition of W. Wylles (Hatfield Papers, vol. A'iii., September lo, 
 1598). 
 
 ^ No one in England seems to have understood that these influences 
 were mutually destructive, and that all approaches of James to Spain 
 stultified his own objects by alienating his French, Italian, and Papal 
 friends, whilst Spain was bound to ojjpose to the utmost all attempts 
 to raise him to the English throne under French auspices, or as the 
 result of a compromise which gave to England and Scotland religious 
 toleration like that already granted in Germany and France, and thus 
 leave Spain entirely isolated in her unbending bigotry. It was here 
 that the interests of Flanders imder the Archduke separated from those 
 of Spain ; and the best hope of reconciliation, as the Cecils saw, was to 
 induce the Archiiuke to revert to the ancient policy of the Burgundians, 
 by throwing over Spain altogether, and depending upon England and 
 Germany. The difficulty which prevented thi-* was the ulirumontism 
 of the Infanta, and the uncompromising attitude of Essex and the 
 Puritan party in England.
 
 330 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 How small a modicum of truth there was in all 
 these, and scores of similar advices, we shall see 
 presently ; but, true or false, they gave new strength 
 to the war party and to Essex, and rendered it in- 
 creasingly difficult for Cecil and the moderates to 
 bring about a peaceful arrangement with Spain 
 which might enable the whole of the Queen's re- 
 sources to be cast against the most threatening 
 danger of all, namely, that of Tyrone in Ireland. 
 The Archduke himself had really no wish to burden 
 his and the Infanta's new sovereignty with his 
 father-in-law's old quarrels. Flanders, separated now 
 from the Spanish crown, had no cause of quarrel 
 against England ; and it was distinctly against the 
 interests of the latter to avoid driving Flanders, by 
 persistent enmity, into friendship with France. We 
 have seen that already the Cecils had opened com- 
 munications with the Archduke through Charles 
 Paget ; but the agents of Essex at home and abroad 
 threw every obstacle in the way of an under- 
 standing,^ and, thanks to them on the one hand 
 and the Jesuits on the other, the efforts at recon- 
 ciliation failed. It is interesting to note, however, 
 that this arose from no unwillingness of the Car- 
 dinal Archduke, as will be seen by the letter he 
 wrote to Philip whilst the latter was on his death- 
 bed. "We learn from England that the Queen is 
 desirous of peace, and that much discussion is taking 
 place there on the question . . . but they wish the 
 first approaches to be made on our side, in which 
 case they would reciprocate. . . . As I am naturally 
 
 1 See the reference to this point in the " Advices " of Essex's French 
 agent in Paris at this period, in Hatfield Papers, vol. viii.
 
 OBSTACLES TO PEACE 331 
 
 desirous of the general peace ... I have considered 
 whether it would not be advisable, after I have 
 taken possession of the States on behalf of the 
 Infanta, to send an envoy to the Queen of England 
 on some complimentary mission, in the names of 
 the Infanta and myself." He then suggests that 
 the embassy might give a hint that the transfer of 
 the sovereignty of Flanders had, ipso facto, ended 
 the war between the dominion and England, and 
 this might open the way to a formal peace. " I 
 think that this could hardly fail to give satisfaction 
 to your Majesty, as it is evident from what your 
 Majesty has written to me on several occasions, 
 that your Majesty's own inclinations are in favour 
 of some peaceful arrangements." ^ This is highly 
 significant, because it not only shows that the idea 
 of dominating England by force was already well 
 nigh abandoned by practical men, even on the 
 Spanish side, but also that the Archduke, at all 
 events, had no desire to promote the claims of his 
 bride, the Infanta, to the English throne. These, 
 it is true, were the traditional Spanish aims fos- 
 tered by Philip ; but Spain herself was, for all her 
 boasting, as prostrate and corrupt now as was the 
 body of the King who had ruined her. The Arch- 
 duke was an Austro-Flemish prince, whose only 
 hope of a peaceful and prosperous sovereignty was 
 to free himself from the strangling toils of impossible 
 Spanish ambitions, whilst peace with Flanders was 
 of vital interest to English trade. But the tales of 
 spies and fugitives, who did not understand the real 
 
 1 Archduke Albert to the King, August 12, 1598, MSS. Simancas, 
 Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.
 
 332 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 trend of affairs, the foolish panic about widespread 
 Catholic murder plots, the vapouring of bigots and 
 swashbucklers, and, above all, the staggering blow 
 struck at English power in Ireland by Tyrone's 
 victory, gave to Essex and his friends the oppor- 
 tunity they sought to prevent reconciliation and 
 compromise, which were the objects of more mode- 
 rate men. 
 
 Events proved that the fears of the Irish Council 
 had not exaggerated the danger arising out of the 
 English defeat at Armagh ; and both in England 
 and in Ireland it was soon understood that the 
 island would have to be reconquered by the Queen's 
 troops, no matter at what cost. '* We cannot but 
 fear far more dangerous sequels, even to the utter 
 hazard of the kingdom, and that out of hand, if 
 God and her Majesty prevent them not," wrote the 
 Irish Council immediately after the disaster. " This," 
 opined John Chamberlain, " is the greatest loss and 
 dishonour the Queen hath had in her time. . . . 
 The state of Ireland grows daily di mal in peggio, 
 for they begin now to stir in Munster, where the 
 White Knight, Sir James of Desmond, and one 
 Patrick Condon, a shrewd fellow, are out. . . . 
 Some think that Lord Mountjoy shall be sent 
 thither as deputie ; others say that the Earl of Essex 
 means to take it upon him, and hopes by his coun- 
 tenance to quiet that country. Marry ! he wold 
 have it under the brode scale of England, that after 
 a year he might return at his will." 
 
 In any case it was evident that the pettifogging 
 churchmen and lawyers who composed the Council 
 in Dublin, and a general like Ormonde, mainly in-
 
 THE DANGER IN IRELAND 333 
 
 terested in preserving his own domains from damage, 
 were unequal to the task of crushing the rapidly 
 spreading revolt. Sir Richard Bingham, who in his 
 time ruled Connaught with a rod of iron, at little or 
 no cost to Elizabeth, was sent back to Ireland as 
 Marshal : the English troops originally destined for 
 Loch Foyle in Ulster were diverted to Dublin ; for 
 the first need was to put into safety from capture the 
 seat of English government. If Tyrone had been 
 allowed by the composition and resources of his 
 army to follow up rapidly his victory at Armagh, the 
 capital would have fallen at once, and he would have 
 been absolute master of Ireland. But his stores 
 were short, O'Donnell's men wanted to go home, 
 and Tyrone was anxious about Loch Foyle. 
 
 In October a plan was discovered in the nick of 
 time, by which the rebels were to have surprised Dub- 
 lin from the inside, and have murdered the English 
 in the city. The Irish there and elsewhere, in the 
 parts hitherto well affected, were profoundly moved 
 by the success of their countrymen in the north ; 
 and within two miles of Dublin the rebels reived 
 unchecked. Even Kilkenny and Tipperary, where 
 Ormonde's own lands lay, were spoiled and ravaged ; 
 the wavering Anglo-Irish nobles began to go over 
 to the winning side ; Sir Conyers Clifford was with 
 infinite diplomacy striving, but with only partial suc- 
 cess, to keep Connaught from open revolt ; ^ whilst 
 
 1 O'Rourke, who with his sub-chiefs subsequently threw in his lot 
 again with O'Donnell, told Sir Couyers that " if all the magistrates 
 of Ireland were of your mind, these wars of Ireland would have ended 
 long ago." i\Ien like Norreys, Fenton, and Clifford, who were desirous 
 of either conciliating the Irish or else of crushing them absolutely, 
 were always hampered by the Council and the English Government,
 
 334 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Mimster blazed out irresistibly under James Fitz- 
 Thomas Fitzgerald, the "Popish" Earl of Desmond. 
 It was especially against the English settlers in the 
 wasted Desmond country in Munster that the rebels 
 directed their attacks, and most of these promptly 
 fled from their holdings to the comparative safety of 
 Cork and Dublin, leaving the revolution triumphant 
 in the province outside the walled cities. 
 
 It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that 
 all Ireland rallied spontaneously to the Catholic 
 rebellion. The inhabitants of the towns, and the 
 trading classes generally, understood perfectly well 
 that Tyrone had adopted the Catholic cause rather 
 as a means than an end. The laws notwithstanding, 
 there was but little interference by the English with 
 the practice of Catholic worship ; and it was felt 
 that trade and industry, at least, would be likely to 
 prosper — as they had done — much more under the 
 English supremacy than under the sway of native 
 territorial princelings. The smaller landowners also, 
 whom the English had freed from the tyrannical 
 extortions of the great Irish overlords, had grown 
 immensely in wealth and importance in consequence, 
 and were not at all enamoured of a return to their 
 former position of vassal chiefs. Many of this class 
 were, it is true, driven, sooner or later, to join in the 
 rebellion, by threats and the fear of finally being 
 caught on the losing and unpatriotic side, or else by 
 the desire of establishing their claims to estates 
 which the English had confirmed to others of their 
 house ; but in most cases they were eager to make 
 
 •who scorned all arrangements whilst refusing to furnish the resources 
 for coercion.
 
 DISCONTENT OF ESSEX 335 
 
 friends again with the Queen's government when 
 the tide began to turn/ 
 
 x\ll this, however, was but imperfectly understood 
 at the time by the English, who were ready to lump 
 together all Irishmen as barbarians and born traitors, 
 who could not be believed on their oath : and the 
 problem, as it was presented to the eyes of contem- 
 porary English statesmen, was to reconquer by main 
 force the island from the Irish, and possibly to be 
 brought face to face with a veteran Spanish army, 
 now liberated from France by the peace of Vervins. 
 In these circumstances it was natural that the 
 thoughts of Englishmen should turn to the most 
 noted and most popular of military leaders, the official 
 head of the Queen's land forces. Essex was, as we 
 have seen, fractious and ill-tempered at the time, 
 "chased," as he says, "into exile" by the Queen, 
 "whose indignation did take hold of all things that 
 might feed it, and that you did willinglyest hear 
 those that did kindle it." ..." Yet when the un- 
 happy news came from yonder cursed country of 
 Ireland, and I apprehended how much your Majesty 
 would be grieved to have your armies beaten, and 
 your kingdom like to be conquered by the son of a 
 smith, duty was strong enough to rouse me out of 
 my deadliest melancholy : I posted up, and first 
 offered my attendance, and afterwards my poor ad- 
 vice in writing to your Majesty ; but your Majesty 
 rejected both me and my letter."^ The reason for 
 the Queen's anger was that Essex refused to speak 
 
 ^ Even immediately after the victory of Armagh, there were bitter 
 complaints from Irishmen of the tyranny of Tyrone and O'Donnell. 
 - Essex to the Queen, August 26, 1598 (Hatfield Papers).
 
 336 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 in the Council, or to give any opinion except to 
 Elizabeth herself, and this was a pretext for a fresh 
 series of heady complaints on the one side, replied to 
 by harsh treatment on the other. 
 
 At length, at the beginning of October, the Queen, 
 who hated to lose sight of him, made him some 
 amends, and the Earl returned to court, "in as 
 good terms, they say, as ever he was." But still he 
 was disappointed. The Mastership of the Court of 
 Wards, vacant by the death of Burghley, would have 
 produced a large revenue to pay his vast debts ; but 
 it was refused to him, and was going to his enemy, 
 Cecil : the Lord Treasurership had been given over 
 his head to Buckhurst : the Queen was still tart 
 with him, for she had sworn to humble him, and 
 had not forgotten, nor ever would forget, the per- 
 sonal slight he had put upon her, like a spoiled 
 child, on the occasion of their last squabble.^ The 
 wise Lord-Keeper Egerton had written to him on 
 that occasion, gravely warning him that unless he 
 
 1 It was on the occasion of a discussion as to the appointment of a 
 new Viceroy of Ireland. The Queen and Cecil wished to send Sir 
 William Knollys, the Queen's second cousin and Essex's uncle. The 
 Earl, however, was pleased to consider that this was a trick of the 
 Cecil party to reduce the number of his friends at Court, and tem- 
 pestuously urged the appointment of Sir George Carew, a cousin of 
 Ralegh's and an adherent of the Cecil party. When the Queen re- 
 butted his opinion, he ostentatiously turned his back upon her, where- 
 upon the irate sovereign boxed his ears, and told him to go and be 
 hanged. The Earl then clapped his hand to his sword, and swore he 
 would take such an indignity from no one— not even Henry VIII. He 
 was restrained by the Lord Admiral, and forbidden the presence for 
 some time afterwards. He came back, as we have related in the text, 
 as a result of the efforts of his friends and of his own expressions of 
 lovelorn desperation to the Queen ; but he was still cimsumed with a 
 hatred worse than ever for Cecil, RalegL, Cobham, Howard, and every 
 one else who presumed to exist by his side without being his abject slave.
 
 ESSEX TO COMMAND IN IRELAND 337 
 
 obtained a victory over his own temper, he would go 
 downhill to certain destruction; his mother, the Coun- 
 tess of Leicester, tearfully prayed her "sweet Robin " 
 to humble himself before his sovereign — a woman. 
 
 But though the Earl had been wheedled back to 
 court by his friends, he was still unhumbled, and 
 at the meetings of the Council to discuss the affairs 
 of Ireland he would only flout and sneer at what 
 was proposed by others. Every viceroy, he said, 
 had failed because he had not struck swiftly and 
 boldly at the heart of the trouble ; but had com- 
 pounded and paltered with traitors. Nothing and 
 nobody pleased or satisfied him. When his friend 
 Lord Montjoy was proposed as viceroy, he cavilled 
 at his capability and scoffed at his comparative 
 poverty. Finally, at a suggestion that he might 
 undertake the task himself, Essex was almost 
 forced, by his attitude towards all other sugges- 
 tions, to acquiesce. No sooner had he done so than 
 he began to make demands and conditions. He 
 must have fuller powers than ever had been granted 
 to a viceroy before ; he must have an army much 
 larger than had previously been authorised ; and, 
 above all, he must have warrant under the great 
 seal to return, if he pleased, in a year. When 
 Cecil was absent in France in the summer of 1598, 
 Bacon had written to Essex urging the latter to take 
 charge of Irish affairs ; but now that the Earl had 
 committed himself to the grave responsibility, his 
 friends — and amongst them Bacon, by his own 
 showing ^ — saw the trap into which his fractiousness 
 
 * The letter from Bacon, urging him to take Irish affairs in hand, is 
 printed in " Cabala." The assertion that he did not persuade him is 
 
 Y
 
 338 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 had led him and begged him to refuse the com- 
 mand. Egerton also wrote to the Earl pointing out 
 the risk of failure, the danger of his absence from 
 court, and the ungrateful nature of the service he 
 had undertaken. Essex would fain have withdrawn, 
 but now he dared not ; and already there was seeth- 
 ing in his mind that plan of his, by which he 
 dreamed of imposing his authority over all others 
 by means of the forces of the Queen under his 
 command.^ The project was a mad and a wicked 
 one, but Essex was crazy with vanity and ambition. 
 
 All through the winter the fresh demands of 
 Essex, conditional upon his acceptance of the com- 
 mand, caused the question of his appointment to 
 waver. He was, wrote Chamberlain (November 22), 
 to go in " February or March with as ample a com- 
 mission as ever any had ; the conditions whereof 
 it were lost labour to set down, because they vary 
 and alter every week ; and withal, his going is not 
 resolved so fully but that once in ten days it is 
 in question." And again, on the 8th December 
 the same letter- writer says : " The rebels grow daily 
 both in heart and strength ; and what is worse, the 
 great ones of that country, and those that have 
 always been thought soundest, use the matter so 
 
 made by Bacon in liis disingenuous attempt, long afterwards, to justify 
 his vile treatment of his patron when he had fallen (Bacon to the 
 Earl of Devonshire). 
 
 ^ Bacon in his apology for his conduct to Essex, written to the Earl 
 of Devonshire, says that Essex believed that the Queen could only be 
 successfully managed by compulsion ; and it is probable that the prin- 
 cipal object of his desire to go to Ireland was to have under him an 
 army large enough to overcome all resistance to him. We shall see 
 later how he proposed to employ the forces entrusted to him by his 
 sovereign.
 
 ESSEX WAVERS 339 
 
 that they be not out of suspicion ; for neither do 
 they any service themselves nor assist those who 
 would do it. . . . The Earl of Essex's journey 
 thither is neither fast nor loose, but holds still in 
 suspense, by reason the proportions thought fit for 
 such an enterprise are daily dipt and diminished ; 
 for it was first set down that liis number (with those 
 already there) should be 14,000, with full allowance 
 of victual-money, &c. ; but whether they think the 
 matter may be compassed with less charge, or that 
 we be not able to beare such a burthen,^ these rates 
 are brought lower ; wherewith he is nothing pleased : 
 and on these terms it stands." 
 
 During all this bickering and uncertainty Essex 
 was besieged with applications for commissions and 
 offers of service in his ranks. His lavish scattering 
 of knighthoods and loot at Cadiz, and his personal 
 splendour, now at his height, had made him the 
 most popular man in England, both with the 
 younger gentry, who swore by him as their leader, 
 and amongst the London crowd, whose heart he had 
 gained by his anti-Catholic politics and his solici- 
 tude for the welfare of his soldiers in war. Shortly 
 before Christmas the idea of his going to Ireland 
 was entirely abandoned for a time, on some question 
 of the Queen's forgiving a great debt nominally 
 owing to her by him. " But whether it were that 
 
 ^ The Queen was extremely short of money at the time, and only on 
 very onerous terms could she obtain a loan of ^150,000 from the Lon- 
 don bankers. So hard pressed was she that it was feared she would 
 have recourse to her father's bad old plan of a benevolence, and she 
 was " faine to descend to mean men, and pick up here and there as 
 she can get it. You must think they were neere driven when they 
 found out me as a fit man to lend money " (John Chamberlain, State 
 Papers, Domestic).
 
 340 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 matter or some other, all is turned upside down, and 
 he (Essex) and Mr. Secretary (Cecil) have so good 
 a leisure that they ply the tables hard in the 
 presence chamber, and play so round a game as if 
 Ireland were to be recovered at Irish" {i.e. back- 
 gammon). At length the Queen gave way, pardoned 
 him ^32,000 of debt, and danced a gaillard with 
 him on Twelfth-day, " very richly and freshly at- 
 tired," though even on so festive an occasion as 
 this, the Earl must needs come to open quarrel, 
 and almost combat, with the aged Lord-Admiral 
 Howard.^ All the young nobles flocked round 
 their leader again. Derby, Rutland, Southampton, 
 Windsor, Grey, Audley, Cromwell, and knights by 
 the score, competed for his smile ; whereupon the 
 Queen grew jealous, and forbade many of them to 
 accompany him. " Some suspect it is his owne 
 doing, because he is not able to give them all satis- 
 faction, but I am not of that opinion," says John 
 Chamberlain, who was probably right. 
 
 At length, in March, the matter was finally settled, 
 though not before all the court was set by the ears 
 
 ' A Spanish spy in England writes thus on January 24, 1 599 : 
 " The preparations for Ireland are being pushed forward, but the Earl 
 of Essex will not be ready to sail until the middle of March. He is 
 meeting with many impediments . . . and his rivals particularly wish 
 him to sail without his stores, which they promise to send after him. 
 But he insists upon taking at least six months' provisions with him. 
 He asserts that he learns from men recently in Spain that the King is 
 making great preparations to aid the Irish rebels, and he (Essex) 
 demands more stores. But the Lord-Admiral greatly opposes this, 
 saying that it is not true, and this year the King of Spain is not 
 making, and cannot make, any jsreparations against Ireland. They 
 are much at issue about this, and had even arranged to fight a duel 
 but the Queen would not allow it (MSS. Simancas, Spanish Calendar, 
 vol. iv.).
 
 ESSEX LANDS IN IRELAND 341 
 
 by Essex's fretful humours and his universal jealousy. 
 He wished to go and he wished to stay. He hated 
 his opponents for their eagerness to aid him in his 
 journey and so get rid of him, and he was equally 
 angry with those who sought to stay him. He 
 wished for the armed power to coerce the Queen, 
 and yet he dreaded to leave her surrounded by those 
 who bore him no love. But he had gone too far 
 now to back out, and on the 13th April 1599 he 
 landed in Dublin, the most splended viceroy that 
 Ireland had ever seen, attended by the flower of the 
 English nobility and an army of 20,000 foot and 
 over 1300 horse.^ The powers he bore were those 
 of a sovereign, though he assumed the title of Lord- 
 Lieutenant only. His power of pardon extended 
 even to crimes of treason against the person of the 
 Queen, and the highest officers in Ireland were at 
 his mercy ; even the sovereign's letters-patent might 
 be suspended by him. He had the disposal of the 
 rebels' lands he conquered, subject only to a chief 
 rent to the crown. He might create barons and 
 issue treasury warrants of his own ; his writ was 
 made to supersede in Ireland that of the English 
 Privy Council, and the command of the fleet in the 
 Irish seas passed from the hands of the Lord- 
 Admiral into those of Essex. 
 
 The ill-balanced young man who wielded these 
 great prerogatives, backed by the largest armed force 
 that England could muster, was in a dangerous 
 frame of mind. His heart was raging with jealous 
 
 ^ Chamberlain wrote : " They talke likewise of carrienge over two 
 or three hundretl mastives to werry {i.e. worry) the Irish, or rather (as 
 I take it) their cattell."
 
 342 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 pride, and the knowledge that the simpering hunch- 
 back he hated had outwitted him at every point ; 
 that the semi-Papist Howards were at court, and 
 that the clever middle-aged upstart Ralegh was 
 posing in his glittering silver cuirass at the Queen's 
 side, whilst he, young, high-born, and a greater 
 favourite than Ralegh ever had been, was con- 
 signed by his own ill-temper to a hard inglorious 
 struggle against half-savage rebels, in a hateful land 
 that had engulfed his father's life and fortune/ 
 Above all, in his absence and that of his friends, 
 the ground would be clear for Cecil and his party 
 to complete those arrangements which he knew to 
 be in progress for commencing a new reign when 
 the old Queen should die, under auspices which 
 would finally consign the magnificent Essex to 
 obscurity or worse. 
 
 In these circumstances it was inevitable that Essex 
 should think more of his own future than of the 
 special service that he had undertaken ; and almost 
 
 1 Instance his famous and oft-quoted letter to the Queen at this 
 time, beginning, " From a mind delighting in sorrow, from spirits 
 wasted with passion, from a heart torn to pieces with care, grief, and 
 travail, from a man that hateth himself and all things else that keep 
 him alive, what service can your IMajesty expect, since any service 
 past deserves no more than banishment and proscription to the cursed- 
 est of all islands?" (Birch). From Markham's letter to Harrington, 
 printed by the latter in his Nugce Antiquce, it is evident that the court 
 was fully alive to the danger of Essex's position, and to the distrust 
 the Queen still felt of him. " Observe the man who commandeth and 
 yet is commanded himself ; he goeth not forth to serve the Queen's 
 realm but to humour his own revenge. ... If he performs in the field 
 what he hath promised in the Council, all will be well ; but though the 
 Queen hath granted forgiveness for his late demeanour in her presence, 
 we know not what to think. ... I sore fear what may happen. . . . 
 You have difficult matters to encounter besides Tyrone and the 
 rebels."
 
 ESSEX'S DISOBEDIENCE 343 
 
 the first exercise of his prerogative on Irish soil was 
 to violate the Queen's express command. The fool- 
 ish, flighty young Earl of Southampton had, with 
 Essex's connivance, contracted a secret marriage with 
 Miss Vernon, the cousin of the latter. Southampton 
 had retired to France for a time, in order to escape 
 the anger of the Queen when his marriage was dis- 
 covered. In Paris he took to gambling and lost the 
 remains of his fortune, and on his return to London 
 was sent to prison for marrying without the Queen's 
 permission. He was released at the continued im- 
 portunity of Essex, but when the Earl proposed 
 before his departure to appoint Southampton com- 
 mander of the cavalry in Ireland, the Queen angrily 
 forbade such an appointment in favour of a man who 
 had offended her. Essex broke this royal behest, 
 and placed Southampton at the head of the cavalry 
 soon after he arrived in Ireland. It was probably 
 meant for a deliberate trial of strength between 
 him and the Queen, and if so, it failed miserably. 
 He had begun before he left England to complain 
 and doubt about the support that would be ac- 
 corded to him. "If I have not inward comfort 
 and outward demonstration of her Majesty's favour 
 I am defeated in England," he wrote on April 5 
 from Cheshire. He sent back Sir Christopher 
 Blount, his father-in-law, in a huff, because the 
 Queen would not allow him to be sworn a member 
 of the Irish Council. " If," he wrote complainingly, 
 " I, going to manage a diflScult war and to govern a 
 dissolute and undisciplined army, have to consult 
 with a council to whom her Majesty imputeth almost 
 the loss of a kingdom, without one able assistant to
 
 344 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 consult, I shall find a lack." ^ If Blount could not 
 be a councillor he should not come at all. He was 
 " being maimed beforehand," the Earl grumbled ; 
 and when he was on board his ship ready to sail, he 
 protested to Cecil " that it is not Tyrone and the 
 Irish rebellion that amazeth me, but to see myself 
 sent on such an errand, at such a time, with so little 
 comfort or ability from the court of England." No- 
 thing satisfied him, though to all appearance every 
 effort to do so was made by the Council in England ; 
 and the Irish Council were efi"usive in their submis- 
 sion and flattery. 
 
 When he took command in Ireland, he found the 
 rebels ranging at their will over the country. Carrick- 
 fergus, Newry, and Carlingford were the only towns 
 in the north held by the Queen ; a good portion of 
 Connaught had now revolted ; there were 3000 rebels 
 in Leinster, and Munster was practically abandoned 
 by English sympathisers, except the walled towns. 
 Essex's plan had always been to strike hard at 
 Tyrone in his own country, but there were diffi- 
 culties in the way of which he had known nothing. 
 There was no forage in Ulster so early in the year ; 
 provisions for the troops must be all led or carried, 
 for the country was in the hands of the enemy ; food 
 was still very scarce all over Ireland, and the roads 
 were impracticable for a great part of the way. So 
 Essex was forced to throw over his own plans and 
 devote himself to Leinster and Munster, until the 
 advanced summer allowed him to tackle the arch- 
 rebel in his own fastnesses. The English settle- 
 ments in Munster had been a doubtful success ; 
 
 1 Irish State Papers of the date.
 
 ESSEX IN IRELAND 345 
 
 there was bitter hatred between the English and 
 Irish, and even between the English themselves : 
 the most glaring corruption existed amongst Eng- 
 lish officials, and the native Irish could get neither 
 justice nor protection except by bribery. Wherever 
 the English came into contact with the Irish, the 
 latter were robbed and maltreated ; and the country 
 people, oppressed by the English and by the rebel 
 bands alike, were reduced to utter famine, " with 
 nothing but roots, grass, and boiled nettles to eat." 
 Tlie people of Connaught had " already eaten their 
 garrans, and were now living on the ground and 
 eating dogs' flesh." ^ 
 
 It was in this disastrous state of affairs that Essex, 
 still bewailing and complaining, started, on May 9, 
 1599^ for his journey through Leinster and Munster. 
 He had, in the period since his arrival, reduced the 
 chaos in Dublin to something like order, but he 
 clamoured in vain for still larger reinforcements ^ 
 and increased supplies from England. To his in- 
 dignation he was told that he must get volunteers 
 from the English in Ireland. They were cowards, 
 he said, and would not fight ; even the soldiers he 
 had brought from England with him were a poor 
 lot, and much inferior in "hardness" to the rebels. 
 The latter had now in the field an organised army — 
 7000 men under Tyrone near Armagh, and another 
 body of 4000 under O'Donnell in Connaught, besides 
 smaller bands all over the country. There was still 
 much talk of a Spanish force coming to their aid,^ 
 
 ^ Irish State Papers, passim. 
 
 2 The reinforcement of 2000 men was not due in Ireland till June i. 
 
 3 When Essex was on his march throuyh Munster, he learnt (June 
 15) that two small ships of munitions and treasure had arrived from
 
 346 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 and Essex did not for a moment beguile himself or 
 the Queen with hopes of an easy victory. 
 
 But he found the guerilla warfare to which he was 
 committed in an enemy's country even harder and 
 more distasteful than he had thought. His pas- 
 sage through Leinster was comparatively unopposed. 
 Rebel castles surrendered to him with but little 
 resistance, and the bands generally scattered as he 
 attacked them ; but the constant harassing of his 
 flanks and cutting-off of his stragglers gave him a 
 foretaste of the task before him. " This war," he 
 wrote, "is likely to exercise both our faculties that 
 do manage it, and her Majesty's patience that must 
 maintain it." His men, he complained, had "neither 
 bodies, spirits, nor practice of arms." The enemy 
 were light and swift — " rogues and naked beggars," 
 he called them — who could elude the English in 
 mountains and morasses after delivering their attack. 
 At Cahir a force of 5000 rebels were encountered, 
 and the castle was captured.^ Then, after passing 
 
 Spain in Loch Foyle, but no men ; but, as we have seen, the reports of 
 the preparations in Spain to send a large force were constant. The 
 Adelantado seconded the Irish demands, and the bigoted, inexperienced 
 young king was burning to undertake the " enterprise of England." 
 But he was absolutely bankrupt, and his new guide and favourite, the 
 Duke of Lerma, was in favour of deferring the undertaking for that 
 year. Lerma, of course, had his way, as will be related in the text. 
 About the same time (June 1599) Tyrone also received several cargoes 
 of munitions in Scottish ships, either from Scotland or from France 
 and Flanders. 
 
 1 Elizabeth was very indignant at this small result of Essex's journey. 
 The capture of Cahir Castle she ridiculed as the mere " taking of an 
 Irish hold from a rabble of rogues " (Irish State Papers, Elizabeth to 
 Essex, July 19, 1599). Lord Cahir was already in the hands of the 
 English, and his castle was surrendered by the rebels at his request 
 with hardly a show of resistance. Cecil, writing to Sir Henry Neville 
 in France (July 14), explained the little effect produced in Munster by 
 
 I
 
 ESSEX IN IRELAND 347 
 
 through Limerick, Essex had to fight and push his 
 way through the Desmond country, inflicting a con- 
 siderable defeat upon the Catholic Desmond him- 
 self on June II, finally arriving at Waterford on 
 the 2 1 St. 
 
 Whilst he was on this march he received the 
 peremptory order from the Queen to dismiss South- 
 ampton, and he wrote in reply the letter, which has 
 often been printed, in which he so passionately 
 defends himself and his friend. But here Essex 
 suffered his first fall, for he dared not refuse to 
 obey the Queen's indignant command, and South- 
 ampton was dismissed. The temper of Essex at 
 the time is shown by another letter from him (25th 
 June) to the Queen herself, giving her an account 
 of his movements and plans. As usual, it is full of 
 complaints. *' But why," he asks, " should I talk 
 of victory or success ? Is it not known that from 
 England I receive nothing but discomforts and soul's 
 wounds ? Is it not spoken in the army that your 
 Majesty's favour is diverted from me, and that 
 already you do bode ill both to me and it ? Is it not 
 believed by the rebels that those whom you most 
 favour do more hate me out of faction than them 
 out of duty or conscience? Is it not lamented of 
 your Majesty's faithfullest subjects, both here and 
 there, that a Cobham or a Ralegh (I forbear others 
 for their places' sake) should have such credit and 
 favour with your Majesty, when they wish the ill- 
 success of your Majesty's most important action, 
 the decay of your greatest strength, and the destruc- 
 
 Essex by saying, " But the rouges shunne figlit, and so know how to 
 spend us and eat us out with tyme " (Winwood Papers).
 
 348 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 tion of your faithfullest servants ? Yes ! yes ! I 
 do see both my own destiny and your Majesty's 
 decree." This was both wicked and wrong-headed. 
 There was no desire on the part of the moderate 
 members of the Queen's Government that he should 
 fail in Ireland, and his suggestion that the army 
 itself was discontented was intended as a veiled 
 threat. It is plain to see that his jealousy had 
 warped his judgment, and that he believed all men 
 to be leagued together for his ruin. This belief, 
 real or pretended, hurried him on to his own de- 
 struction. 
 
 And thus he slowly returned to Dublin, raging 
 against the Queen's angry disapproval of his march 
 through Leinster and Munster. On his way back 
 he had been obliged to make a detour. In his 
 absence Sir John Harrington had endeavoured to 
 punish and suppress the O'Byrnes and O'Tooles, 
 who were ravaging Wicklow. The English force, 
 depleted by dishonesty, desertion, and drafts for 
 service elsewhere, only reached about 300 men, 
 and Harrington found on arriving at Wicklow, 
 that he was surrounded by hordes of rebels, far 
 exceeding his own strength. In attempting to 
 secure his retreat to the town of Wicklow over 
 a ford on the Ranelagh, he was attacked in the 
 rear. Panic seized the pikemen — " base, cowardly, 
 ill-guided clowns," as Essex calls them — and they 
 fled incontinently, casting away their arms, accoutre- 
 ments, and even their garments, most of them being 
 overtaken and slaughtered by the rebels. The 
 wavering chiefs of the O'Byrnes, O'Moores, O'Con- 
 nors, and Kavanaghs rallied to the victorious side,
 
 RETURN TO DUBLIN 349 
 
 and Essex was forced to turn aside and face the 
 united army of the Leinster rebels at Arklow. He 
 had now only 1200 fighting men with him, for he 
 had left garrisons at various places on his march ; 
 and at one time during the ensuing fight it looked 
 as if he must be overwhelmed, for his guides had 
 misled him, and the rebels caught him in an am- 
 bush. But a charge of heavy horse saved the day, 
 and the Leinster men were beaten. This was on 
 the 29th June, and early in July Essex entered 
 Dublin dispirited and distempered in mind and 
 body. 
 
 His march through the provinces had produced 
 no important effect upon the rebels. None of the 
 chiefs had submitted. The little garrisons he had 
 scattered about were all surrounded, and the armies 
 of the northern rebels remained intact and powerful. 
 Rebuke and stern reproof came from the Queen 
 and her Council,^ whereupon Essex again bewailed 
 his hard fate in piteous and eloquent letters, saying 
 that he was being stabbed in the back by enemies in 
 London. The Council tried to appease him with dig- 
 
 1 " You must needs think that we, that have the eyes of foreign 
 princes upon our actions, and have the heart of the people to comfort 
 and cherish, who groan under the burden of continual levies and 
 impositions, which are occasioned by these late actions, can little 
 please ourselves with anything that hath been effected " (Elizabeth to 
 Essex, July 19, 1599, State Papers, Irish). 
 
 With regard to Essex's complaints of the enmity of the Queen's chief 
 Ministers against him, the Council wrote gravely : " We can only say 
 this, that those imputations of any indisposition towards you are so 
 improper to us, as we will neither do your Lordship that wrong to take 
 them as so intended, nor ourselves that injury to excuse them " {ibid.). 
 
 John Chamberlain writes from London (28th June) : " The Queene 
 is nothing satisfied with the Earl of Essex manner of proceeding, nor 
 likes anything that is done. She sayes she allowes him loool. a day 
 to go in progresse."
 
 3SO TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 nified assurances and expressions of confidence; but 
 they, too, were forced to point out that all had been 
 done that was possible to send him the resources 
 he had demanded. The Queen ridiculed the idea 
 of his being wilfully injured by his enemies at court, 
 and became haughtily angry at his veiled menace 
 that many of the gentlemen in his train were so 
 annoyed at her treatment of him in the matter of 
 Southampton that they desired to return to England. 
 At length she grew tired of his childish petu- 
 lance, and peremptorily ordered the Earl (July 30) 
 to proceed against Tyrone — " that base bush-kern," 
 as she called him — who, through bad management 
 on the part of the English, had now "come to 
 be accounted so famous a rebel" as to need the 
 employment of many thousands of soldiers to sup- 
 press him. She had spent vast sums of money, 
 she said, specially with this end, and yet " the 
 base rebels shall see this golden calf preserve him- 
 self without taint or loss." There must be no more 
 whimpering and dallying on the part of Essex. He 
 was to go at once with the forces he had and engage 
 Tyrone. "And after you shall have certified us to 
 what form you have reduced things in the north, 
 what hath been the success, and whom you and the 
 Council could wish to leave with that charge behind ; 
 and that being done, you shall with all speed 
 receive our warrant, without tvhich we do charge 
 you, as you tender our 2')l<2ctsure, that you adventure 
 not to come out of that kingdom by virtue of any 
 form,er license whatever T ^ 
 
 ^ Elizabeth to Essex, July 30, 1599, Irisli State Papers. A week 
 later she wrote again, sternly rebuking Essex for not going on his
 
 ESSEX STARTS FOR ULSTER 351 
 
 Before he received this letter a serious blow fell 
 upon the English. Sir Conyers Clifford, the Pre- 
 sident of Connaught, was completely defeated by 
 O'Donnell at the Curlews, Clifford and all the princi- 
 pal officers being killed, and 450 men being slain or 
 wounded in their headlong flight. Urged by this 
 disaster and by the Queen's reproaches, Essex hastily 
 recruited 2000 more Irish troops during the harvest- 
 time, and informed the officers of his forces and 
 the Anglo-Irish Lords and gentry of his intention 
 to set out at once for the invasion of Ulster. He 
 had not available for the field more than 3500 foot 
 and 300 horse. His men, as he was never tired 
 of writing, were mostly shirkers, cowards, and 
 malingerers.^ He had only two, or at most three, 
 general officers upon whom he could depend, and 
 his company and regimental officers were more 
 concerned in lining their pockets by peculation 
 and bribery than in fighting. The Connaught chiefs, 
 even O'Connor-Sligo, and the " English " head 
 of the Bourkes, it was feared, had fallen away in 
 
 errand at once, instead of argning about it, and slie threatened to call 
 him to strict account unless he promptly obeyed. She would not 
 allow her kingdoms, her honour, and the lives of her subjects to be 
 trifled with any longer. " We see the bitter effects of our long-suffer- 
 ings." She throws, however, most of the blame on the Irish Council, 
 whom she abuses roundly for their Papist sympathies (Elizabeth to 
 Essex, August 8, ibid.). 
 
 ^ " Her Majesty payeth many, but hath her service followed by 
 few," he wrote at this period, "for every garrison is an hospital, 
 where our degenerate countrymen are glad to entertain sickness, as a 
 supersedeas for their going into the field ; and every remove of an 
 Irish company is almost the breaking of it." Again, " They disband 
 daily : the Irish go over to the rebels by herds ; and the others 
 make strange adventures to steal over ; and some force themselves 
 sick, and lie like creatures that neither have hearts nor souls" 
 (Essex to the Council, Irish State Papers).
 
 352 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 consequence of Clifford's defeat, and O'Donnell 
 was now as supreme in the west, as Tyrone was in 
 the north ; the rebel armies reaching a total of at 
 least 16,000 men. 
 
 All these discouraging circumstances were urged 
 by Essex's council-of-war to dissuade him from pro- 
 ceeding to Ulster ; but the orders of the Queen were 
 so positive that Essex dared not disobey, and on the 
 28th August he and his unfit little army set forth, 
 leaving affairs in Leinster somewhat better than they 
 had been.^ It was shrewdly suspected that Tyrone 
 would repeat his old policy of parley and delay, and 
 Essex, in order to bring him to an engagement, and 
 at the same time to secure the future safety of the 
 Pale, determined to make Kells his base, advancing 
 thence into Ulster by Cavan and Monaghan, driving 
 back Tyrone to his own far northern strongholds. 
 On arriving at Kells, however, it was found that 
 Tyrone with 8000 men was in the neighbourhood, 
 and an advance of Essex towards Cavan would have 
 left the road open for the rebels to ravage the Pale. 
 On the 4th September the English found themselves 
 at Ardagh, in full sight of Tyrone's forces, which 
 lay on a hill opposite to them, with the river Lagan 
 running between. There was some little skirmish- 
 
 ^ Donnell Spainagli (Kavanagh), the Munsler chief, who had been 
 aiding the Leinstermen, submitted. The other principal Kavanaghs 
 under Brian M'Donagh had also come in, and Onie M'Rory O'Moore 
 had accepted a month's truce, in which some of the principal O'Byrnes 
 had joined. The O'Connors, the O'Molloys, and the M'Geoghans were 
 still in the field in Leinster. It must be repeated here, as giving the 
 key of the situation, that the smaller chieftains were not at all desirous 
 ■of re-establishing the territorial power of the Irish princelings of whom 
 they were formerly vassals. They usually hastened to make good 
 terms of " composition " for themselves on the first opportunity.
 
 ESSEX MEETS TYRONE 353 
 
 ing of stragglers and outposts, but no general fight ; 
 and as the country was bare of supplies, Essex was 
 forced to march down the river towards Louth, 
 whither his stores had been sent. Tyrone proceeded 
 parallel with him on the other side of the stream 
 until they reached the Mills of Louth, where Essex 
 crossed and encamped within sight of Tyrone's 
 scouts, the main body of the rebels being concealed 
 in a wood. 
 
 The next day Tyrone sent to request a parley, 
 which Essex refused, but told the messenger that 
 on the following morning he would be at the head 
 of his troops on a hill between the two camps : if 
 Tyrone wished to speak with him, he might seek 
 him there. True to his word, Essex drew up his 
 array on the hill at the hour named, and on 
 advancing to a second hill, upon which were 
 stationed Tyrone's cavalry, the latter retired before 
 him after a slight skirmish. Finding that Tyrone's 
 main force did not show itself, Essex returned to 
 his camp, the rebel Earl sending after him another 
 message still desiring a conference. Early next 
 morning the English set out for Drumcondra, but 
 had hardly gone half-a-mile before Tyrone's mes- 
 senger, Captain Hagan, overtook him, and said 
 that his master desired the Queen's mercy, and 
 begged that the Lord-Lieutenant would hear him. 
 If the Earl would do so, he said, he (Tyrone) would 
 gallop to a ford at Bellaclynthe, which lay in the 
 way to Drumcondra, where he would await his 
 coming. Essex sent two of his officers ahead to 
 reconnoitre this ford, where they found that Tyrone 
 had already arrived. The water, however, appeared 
 
 z
 
 354 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 to them too deep, and they objected to the place as 
 unfit for a conference. "Then," cried Tyrone, "I 
 shall despair ever to speak with him." On exami- 
 nation, a shallower place was found lower down, and 
 thither Essex was conducted, whilst a troop of 
 English horse commanded the position from a hill 
 overlooking it, and a similar troop of Irish crowned 
 a hill on the opposite side. 
 
 Tyrone sat alone, with uncovered head, on his 
 horse in the midst of the stream, the water of which 
 reached his girths. Bowing low as the Queen's 
 representative approached, he bade him welcome to 
 Ireland ; and there, with no person within earshot, 
 the two Earls held fateful conference for full half- 
 an-hour, Essex on hard ground and Tyrone with 
 his feet in the running water. Exactly what passed 
 at that interview is not known, but spies reported 
 that treason to crown and state was covertly plotted.^ 
 Tyrone knew that Essex was deeply discontented 
 with the Queen's Government, and that he had made 
 himself the champion of James Stuart's claim to the 
 crown, as against the Cecil plan of forwarding that 
 of Arabella with a Flemish-Spanish alliance. At 
 the same time letters of sympathy, and even more 
 solid aids, were reaching Tyrone from the King of 
 Scots ; and there seems nothing improbable, seeing 
 
 ^ A spy who professed to be in the bushes hard by, but whose testi- 
 mony is open to question, said that when Tyrone bade Essex welcome 
 to Ireland, the latter answered, " Nay ! ye are too Scottish to bid me 
 welcome." " No, my Lord," replied the Irish chief, " there is no man 
 liveth that may better welcome your father's son." " Can I build upon 
 that 1 " asked Essex. " Yea ! my lord, ye may be sure of it." This, 
 according to the informer Udall, led up to a treasonable understanding 
 between them. (See Bathe's and Udall's declarations in Irish State 
 Papers, uncalendared, 208, part ii.) 
 
 I
 
 ESSEX MEETS TYRONE 355 
 
 the temper of Essex and his ambitions, that he may 
 have more or less explicitly connived with Tyrone 
 on this occasion at a plan for securing the succes- 
 sion of James, conjointly with the restoration of the 
 territorial princely autonomy of Ireland, or at leasl 
 of Ulster. The Spanish Archbishop of Dublin, in 
 the following year, reported to Philip III., on the 
 authority of Tyrone, that the latter had " almost 
 gained the Earl of Essex, the Queen's commander, 
 to leave her side and join your Majesty, surrendering 
 the country to you, on the promise of great favours 
 in your Majesty's name ; and O'Neil gave him his 
 own son as hostage. The Earl did not carry out 
 the arrangement, because of his suspicion of your 
 Majesty, m consequence of certain acts of his 
 against Spain some time ago." ^ It may be doubted 
 if this is quite a correct statement of what happened. 
 Neither Essex nor Tyrone desired to " surrender the 
 country to your Majesty," and it is much more pro- 
 bable that the arrangement fell through on the 
 question of Tyrone's continued adhesion to Spain 
 and the supremacy of Catholicism. The success of 
 James and Tyrone under those auspices would not 
 have served Essex's plans. Religion was a mere 
 stalking-horse for most of the Irish chiefs ; but 
 doubtless Tyrone considered it a stronger lever to 
 work with, now that he had once adopted it, than 
 the aid of a self-seeking hothead like Essex of 
 exactly opposite views. 
 
 ^ No doubt the sacking of Cadiz, where, however, Essex's behaviour 
 was so humane and chivalrous as to have called forth the greatest 
 praise and flattery from Spaniards generally, even from Philip himself ; 
 and the Infanta, who 'said, " If he treats his enemies thus, how would 
 he treat his friends ? "
 
 356 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 When Essex retired from the secret interview, 
 Tyrone's base son Con followed him and prayed, 
 in his father's name, that a conference of a few 
 chosen men on each side might then be held. To 
 this the Lord-Lieutenant consented, and again he 
 descended to the bank of the stream, this time with 
 Southampton and five of his principal officers, to 
 meet Tyrone and a similar number of Irish chiefs, 
 who stood in the stream up to the bellybands of 
 their steeds. A further meeting was held next 
 morning, and a truce of six weeks was concluded, 
 to be extended from six weeks to six weeks till the 
 following May, such of the rebels as refused to join 
 in the cessation to be left to the mercy of the 
 English (September 8, 1599). 
 
 This was the inglorious and impotent conclusion 
 of the vaunted government of the spoilt favourite. 
 The forces on both sides were withdrawn, Tyrone 
 returning into his principality of Ulster, and Essex 
 to Drogheda. No attempt even had been made to 
 strike at the rebels' strength ; his country was un- 
 wasted, his crops and cattle safe, his harbours un- 
 assailed, and his prestige now higher than ever. 
 Above all, what rankled in the heart of Elizabeth 
 was the knowledge that all her "charges" had been 
 in vain, and the money she had so painfully borrowed 
 was worse than wasted. The letters she wrote to 
 her hapless favourite were steeped in bitter scorn ; 
 his sneers and cavils at others, the ample resources 
 she had provided, his boasting promises of victory, 
 his protestations of service, are all paraded befor(> 
 him and cruelly contrasted with his weak pusillani- 
 mous paltering with the armed rebellion he had been
 
 ESSEX FLIES TO ENGLAND 357 
 
 sent to crush. His petulant complaints and accu- 
 sations of personal enmity are scathingly rebuked. 
 " We have seen a writing in manner of a catalogue 
 full of challenges that are impertinent and of com- 
 parisons that are needless, such as hath not been 
 before this time presented to a State, except it be 
 done more with a hope to terrify all men from 
 censuring your proceedings." ^ He had no power, she 
 told him, to make such terms as he had done, though 
 now he had done so they should be respected, and 
 she hinted more than once to him, who, to do him 
 justice, was as brave as he was proud, that he was 
 either disloyal or a coward. It must well-nigh have 
 broken his heart, but it quite banished his judgment. 
 He knew how his presence affected the Queen, and 
 he dreamed that tears and love-lorn submission at 
 her feet, even if he returned against her express 
 sovereign command, would still be strong enough to 
 overcome her indignation. But weak as she was in 
 many things, she was strongest of all in her sense 
 of regal duty and her personal dignity. Essex had 
 outraged both by his perverse failure and his petulant 
 presumption, and henceforward he must be humbled 
 to the dust or he must die. He, poor, blind, vain- 
 glorious creature, knew it not, but added desertion 
 of his post to his past disobedience, and leaving 
 Loftus and Carey to govern in his absence, he posted 
 over to England without notice. 
 
 "He never drew a sword," sneered the Irish, "but 
 to dub knights," and, like a hasty messenger, he ran 
 
 ^ Elizabeth to Essex, September 14, 1599, Irish State Papers. 
 2 He had given great oflfence to Elizabeth by his lavish creation of 
 knights in Normandy and at Cadiz, and a " knight of Gales " became a
 
 3S^ TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 away before he had finished his errand." As fast as 
 posthorses could bring him he rode to Westminster, 
 where he learned that the court was at Nonsuch, 
 Then crossing to Lambeth and seizing such horses as 
 were waiting there for their masters, he sped on to the 
 Queen's house. Lord Grey de Wilton passed him 
 on the road, and riding ahead, was able to warn 
 Cecil of the Earl's coming some ten minutes before 
 his arrival. The Queen was not yet about when, 
 at ten o'clock in the morning of Michaelmas Day, 
 1599, Essex alighted at Nonsuch gate. He was 
 mud-bespattered and haggard with his headlong 
 journey, but he waited not a moment. Pressing 
 forward through the presence chamber and ante- 
 rooms, none daring to stay him, he came unbidden 
 into the Queen's bed-chamber, where her Majesty 
 sat only half-dressed with "her hair about her face." 
 Then throwing himself at her feet he kissed her 
 hand and prayed for pardon. The Queen was so 
 much taken aback that she forbore to chide him, 
 and he went with a light heart and smiling face to 
 
 scofl&ng by- word. It was felt generally that his object was to gain 
 adherents to serve liis own ambition, but now that fifty-nine knights 
 were added to his creations under patent in Ireland during the six 
 months he was there, the susj^iciou was fully confirmed, since there were 
 no feats of arms to reward. Chamberlain writes (August 23), derid- 
 ing some of the new kniglits, and continues, " It is much marvelled that 
 this humour should so possess him, that, not content with his first 
 dozens and scores, he should thus fall to huddle them up by the halfe- 
 hundreds, and it is noted as a strange thing that a subject in the space 
 of seven years (not having been sixe moneths together in any one action) 
 sholde upon so litle service and small desert make more knights than 
 in all the realme besides. It is doubted if he continue in this course he 
 will shortly bring in tag and rag, cut and long taile, and so draw the 
 order into contempt." When he returned to England Elizabeth was 
 with difticulty dissuaded from unmaking the knights ho had dub))e(l.
 
 ESSEX AT NONSUCH 359 
 
 put himself in order for further speech with her. 
 An hour later he saw her again, and still no angry 
 reproaches greeted him. At dinner his friends, 
 reassured, flocked to him, and to them he " dis- 
 coursed merrily of his travels," and " thanked God 
 that, though he had suffered much trouble and 
 storms abroad, he found a sweet calm at home." 
 Alas ! for him, it was the calm that precedes the 
 tornado. Cecil and his friends had stood aloof from 
 him, and when the Earl, gay and debonnaire now, 
 in easy confidence of his influence over the Queen, 
 went to see her after dinner, he found her changed. 
 With haughty severity she directed him to attend 
 her Council and give to them an account of his 
 proceedings in Ireland and an explanation of his 
 disobedient return. 
 
 With bowed, uncovered head and apologetic 
 mien, he stood before the men he hated and con- 
 temned, whilst he palliated, excused, and apologised 
 for what he had done or left undone. That evening 
 Essex was a prisoner under arrest, and for many 
 days to come he stood daily before the Council, 
 making the best of a sorry business, but full of 
 plans still by which he dreamed of crushing at one 
 blow these men, who were, he thought, banded to- 
 gether to weaken or subject English Protestantism, 
 and to ruin its strongest champion, Robert Devereux, 
 Earl of Essex. How could he foresee that the sly 
 little man whose brain directed the forces against 
 him would betray and destroy his own associates, and 
 reach lifelong power by the road that Essex himself 
 meant to tread In the meanwhile all went merry 
 as a marriage bell with the Cecil party ; and the day
 
 360 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 after Essex's arrest, "Mr. Secretary" gave a great 
 banquet, at which were gathered the Howards and 
 Talbots, Arabella's uncle Shrewsbury, Cobham, Gray, 
 Carew, and Ralegh — all the men against whom 
 the fallen favourite had raged and stormed in his 
 pride.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 The aspect of the succession question in England — Cecil and Essex — 
 Negotiations for peace with Spain — Renewed alarm of Spanish 
 invasion in England — Measures for defence — Probable intentional 
 exaggeration of the fears, for political reasons — James continues to 
 intrigue with the Catholics for support — The Pope's offer to him — 
 Fitzherbert's address to Philip respecting the Scottish advances — 
 Lord Semple's mission to Madrid— The future religion of England 
 trembling in the balance. 
 
 The two great conspiracies for securing the English 
 succession were now bracing themselves for the final 
 struggle. The Queen's age had only increased her 
 determination that during her lifetime no successor 
 to her throne should be acknowledged ; but it was 
 obvious to Englishmen of all sorts that some arrange- 
 ment must be made for the great change before it 
 happened, unless England was to be plunged at the 
 critical moment into the vortex of civil war, and 
 perhaps foreign invasion. The centres of the two 
 conspiracies, which we have seen were formerly in 
 Madrid and Rome respectively, had now (1599) 
 gradually changed their position to England itself. 
 This much, at least, had been gained by the proved 
 ability of Englishmen to defend their country against 
 foreign invasion or dictation, and by the increased 
 patriotic pride which the brilliant reign of the Queen 
 had infused into all of her subjects ; but, neverthe- 
 less, each of the two factions which divided the 
 English court still looked for outside support and 
 alliance to strengthen and justify its action.
 
 362 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 It is extremely difficult to define clearly the exact 
 limits of each conspiracy ; for there were many sub- 
 sidiary and personal issues, abundant lying and 
 betrayal on either hand, and, so far as was possible, 
 a studious concealment of action and aim. But, 
 generally speaking, the patent impotence of Spain 
 now to enforce her religious views upon England, 
 and the erection of the Belgic provinces into a 
 separate sovereignty, had caused a tendency to re- 
 sume in England the old political line of cleavage, 
 which had been obscured for many years by the new 
 religious groupings consequent on the Reformation. 
 The moderate or old-fashioned English element, 
 the germ of the present Conservative party, largely 
 influenced by respect for the past and by Catholic 
 traditions, looked again to a close Belgic alliance, 
 which necessarily mean either a mild tolerant Catho- 
 lic supremacy like that existing in France, or the 
 continuance of the Anglican establishment with such 
 toleration to Catholics as was allowed by Henry IV. 
 to the Huguenots. Of this party, which included the 
 heads of the old nobility, the Howards, Stanleys, 
 Talbots, Grevilles, Brookes, Somersets, Herberts, and 
 their like, Sir Robert Cecil was supposed to be the 
 head, or at least the brain ; but whatever may have 
 been the ultimate object of most of the members, it 
 is certain that Cecil himself never intended that the 
 Anglican Church as established should be over- 
 thrown or radically altered in a Catholic sense, as a 
 result of any action of his party. Although nearly 
 all English Catholic priests and laymen — except only 
 the Jesuit faction — belonged to this group, Cecil in 
 his official relations always maintained an attitude
 
 TWO DYNASTIC FACTIONS 363 
 
 of strict reserve, not to say severity, towards the pro- 
 fessors of the old religion ; and, as we have seen by 
 Father Watson's letter on page 315, had expressly 
 repudiated even the word "toleration" in connection 
 with them.^ 
 
 The other dynastical conspiracy was headed by 
 Essex, who had succeeded his stepfather, Leicester, 
 in his position as leader of the men professing the 
 newer or reformed ideas. Around him were grouped 
 the Puritan elements, which resented the retention 
 of Catholic forms or traditions in Anglican worship, 
 and sought to perpetuate the alienation from Spain 
 and Spanish Belgium, which had been brought about 
 by Philip's arrogant attempt to dictate the religion 
 to England. To semi-Huguenot France and Presby- 
 terian Scotland this party naturally turned its eyes : 
 and, broadly, in politics Essex stood for a French- 
 Scottish alliance, and Cecil for a Belgic-Spanish 
 alliance. The issues were, however, infinitely com- 
 plicated by the self-seeking attempt of James VI. 
 to intersect both conspiracies by his own lines of 
 intrigue. He was tireless in his attempts to obtain 
 
 ' Many instances of this are seen in Cecil's treatment of the Catholic* 
 whom he employed as spies. The priests of the " loyal " faction were 
 tFL-ated almost as harshly as the Jesuit fathers. Writing to Sir Henry 
 Neville in Paris, with reference to apj^lications of Cijarles Paget, Sir 
 Thomas Tresham, Father Cecil, and other repentant refugees, for par- 
 don and permission to return to England, Cecil says that he knows 
 very well that if they have fallen out with the Jesuits, it is from no 
 love of England, but to work their own ends. If the refugees like to 
 do any real service to show their hearts are changed, their cases may 
 be considered ; but they need not hope for pardon on mere professions 
 or upon sending information which may be false. Cecil speaks of all 
 these refugee Englishmen in the most offensive terms. He calls his 
 namesake, John Cecil, who for ten years past had given him informa- 
 tion, " a lewd priest with an honest name " (see Winwood Papers).
 
 364 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 some recognition of his right from Elizabeth ; but 
 when he at last understood that neither cajolery 
 nor menace could win that from her, he mad(^ 
 efforts to obtain the countenance of the principal 
 statesmen of her court. The Abbot of Kinloss 
 (Edward Bruce), his agent for the purpose in 
 England, could triumphantly point out to Catholics 
 that James's actions showed that he was on their 
 side. His agents in Rome, and the Archbishop of 
 Glasgow in Paris, were busy impressing the same 
 fact upon the non-Spanish Catholic powers ; whilst 
 Denmark and the German princes, as well as the 
 mass of English Protestants, were attracted not only 
 by the strength of his legal claims, which were 
 laboriously enforced by means of pamphlets and 
 treatises, but they were also urged to support him 
 as the main bulwark against renewed Spanish ag- 
 gression. Essex himself, James's principal hench- 
 man in England, Puritan though he was, and 
 gravely apprehensive of the King's dallying with 
 Papists, attracted Catholics to his side by promising 
 toleration for their religion. On the other hand, 
 the moderate party of Cecil was gaining Puritan 
 sympathy by their severity towards Catholics and 
 their rejection of all suggestions of toleration. 
 Personal rivalry and jealousy further complicated 
 an already involved position, and finally, each party 
 for its own ends chose to blacken its opponents 
 by attributing to them objects which they must 
 have known to be false. They have thus led 
 astray not only their own generation but all the 
 generations that have succeeded them. The Essex 
 party, for instance, loudly proclaimed that Cecil
 
 TWO DYNASTIC FACTIONS 365 
 
 and his friends, especially Cobham and Ralegh, 
 had arranged to sell England to the Infanta, which 
 at the time was absurd, and is now, perhaps for the 
 first time, demonstrably untrue; whilst the "mode- 
 rates " cast upon Essex the reproach that he sought 
 by armed force to seize the crown of England for 
 himself.^ 
 
 Outside the two main conspiracies there was the 
 old irreconcilable Jesuit-Spanish party, greatly re- 
 duced now by its unpopularity in England and by 
 repeated failure, but still bragging about the 
 thrusting of the Spanish form of Catholicism with 
 a Spanish monarch upon England, with or against 
 her will. After the death of Philip II. this party 
 in Spain itself temporarily flared into hope again. 
 
 ^ Even James seems to have been persuaded that this was the case 
 soon after Essex's death — though he must have changed his mind when 
 he became King of England — for he always called Essex '■'■my martyr" 
 and loaded his son with favours, whilst he disgraced Ralegh and 
 Cobham. In the often printed letter, written by the Earl of Northum- 
 berland to James in 1601 (Hatfield Papers), assuring him of the general 
 consensus of feeling in his favour amongst all classes in England, the 
 Earl refers to a remark made by James, that he " had lost no great 
 friend " by Essex's death, and confirms this opinion as follows : 
 "Although he was a man endued with good gifts, yet was his loss 
 the happiest chance for your Majesty and England that could befall us ; 
 for either do I fail in my judgment, or be would have been a bloody 
 scourge to our nation. . . . Did he not decree that it was scandalous 
 to our nation that a stranger should be our king? Was not his 
 familiarity with me quite cancelled when he discovered my disposition 
 leaning to your right, and that I was not to be led by his fortunes ? . . . 
 How often have I heard that he inveighed against you amongst such 
 as he conceived to be birds of his own fortune? Did his soldier- 
 followers dream but of his being King of England ?" Northumberland 
 continues in this strain for several pages ; but he was a poor, mean- 
 spirited creature, and was evidently currying favour for himself by 
 blackening his dead brother-in-law, so that his evidence against Essex 
 does not go for much, if even the writer was honestly stating his 
 conviction.
 
 366 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 The young King, whose education was narrow and 
 bigoted, dreamed of carrying with a rush the great 
 object at which his father had toiled fruitlessly for 
 so long. Spain was to resume her greatness and 
 her strength under a new energetic ruler, and the 
 Catholic supremacy was to make her predominant 
 in the world. The Adelantado and the Count de 
 Fuentes, hot-headed fanatics both, were for ever 
 breathing fire and fury against the heretics ; the 
 bishops and Jesuits who flocked about the court 
 were as sanctimoniously truculent as ever, and, for 
 a time, the conquest of England seemed easy and 
 imminent to these extremists. But in the course of 
 our story we shall see that sloth, waste, and a love 
 of pleasure, joined to the utter prostration and cor- 
 ruption that had overtaken the people, paralysed 
 the action of Spain more effectually even than 
 the niggard centralisation of the greater Philip 
 had done. 
 
 Tyrone's success introduced another disturbing- 
 element in the situation, and each party had to take 
 into consideration the force that he might bring- 
 to bear for or against them. For purposes of his 
 own, the Irish chief had elected to fight under the 
 Catholic banner, and to obtain such help as he 
 could from Spain ; but, as we have seen, that did 
 not prevent Puritan Essex and James from courting 
 him in the interests of the latter, whilst to the 
 " moderate " party in England, Catholics though 
 most of the leaders were, it was absolutely vital to 
 crush Tyrone utterly, cost what it might ; for they 
 knew that the victory of Catholic rebellion in Ireland 
 by Spanish arms would have meant the downfall
 
 THE ENGLISH PARTIES 367 
 
 of the potent edifice of English independence, 
 which the Queen and they had so strenuously 
 built up. Tyrone might speak fairly now, but neither 
 he, nor Essex, nor James, could hold the Spanish 
 avalanche if once it was started, crafty as they 
 all thought themselves in their efforts to harness 
 it to their own chariot. This was the position of 
 affairs when, amidst squabbles and jealousies in- 
 numerable, Essex went to Ireland in the spring 
 of 1599. 
 
 As a result of the approaches made to him, and in 
 accordance with the letter he wrote to Philip II. 
 (page 330), on his assumption of the sovereignty of 
 Flanders for the Infanta, the Archduke Albert sent 
 a confidential agent, named Coomans, to England 
 in the beginning of 1599, to discuss with Cecil the 
 possibility of a peace being made. He was sent 
 back with amiable though vague expressions of a 
 desire to come to terms, if conditions could be 
 arranged.^ It was known, however, that nothing 
 really would be done until the Archduke had seen 
 his new brother-in-law, Philip III., and a basis for 
 future relations had been laid.^ It was Cecil's 
 policy, whilst keeping even his own agents in the 
 dark as to his desire for peace, to give out generally 
 that Spain was seeking a modus vivendi; the object 
 being partly to encourage the " moderate " section 
 and the mercantile interests in England, and partly 
 to render more pliable the King of France, whose 
 naval activity and growing friendship with Spain 
 
 ^ Cecil to Sir Henry Neville, July 2 (Winwood Papers). 
 2 The Archduke had gone to Spain to marry the Infanta, which he 
 did in May, embarking at Barcelona for Italy on his return in June.
 
 368 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 were causing no little uneasiness to Elizabeth.^ It 
 was important at the same time for Cecil and his 
 friends not to appear desirous of peace, for fear of 
 alienating the Puritan party in England, and the 
 Dutch, who had undertaken to retain a strong fleet 
 on the coast of Spain during the summer (1599) to 
 prevent any attack upon England whilst the prin- 
 cipal national forces were in Ireland. To keep the 
 matter of peace alive, agents came with letters to 
 the Queen and Cecil on the subject in June from 
 the Archduke's locum tenens in Flanders, the Car- 
 dinal Andrea ; but it was still policy for Cecil to 
 hold back,'^ for great things were then expected of 
 Essex in Ireland, and the Dutch had promised to 
 commit vast devastation on the shipping and ports 
 of Spain, either of which events would have enabled 
 better terms to be made for England. 
 
 Suddenly, however, in July a change came over 
 the appearance of affairs. The spies of Cecil had 
 continued to report the great naval and military 
 preparations in Spain and the vapouring of the 
 revived militant party there ; but with the Dutch 
 
 1 See correspondence in Win wood Papers, Part i. 
 
 - The answer sent by the Queen to Coo mans' advances was thus 
 reported by the Venetian ambassador in France to the Doge. " She 
 declares that she is equally desirous of peace ; but that she cannot 
 initiate nor conduct any negotiations, for she has no guarantee that 
 the terms agreed upon would be maintained, as she is not dealing with 
 a person of sufficient authority. She repeats what she said before, that 
 whilst she was negotiating with the Duke of Parma, she found herself 
 tricked, for the Spaniards attacked England with a powerful fleet 
 (1588). But still she promises not to lose time, but to make inquiries 
 as to the opinion of the States (Holland), and in tliis way she puts off 
 the business, because she wishes to see whether Flanders is to be 
 entirely separated from the Spanish crown (Venetian Calendar. Con- 
 tarini to the Doge, April 25, 1599).
 
 ANOTHER SCARE IN ENGLAND 369 
 
 fleet threatening the Spanish coast and the known 
 disorganisation of the kingdom, it was concluded 
 that the armaments were intended for defence alone; 
 and so it happened that while Essex and the soldiers 
 were on their weary and barren march through 
 Munster the Queen's navy was mainly laid up in 
 dock. This being the case, early in July Cecil 
 received news that the Dutch fleet, bent mainly 
 upon plunder, had sailed away to Madeira, leaving 
 the Bay of Biscay and the Channel open for a 
 Spanish fleet, and at the same time intelligence 
 arrived that an agent of the King of Spain had gone 
 to request the Governor of Brest to allow a Spanish 
 fleet to anchor in his port. This news fell in London 
 like a thunderbolt. Couriers were sent flying to 
 France to beg the King not to shelter the enemy's 
 vessels, and from end to end of England the country 
 was aroused to its defence. " It was little expected," 
 wrote Cecil to the English Ambassador in France, 
 " that those who published so brave a purpose to 
 interrupt all supplies for Spain, ^ and to keep the 
 coast blocked up from trade, would now thus, fondly 
 and mechanically, put all upon a journey to the 
 islands for wines and sugars. Now that Spain is 
 clear of them (i.e. the Dutch), and hath in readiness 
 forces to have defended, he (the Adelantado) may in 
 all probability convert some hitherward." ^ Cecil 
 
 ^ Vast cjiiantities of corn and other provisions, &c., had been sent 
 from France to Spain. Elizabeth had bound herself to respect the 
 French flag, but she did not bargain for this, and bitter complaints 
 were made by Neville to Henry IV., whilst an acrimonious dispute 
 proceeded on the same subject with the French Ambassador in England 
 (see Correspondence in Win wood Papers). 
 
 2 Cecil to Neville, July 14, 1599 (Win wood Papers). 
 
 2 A
 
 370 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 had fall warrant for fearing this from the reports of 
 his agents. One usually very well informed spy 
 wrote to him (July 24) in the most alarming strain 
 from Lisbon. The Adelantado, he assured him, was 
 bound for England or Ireland. He had just arrived 
 in Lisbon with 35 ships from Andalusia, and after 
 embarking in the Tagus Spanish and Portuguese 
 troops to the number of 4000, was to proceed to 
 Corunna. He had already 6000 soldiers on board 
 his fleet, almost as many as his ships would carry, 
 but (and this is a good instance of the complete 
 want of organisation existing) the large number of 
 German and Flemish vessels that had been seized 
 some time before to carry the additional troops and 
 stores had all bribed their way out and had escaped. 
 Still his force was formidable, for there were 14 
 galleys and other ships ready to sail — though short 
 of artillery — at Corunna and Ferrol, and at least 
 8 fine new galleons in the Biscay ports. In all, 
 the spy reported that the fleet would consist of 
 35 galleons, 22 galleys, 15 or 20 caravels, and 35 
 other vessels, and the armed forces to land would 
 reach 25,000 soldiers. 
 
 This was the most formidable force that had been 
 organised since the Armada, if it had been as effi- 
 cient as was reported on paper ; and there was, for 
 the first time since 1588, a momentary revival of the 
 crusading spirit that had given Spain force in years 
 gone by. *' They go forward with the old vanity of 
 1588, making full account of victory, and never 
 respecting to prevent that anything should happen 
 to the contrary. Falmouth is spoken of, yet I think 
 it is no place for conquest, unless he first put his
 
 INVASION RUMOURS 371 
 
 men on land, and then, having fortified, go to Ire- 
 land, and so transport some of Tyrone's people for 
 their further strength ; but if they depend to trans- 
 port the Irish into England, some ports of the vSevern 
 or Welsh coast will be pretended."^ The writer, 
 however, thinks they will first go to Ireland and 
 laud at Limerick, and he sounds a note of alarm 
 that a diversion or conjoint attempt at invasion will 
 be attempted from Flanders. Above all, he says, let 
 the Queen look to herself, for her death is daily 
 threatened, and if it can be effected it is determined. 
 Let the English ships, he prays, stand on the defen- 
 sive, if they can do nothing else, "for the Spanish 
 practices will go forward until they have either 
 destroyed themselves or spoiled England." "All 
 these mischievous intents began by English semi- 
 narists and Irish bishops. Ferret out such fellows 
 in England, for there be many of them there. The 
 Spaniards have great hope of help from some great 
 men there {i.e. in England), stirred up at their 
 instigation." " The Adelantado is so stirred up 
 against England that, though it be already late for 
 the galleys to go out, it shall be a bad time of the 
 year that he will refuse to go over, as by his last 
 voyage you had had experience, if God had not pre- 
 vented. If this summer he should be hindered, be 
 assured of him betimes in the spring. Meanwhile 
 all helps have been, and will be, sent to Tyrone, for 
 upon his broken staff they hope to lay a great foun- 
 dation to annoy, yea, to conquer England." " 
 
 In Spain and Portugal the talk, of which this was 
 
 ^ Van Harnack to Cecil, July 24, 1 599 (State Papers, Domestic). 
 
 2 Ibid.
 
 372 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 a faithful echo, ran that the Queen of England was 
 dead, and that the King of Spain would, in his 
 clemency, not capture the country for himself, but 
 would take advantage of the confusion to establish 
 an English Catholic of royal blood ; " but still," said 
 Cecil's agent, " the crown is their desire, and upon 
 this cast of the die, he assured his master, the future 
 of both countries depended." Almost solemnly he 
 declares that this is Spain's last possible effort. 
 " Here goeth the whole seal of Spain. Spoil this 
 and wear the Spanish crown. Their sweet speeches, 
 that they come not for conquest but to raise up the 
 next heir that is Catholic to the English crown, are 
 dangerous. Possibly some Jesuit persuasions have 
 seduced the English Papists to believe it, but let 
 them not be deceived, it is the English crown the 
 Spaniards covet, and not religion or conscience. I 
 fear there is some great personage already obtained 
 unto that which the last Earl of Derby denied, 
 though I accuse none, yet by their speeches it is a 
 dangerous suspicion." ^ 
 
 This fairly represented the inflated current ideas 
 of the Spaniards and their English sympathisers 
 under the hopeful influence of a new reign ; but 
 those who held them had not the privilege, as we 
 have, of raising the veil that covered the secret 
 deliberations of Philip's councils, and of under- 
 standing to the full the demoralisation, the corrup- 
 tion, the ineptitude, and the penury that prevailed, 
 notwithstanding the frenzy of presumption and pro- 
 digality that had attended the King's first progress 
 to meet his bride, under the auspices of his now 
 
 ' Van Hanmck to Cecil, July 25, 1599 (Stale Papers, Domestic).
 
 ENGLISH WAR PREPARATIONS 373 
 
 all-powerful favourite, the Marquis of Denia (Duke 
 of Lerma). The Adelantado might vapour on the 
 quays of Lisbon or Ferrol, and Fuentes sneer at 
 heretics in the council chamber, but the ships 
 scattered in the various ports were mostly unpro- 
 vided, unmanned, and unseaworthy. Where there 
 were soldiers, arms and clothes were lacking ; stores 
 rotted in one place whilst troops starved in another; 
 no money could be obtained from Madrid except 
 for wasteful shows and the endowment of monas- 
 teries. Plague and famine were devastating the 
 land, and Lisbon itself was a wilderness, for nearly 
 the whole population had died or fled. 
 
 But still, as Spaniards themselves did not under- 
 stand how bad things were with them, it was 
 not to be expected that Englishmen, whom they 
 threatened, could discern the true state of affairs ; 
 and the result of these alarmist reports, coming as 
 they did when the Dutch fleet was far away, the Chan- 
 nel undefended, the English army in Ireland, and 
 the English navy in dock, was that an uncontrol- 
 lable gust of panic swept over the country. John 
 Chamberlain gives us a vivid picture of the state 
 of affairs (August i, 1599, State Papers, Domestic) : 
 "Upon what ground or good intelligence I know 
 not, but we are all here in a hurle, as though the 
 enemie were at our doors. The Queene's shippes 
 are all making ready, and this towne (London) is 
 commanded to furnish out 16 of theire best shippes 
 to defend the river, and 10,000 men; whereof 
 6000 to be trained presently, and every man els 
 to have his arms ready. Letters are likewise going 
 out to the bishops and their clergy, and all the
 
 374 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 noblemen and gentlemen hereabout, to prepare 
 horses and all other furniture, as if the enemie 
 were expected within fifteen days." A camp was 
 to be held at Tilbury, as it was at the time of the 
 Armada, the Lord Admiral Howard (Earl of Not- 
 tingham) was appointed commander-in-chief, and 
 his kinsman, Lord Thomas, commander of the 
 navy ; whilst Sir Francis Vere, who had charge of 
 the English contingent in Holland, was to be re- 
 called with his 2000 best men. " All this noise," 
 continues Chamberlain, "riseth upon report that 
 the Adelantado hath an Armada redy at Groine 
 (Corunna), of 30 gallies and ^o shippes, some say 
 more." On the 9th August the same letter-writer 
 describes the progress of the scare. " The newes 
 increasing daily of the Spaniards coming, and ad- 
 vertisements concurring from all parts of their 
 dessigne for London (whereof the Adelantado him- 
 self gave out proud speaches), and the day of 
 their departure from the Groyne being saide to be 
 appointed, at the uttermost, as Sonday last, order was 
 geven for a campe to be raised." All the generals 
 are named ; and each county had to muster its 
 men under the local gentry ready to march. Twelve 
 of the Queen's ships were hastily put into com- 
 mission under Lord Thomas Howard and Ralegh ; 
 and the Earl of Cumberland undertook the defence 
 of the river Thames by means of a bridge (of pon- 
 toons), "after an apish imitation of that of Antwerp," 
 a little above Gravesend. That, however, after 
 much expense and trouble, had to be abandoned, 
 as the Thames was found to be a different sort 
 of river from the Scheldt ; and the bridge scheme
 
 ENGLISH WAR PREPARATIONS 375 
 
 was substituted by one for sinking hulks in the 
 fairway. 
 
 " Upon Monday toward evening came newes (yet 
 false) that the Spaniards were landed in the He 
 of Wight, which bred such a feare and consterna- 
 tion in this towne, as I wold litle have looked for ; 
 with such a crie of women, chaining of streets, and 
 shutting of the gates ; as though the enemie had 
 been at Blackwall. I am sorry and ashamed, that 
 this weakness and nakedness of ours, on all sides, 
 shold show itself so apparently, as to be carried far 
 and neere, to our disgrace, both with friend and 
 foe." All the nobility had raised troops of horse ; 
 and it is noticeable that the names given as having 
 done so most liberally are mainly those opposed 
 to Essex and the Puritans. The Lord Admiral, for 
 instance, had raised a hundred horse ; Shrewsbury, 
 Worcester, Northumberland, and Cecil the same ; and 
 the Earl of Pembroke two hundred. As Chamber- 
 lain himself saw, there was something more be- 
 hind this than mere patriotism. The vain babble 
 in Spain about a great " personage having been 
 gained," was interpreted by Essex's opponents as 
 referring to him ; and this scare was no doubt made 
 the most of by Cecil, as a counter-demonstration to 
 the veiled threats of Essex, about the discontent of 
 his army at the treatment meted out to him. 
 
 " But now," writes Chamberlain, " after all this 
 noise and blustering, methinks the weather begins 
 to cleere somewhat, for our preparations begin to 
 slacke and not go on so hedlong as they did, and 
 there may be hope that all should be well." On the 
 23rd August he reports that the alarm is now " blown
 
 376 trp:ason and plot 
 
 over," and says that even with so short a vrarning 
 England has made a good show^ of defence. " Our 
 navie has gone to sea prettilie strong and in goode 
 plight for so short a warning, conteinning twenty- 
 three shippes and pinnasses of the Quene's, twelve 
 good marchant shippes provided by the citie and six 
 more hired by her Majestie, with fourteen hoys well- 
 furnished with ordnance and made for fight. Our 
 land-forces are dayly discharged, litle by litle, and 
 this day I thiucke will be quite dissolved. . . . On 
 Friday there mustered 1 600 horse by St. James', and 
 the next day 400 for the clergie in St. George's 
 Field, yet none of the noblemen have shewed their 
 troupes. ... If occasion had been to draw forces 
 to a head or into campe, it is thought the first pro- 
 portion wold have risen to 27,000 foot and 3000 
 horse. I assure you they were very well provided 
 for the most part of horse armour and apparel, and 
 wanted not their setting forth with feathers, skarfes, 
 and other light ware. The Lord General (the Earl 
 of Nottingham) with all the great officers of the field 
 came in great bravery to Powles Cross on Sunday 
 sevennight when the alarme was at the hottest and 
 dined with my Lord Mayor. The vulgar sort can- 
 not be persuaded but that there was some great 
 misterie in the assembling of these forces, and 
 because they cannot finde the reason of it, make 
 many wilde conjectures and cast beyond the moone: 
 as sometimes that the Queue was dangerously sicke; 
 otherwhile it was to sJiow to some that are absent 
 that others can he followed as tvell as they, and that 
 if occasion he, militarie services can he as well and as 
 redihj ordered and directed as if they were present."
 
 REAL REASON OF THE MUSTERS 377 
 
 " And now," continues Chamberlain, " in the middest 
 of all this hurle burle here is a sudden sound of 
 peace, and that certain fellows are come from Brussels 
 with a commission from Spaine."^ 
 
 We shall probably be safe in adopting as our own 
 the suggestion that the nobles of the "moderate" 
 party took advantage of the scare to read to Essex a 
 much-needed lesson that they could appeal success- 
 fully to force as well as he : but whilst the prompt 
 and efficient measures of defence adopted proved 
 that Essex, idolised as he was in London, was ven' 
 far from l)eing the potential dictator he imagined 
 himself, it showed also to foe as well as friend that 
 the organisation, the resources, and the energy of 
 England were infinitely superior at an emergency to 
 those of Spain. We have glanced at the several 
 ostentatious and boasting attempts that had been 
 made since the Armada to despatch a powerful fleet 
 to coerce England. We have heard the exalted brag- 
 ging of the Adelantado and the haughty assurances of 
 invincibility proclaimed by high ecclesiastics and re- 
 sponsible statesmen; but on each occasion humiliation 
 and disaster had been the outcome of prodigious effort, 
 and it is abundantly evident that no fleet complete 
 and efficient with a formidable military force could be 
 sent out promptly from Spanish ports because of the 
 administrative dry-rot which the centralising policy 
 of Philip 11. had brought upon the country. 
 
 What had happened before was repeated in 1599. 
 Throughout the spring the most abject fear of an 
 attack on the coast and shipping by an English fleet 
 was prevalent in Spain, and false reports were fre- 
 
 ^ Chamberlain to Carletou, State Papers, Domestic, August 9, 1599.
 
 378 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 quent of this or the other important place having 
 been sacked. The new King was away on his 
 wasteful journey in the east of Spain, and cool- 
 headed observers were confident that, no matter 
 what efforts were made, the country could not even 
 defend herself, much less attack, that year.^ But, as 
 we have seen, when Essex and most of the English 
 forces were in Ireland and the Dutch fleet had 
 relieved Spain of its threatening presence, the old 
 vainglorious spirit prevailed again, and the talk of a 
 great fleet to attack England or Ireland under the 
 Adelantado was believed both by friend and foe. 
 And yet, after three months of labour and boasting, 
 the Adelantado's fleet, badly provided, ill armed, and 
 poorly manned, could only endeavour fruitlessly to 
 defend the Canaries from the depredations of the 
 Dutch ; and by the time the unfortunate Adelantado 
 reached the Azores (September 30), his fleet was 
 crippled by bad weather and twenty-two out of his 
 
 ^ Robert Bruce, who was a Spanish agent but sold to the English, 
 reported to Colville on his way through France from Spain (July 1599), 
 " Notwithstanding all their preparations and fleeing bruittis, he doth 
 assure that this year the Spanyard shall be habill to do no thing in 
 theis parts : his resons being the fearfuU plage which is aniang thanie ; 
 the year being far spent, and neither the galees as yet cum to places 
 appointed nor a bastant (i.e. suthcient) army listed." Bruce proceeds to 
 report what we already know, that Lernia was strongly opposed to any 
 attempt at the invasion or coercion of England being made during the 
 Queen's life, whilst the Adelantado was violently in favour of an 
 immediate conquest. Philip was understood to side with Lerma, as he 
 did in all things (Colville Letters, Bannantyne Club). 
 
 In the same month (July 6, 1 599) Thomas Phellips, the astute spy- 
 master, now in disgrace, wrote a very clever letter to the same effect 
 (State Papers, Domestic). Philip III., he says, is sjjirited and eager, but 
 he has no money to spend upon aggression at present. The Adelantado 
 and Fuentes are " Hotspurs," but nothing will be done until the King 
 confers with tiie Archduke, who, the writer knows for certain, desires 
 peace.
 
 thp: adelantado fails again 379 
 
 eighty-five ships had foundered at sea.' He had 
 failed to meet the India fleet ; he had failed to find 
 the Dutch, and the four millions of gold ducats, 
 wrung out of miserable Spain to pay for his fleet, 
 were worse than wasted. As for help to the Irish 
 Catholics, two small pinnaces with arms and money 
 were sent to Loch Foyle, over the division of which 
 Tyrone and O'Donnell quarrelled, but the oft-pro- 
 mised army of conquest came not, and for another 
 year at least the Protestants of England knew that 
 they were safe from Spanish attack. 
 
 In the meanwhile James of Scotland was striving 
 incessantly to gain the sympathy of Catholics every- 
 where. Now that he had humbled the Presbyterian 
 clergy, whom he had hated heartily, and not without 
 reason, for their arrogance and the republicanism 
 that underlay their Church discipline, he carried his 
 ostentatious approaches to Kome to an extent which 
 appears almost imprudent. His eager reconciliation 
 with the Catholic lords, his reappointment of Arch- 
 bishop Beaton as his ambassador in France, and the 
 violent anti-Puritan opinions he expressed in his 
 book " Basilicon Doron," were enough, almost, to 
 drive his Presbyterian subjects and the Puritans of 
 England to despair. But apparently James weighed 
 the chances well. If he could win over the English 
 Episcopalians and moderate Catholics, who still 
 formed the great bulk of the nation, he could 
 afford to risk any displeasure, short of revolution, 
 from his own Presbyterians and the English Puri- 
 tans. Doubtless Essex and he quite understood 
 each other, and had agreed to a similar line of 
 
 ' Sorzano to the Doge, October 31, 1599 (Venetian Calendar).
 
 38o TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 action, by which they might gain partisans from the 
 other side, whilst holding their own adherents in 
 hand by personal, party, and national sympathies. 
 
 James, at all events, was determined to be pre- 
 pared betimes, let who would be unready. In 
 addition to the Archbishop of Glasgow, who was 
 authorised to tell every one that his master was really 
 a Catholic, Lord Hume was sent to Paris and to 
 Italy to set forth James's claims to the English 
 crown, and to beg for recognition (May 1 599). In 
 response to the persistent touting of Scottish agents, 
 the Pope also sent an embassy, consisting of the 
 visionary young poet Constable (whom we last heard 
 of as desirous of converting Elizabeth herself) and 
 James Wood of Bonnington, to offer James 100,000 
 crowns for preliminary expenses, and 2,000,000 more 
 to maintain war with England, if he would decree 
 liberty of conscience in his realm and declare war. 
 The Pope also assured him the concurrence of all 
 Catholic princes, and a further contribution of 
 ^20,000 from the English Catholics with 20,000 
 English soldiers, immediately after war was com- 
 menced. This was a tempting offer. The Arch- 
 bishop of Glasgow fervently exhorted James to 
 accept it, or, he said, " the Pope would know him 
 no more, but would help some other competitor," ^ 
 James was surrounded by Catholic influences. 
 Jesuits, Capuchins, and Cordeliers were almost 
 ostentatiously summoned to his court : the Papist 
 Seatons, two of whom, at least, were Spanish 
 oflUcers, were his close friends ; and, above all, 
 Henry of France had sent as special ambassador 
 
 ' Colville'fi Advertisements, August 18, 1599.
 
 JAMES COURTS THE CATHOLICS 381 
 
 to him at the same time, that Maximihan de Betiine, 
 who was afterwards famous as the Due de Sully. 
 His ostensible errand was to renew the ancient 
 alliance between France and Scotland ; but we are 
 told by one who was present : ^ " Monsieur de 
 Betune, thoch he pretend no errand bot from the 
 King his master, to veseit the King of Scotland for 
 entertaining the auld amitie betuix the two nations, 
 yit he is as ernist to persuade the King to embrace 
 the Pope's offres as Boniton or Constable is, and his 
 persuasion shall prove of no small consequence." 
 James could hardly resist such influences as these, and 
 he sent Constable back to Rome (via Denmark) with 
 an acceptance of the Pope's pregnant offer ; though 
 whether he, James, ever intended to fulfil his part of 
 the bargain is more than doubtful. His object was 
 probably not war, but simply to frighten Elizabeth 
 into acknowledging him as her heir. All this under- 
 hand dealing of James, however, was duly conveyed 
 to Cecil by his agents (August 1599), and doubtless 
 was one of the reasons for the sudden and formid- 
 able warlike preparations in England already referred 
 to as having been made in that month. Elizabeth 
 was highly indignant with Henry IV. for his dally- 
 ing with James's intrigues, and demanded Betune's 
 immediate recall. The French king had every reason 
 for preferring the succession of James to that of a 
 Spanish nominee, but he could not afford to quarrel 
 with Elizabeth, so Betune was instructed to return 
 through London, in order to assure the Queen of the 
 harmlessness of his mission : but, withal, he failed 
 to conciliate her, and the peace negotiations with the 
 
 ^ Robert Colville of Cleish, the nephew of John Colville.
 
 382 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Archduke's agent were now actively pursued by 
 Cecil as a counterbalance to James's friendship with 
 the Pope and Catholic France. 
 
 But the King of Scots was determined to leave no 
 element in Europe unconciliated. Whilst he was 
 thus humbling himself at the feet of the Pontiff and 
 coquetting with the King of France ; whilst he was 
 surrounding himself with Scottish Catholics, promis- 
 ing toleration, conciliating English moderates by his 
 leanings to the Episcopacy, and holding the Eng- 
 lish Puritans by means of Essex, he was endeavour- 
 ing to prove to the new King of Spain that he was 
 his most faithful servitor. The Englishmen who had 
 advocated the domination of England by Spain had, 
 for the most part, become discouraged by repeated 
 failure. Their recommendations and prayers had 
 been disregarded : the old King had died without 
 forcing his beloved daughter on the English throne, 
 and it was felt that the new King would have other 
 objects of his own to serve. Many of the old refugees 
 had died or had sought pardon : the Spanish pensions 
 they had received were, for the most part, stopped, 
 and destitution had thinned their ranks, so that now 
 Sir William Stanley in Flanders, a few of the Jesuit 
 priests, and such old pensioners as Colonel Semple, 
 alone remained faithful to the idea that had in- 
 spired the Armada. Even Father Creswell, disci- 
 ple of Father Persons though he was, who repre- 
 sented the English Catholics in the Spanish court, 
 saw that the circumstances were radically changed. 
 Thomas Fitzherbert, who had succeeded Sir Francis 
 Engiefield as Philip's English secretary, represented 
 the general opinions of his class in an able State
 
 JAMES'S EMBASSY TO SPAIN, 1599 383 
 
 paper/ reporting upon the King of Scots* embassy 
 (Lord Semple) to Spain to ask for support of his 
 claims to the English crown. In the previous pages 
 of this book we have had occasion to see how such 
 embassies from James had been treated in the past, 
 and this instructive document of November 1599 
 marks the change that had come not only over the 
 spirit of the English partisans of Spain, but also over 
 the whole situation in consequence of the death of 
 Philip 11. 
 
 Fitzherbert discusses at length the possibility of 
 James having sent the embassy to Spain, with or 
 without Elizabeth's connivance, but with the only 
 object of diverting the Spanish armaments against 
 England, and he decides finally that the King of 
 Scots is acting in good faith in asking for Spanish 
 help to become King of England. This being pre- 
 mised, Fitzherbert poses the question whether it is 
 desirable or not that Philip should give him such 
 aid, " In my opinion it is not, if it can be avoided ; 
 but that his Majesty should make King of England 
 a Catholic whose zeal for our holy faith is more to 
 be depended upon. It is certain that his Majesty 
 (Philip) has the power to make a king of England 
 and to exclude the Scotchman, if he will deign to 
 take the course which we have so often begged him 
 to adopt with regard to the Infanta, but always on 
 condition that he does it before the Queen dies, and 
 before the King of Scotland has won over the Eng- 
 lish Catholics, as he is now endeavouring to do, and 
 will in future do more than ever, thanks to the 
 
 ^ Fitzherbert to Lerma, November 30, 1599 (British Museum, 
 Add. MSS. 28,420, Spanish Calendar).
 
 384 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 delays on this side, together with his intrigues and 
 show of favour to the Catholics, whom he leads to 
 suppose that he is in his heart a Catholic too. But 
 if his Majesty will not, or cannot, execute the under- 
 taking during the life of the Queen, I warn your 
 Lordship that after her death will be too late, as the 
 King of Scotland will attain his object before his 
 Majesty has time to gather his forces and prevent 
 it. It must be borne in mind that most of the Eng- 
 lish nobles who do not pretend to the crown them- 
 selves, and the claimants who have no means of 
 enforcing their claims, wnll recognise the King of 
 Scotland more readily than any of the competitors 
 who are their equals . . . With regard to the Catho- 
 lics, as it is certain that none of the other claimants 
 (who are all malignant heretics), will grant them such 
 favourable conditions as the King of Scotland, who 
 is moderate and now professes to be a Catholic, they 
 will certainly join his party as soon as he enters Eng- 
 land. Seeing the strength of his claims, the forces 
 he has ready, his facility for entering the country, the 
 support of Denmark, and even of the English them- 
 selves, he will not only be stronger than any other 
 claimant, but will carry through his design before 
 his Majesty's forces can arrive there. ... If, there- 
 fore, his Majesty cannot, or will not, attack Eng- 
 land during the life of the Queen, I see no w^ay 
 of stopping the King of Scotland from becoming 
 monarch of both realms ; and I submit to your 
 Lordship whether it would not be advisable for his 
 Majesty to take the present opportunity of seeing 
 if the King of Scotland will consent to be a Catholic. 
 If he consent thereto, he might be aided to declare
 
 JAMES'S EMBASSY TO SPAIN 385 
 
 war against the Queen of England, on his furnishing 
 sufficient security to fulfil his engagements towards 
 his Majesty, and to remain perpetually the ally and 
 friend of the Spanish crown, to which, moreover, he 
 will be bound by the ties of gratitude, and by the 
 fact that he is Catholic King of England and Scot- 
 land. In this case, the cause of the alienation of 
 England from the old alliance with Spain, I mean 
 heresy, will have disappeared ; whilst, at the same 
 time, the reason for the close friendship between 
 Scotland and France (that is to say, the constant 
 quarrels between England and Scotland) will also 
 be non-existent, and it will behove the King of 
 England and Scotland, whoever he may be, to 
 renew the old connection with Spain and the house 
 of Burgundy. ... If aid were given to the King 
 of Scots against the Queen of England, it would be 
 effectual in frustrating the designs of the King of 
 France against Spain and keep them fully occu- 
 pied, without breaking the peace which his Majesty 
 (Philip) has made with him." 
 
 This, it will be perceived, is a counsel of despair, 
 which it would have been impossible for men in 
 Fitzherbert's position to have given to Philip II. 
 The recognition and promotion of James's designs 
 on the crown of England, on his mere profession of 
 Catholicism, would have represented a complete 
 triumph for the " politicians " throughout Europe 
 who had been working against Spain for that very 
 end for fourteen years. It would have meant an 
 abandonment of the dead Philip's and his father's 
 life-dreams of the supremacy of Spanish Catholicism 
 in the political interests of their house ; and though 
 
 2 B
 
 386 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Spain had fallen low, the ambitions of her rulers 
 had survived their potency, material, moral, and 
 mental. Spain was effete, but she was still tradi- 
 tionally powerful, and her pretensions matched her 
 traditions rather than her circumstances. So com- 
 plete a surrender as that suggested by Fitzherbert 
 was, therefore, not yet probable, and this seems to 
 have occurred to the writer himself, for he hastens 
 to keep up the hollow old pretence that it only 
 depended upon the mere word of Philip to place the 
 Infanta on the throne of England. 
 
 " If, on the other hand," he says, " his Majesty 
 does not wish to aid the King of Scots to become 
 King of England, but intends to undertake the 
 enterprise in favour of the Infanta with the ne- 
 cessary speed (which we, the English Catholics, 
 earnestly desire and petition him to do), I still 
 think that great advantage may be derived from 
 these negotiations with the Scots, which can be 
 continued or broken off as occasion may require, 
 and will serve to conceal his Majesty's other objects. 
 These communications with the Scots, moreover, 
 will arouse the suspicion of the Queen of England 
 against the King of Scotland, and she will not 
 trust him to help her when his Majesty (Philip) 
 attacks England ; she may perhaps in the mean- 
 while try to disturb Scotland . . . the effect of which 
 might be to upset both countries to such an extent 
 as to prevent the Queen from injuring Spain, as she 
 usually does. His Majesty will thus fish in troubled 
 waters, to his own benefit and her disadvantage. In 
 any case, the least benefit that will follow these 
 negotiations is, that the King of Scots will declare
 
 JAlMES'S EMBASSY TO SPAIN 387 
 
 himself a Catholic, if in his heart he be one (which 
 will be no small service to God and honour to 
 his Majesty), or else we shall strip the mask with 
 which he seeks to deceive the Pope and others, and 
 shall thus alienate from him the English Catholics. 
 Finally, if his Majesty desires peace with the Queen 
 of England, it may be assumed that, in the present 
 state of Irish affairs, she will be so apprehensive of 
 the result of these negotiations, and the evil that 
 may reach her through her backdoor (as she calls 
 Scotland), as to agree the more readily to some fair 
 settlement." 
 
 Fitzherbert finally concludes that, in any case, 
 the Scottish envoy should be publicly honoured in 
 Madrid, and that a Spanish embassy should be sent 
 in return to Scotland, " with a little ready money 
 and moderate promises of pensions to win over 
 Scottish Catholics," who may usefully serve Spanish 
 interests, whatever these may be ; and that, above 
 all, an effort should be made to persuade James to 
 pardon and restore Bothwell, then a refugee in 
 Flanders, existing on Philip's bounty. " He is one 
 of the principal persons in Scotland, and a near 
 relative of the King. He has a large party who 
 follow him in everything, as is the custom of the 
 country, and he and his adherents alone may be 
 instrumental in effecting what I have said {i.e. 
 rising against James if he broke his promise to the 
 Catholics). He is naturally a turbulent man and 
 greatly incensed against the Kiug.^ Philip and 
 
 ^ Francis Stuart, Earl of Bothwell, Lord Admiral of Scotland, was 
 the natural grandson of James V. He made an unsuccessful attempt 
 to seize James at Falkland in 1592, and had to fly the country. He
 
 388 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 his Council were, for the reasons I have stated, not 
 ready to accept Fitzherbert's first suggestion of 
 helping James to the English crown, but they 
 were willing to sow distrust between Elizabeth and 
 the King of Scots by appearing to patronise the 
 latter. 
 
 So James's envoy, Lord Semple, was made much 
 of, and sent away loaded with gold chains for him- 
 self and fine messages for his master, whilst other 
 emissaries from Spanish Flanders flattered James 
 in the conviction that even Spain had been caught 
 in his Catholic lure, and that the only remaining 
 Catholic interest that he had to fear was now on 
 his side.^ All the cards then seemed to be in his 
 
 returned in the next year, and succeeded in his attempt, forcing James 
 to dismiss his Chancellor Maitland, whom he considered too Catholic. 
 By a counter-movement Bothwell was forced to fly to England and 
 was sheltered by Elizabeth, as up to that time he had been an ultra- 
 Protestant. When, in order to revenge himself, he entered into a 
 league with the Scottish Catholic Lords, he found it necessary to 
 escape to Spanish Flanders. In 1596 he sought reconciliation with 
 Elizabeth, as he was destitute in Paris, offering to become a spy in her 
 interest upon Spain, France, or the Scottish Catholics (Danvers to 
 Cecil, Hatfield Papers, vol. vi., June 28). He made other desperate 
 efforts to recover the favour of Elizabeth in 1598 through John 
 Colville, whose opinion of his character is curious : " Albeit in one 
 of my former letters I did write as I thought of Bothwell, being moved 
 thereto by his terrible oaths and protestations, yet finding him still as 
 light as a feather and more fraudf ull nor a fox, I am forced to alter my 
 opinion, car en son fait il n'y'a ny ryme ny raison" (Hatfield Papers, 
 vol. viii. ; see also Colville's Letters and Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.). 
 It may be added that the Spanish envoy was not sent to Scotland as 
 suggested by Fitzherbert, but a man was sent from Flanders in the 
 name of the Archduke. 
 
 1 Edward Bruce, writing to Lord Henry Howard (Hatfield Papers, 
 uncalendared, cxxxv. fol. 81), says : "My Lord Semple at his return 
 from Spaine did acquent the King that thair was ana propos there to 
 send ane ambassadour to this countrie, and that it was contentously 
 much in dispute in thair Counsell ^ro H cnutru. ... So tossing these
 
 JAMES GROWS BOLDER 389 
 
 hand, and he could aflbrd to assume a tone towards 
 Elizabeth that a few years before he would not 
 have dared to use. He suggested to his principal 
 nobles that they should form a " Band," ostensibly 
 for the protection of his person, but really to enforce 
 his claims to the English crown ; ^ and whilst he was 
 dabbling in conspiracy with Essex and Montjoy — as 
 will presently be related — for the traitorous use of 
 English troops, he demanded of the Scottish Parlia- 
 ment a liberal subsidy with the same object, for 
 " he was not certain how soon he should have to 
 use arms ; but whenever it should be, he knew his 
 right, and would venture crown and all for it." " 
 
 Thus, at the opening of the year 1600, the clouds 
 lowered darkly over England and Protestantism. 
 Essex, a prisoner, was raging and plotting, mad 
 with spite and disappointment, ready to sacrifice 
 loyalty, country, faith — everything, for rehabilita- 
 tion and revenge : Tyrone, rejoicing in his hollow 
 truce, was busy preparing for the great struggle, 
 whilst his zealous agents in Spain were whispering 
 to Philip's Ministers that this indeed was the 
 opportunity for repairing all past failures, and for 
 finally making England Catholic through Ireland. 
 
 doubts to and fro they break up thair Counsell without any resolution. 
 . . . Since this time the King protests that naither nor indirectly he 
 never heard motion or speach of any such messenger to come unto 
 him." This was true, but a Flemish envoy was sent by the Archduke 
 and his wife. 
 
 1 In a letter from Cecil to his agent in Scotland, Nicholson (April 
 1600), he quotes James as expressing himself thus in the instrument 
 forming the new "Band": "Divers persons upon frivolous and im- 
 pertinent presumptions would go about to impugn his birthright, 
 contrary to the most ancient and approved laws of both realms" 
 (Hatiield Papers, uncalendared, vol. Ixxviii.). 
 
 2 Nicholson to Cecil, December 15, 1599 (Scottish State Papers).
 
 390 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 James almost for the only time in his life was 
 warlike, with, as he thought, all Catholic Europe 
 behind him, and the English Puritans betrayed by 
 their leader ; and the moderate Cecil party were face 
 to face with the fact that they had been outflanked 
 and outbidden by the King of Scots. The religion 
 of England, which meant the fate of civilisation, 
 was trembling in the balance. There seemed only 
 one possible way by which the Anglican Church 
 might be saved and civil war avoided, and that way 
 was only possible for one man. The man was Sir 
 Kobert Cecil, and the way, a crooked and devious 
 one, came out straight in the end, as will be seen in 
 the following chapters.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Essex in disgrace — His attempts at reconciliation — Small Spanish help 
 to the Irish rebels — The mission of Mateo de Oviedo, Archbisliop 
 of Dublin, and Martin de la Cerda to Ireland— Resolution in 
 Spain to aid Tyrone actively — Irish envoys to Spain — Helplessness 
 of Philip and discouragement of Tyrone — Father Persons' appeals 
 to Philijj to take a decided course on the English succession — 
 Discussions in the Council of State on the subject — Father Cres- 
 well's efforts in Madrid— The projects of the Earl of Bothwell — 
 Essex and James. Abortive peace negotiations with Spain — Essex's 
 rebellion and execution. 
 
 "What! did the fool bring you too? Go back to 
 your business." This was the greeting flung by the 
 Queen to her trembling poet-godson, Sir John Har- 
 rington, as he entered her chamber to pay his 
 respects on his return to England with Essex ; one of 
 a host of idle knights, captains, and swaggerers, who 
 scorned to stay in Ireland longer than their lord. 
 And when Harrington knelt to his sovereign, as 
 she paced up and down the room in a fury, she 
 grabbed his girdle and cried to him, " By God's Son! 
 I am no Queen : that man is above me. Who 
 gave him command to come here so soon ? I sent 
 him on other business." Then, becoming some- 
 what calmer, she told Harrington to bring for her 
 inspection the diary she knew he had been keeping 
 of the Munster campaign. It was never meant for 
 her eyes, but her godson dared not refuse ; and as 
 she read the record she flared out in anger again, 
 and swore her awful oath, " that we were all idle
 
 392 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 knaves, and the Lord - Deputy (Essex) worse, for 
 wasting our time and her commands in suchwise 
 as my journal doth write of." ^ In the meanwhile 
 the object of all this anger was sick and sorry at 
 York House in the custody of Lord-Keeper Egerton. 
 Debarred from access to the Queen, and refused 
 permission even to write to his wife, who had just 
 given birth to a daughter, he could only profess 
 abject submission in heart-breaking appeals to the 
 sovereign whose former kindness to him had turned 
 to bitter resentment. 
 
 The sternness of Elizabeth and her Council 
 against Essex at this juncture is less surprising to 
 us than it was to most of their contemporaries.^ 
 We know, as they did not, that the English 
 Government were fully informed of the coquetting 
 of James with the Pope, the Catholics, and with 
 Tyrone, and had more than a suspicion that Essex 
 had been in treasonable communication with both.'^ 
 
 ^ Harrington's Nugce Antiques. 
 
 2 Chamberlain's letters from Court at the period reflect the bewilder- 
 ment generally felt at the Queen's implacability against Essex. Writing 
 on the 22nd February 1600 to Carleton he says : "You left us here 
 with so fair weather and with so confident an opinion that all sholde go 
 well with my Lord of Essex, and that we should soon see him a-cock- 
 horse again, that I know it wilbe strange news to you to hear that all 
 was but a kind of dreame and a false paradise that his friends had 
 fained to themselves." Again on the 5 th March he speaks of Essex as 
 being very ill, and " a man quite out of his mind." " The Bishop of 
 Worcester preached at Court on Sonday last, made many proffers 
 and glances in his behalf as was understood by the whole auditorie 
 and by the Queene herself, who presently calling him to reckoning, 
 he flatly foreswore that he had any such meaning." 
 
 ^ This idea was encouraged by Tyrone's constantly expressed par- 
 tiality for Essex, which greatly angered the Queen. Tyrone, amongst 
 other things, said that he would never draw the sword against Essex, 
 whereupon the Queen wrote to Fenton (November 5, Irish State 
 Papers) : " That Tyrone should forbear to draw his sword against our
 
 DISGRACE OF ESSEX 393 
 
 They did not yet know the extent to which his 
 disloyalty had reached : that was to come out in 
 the helter-skelter rush to confess first and most 
 fully which overtook Essex and his friends when 
 their plot had failed a year later. Then it was to 
 come out that Essex had suggested to his father-in- 
 law, Sir Christopher Blount, and his friend the Earl 
 of Southampton, whilst he was yet in Ireland, to 
 bring over 4000 of the Queen's troops to England 
 without authority, "with the full purpose to right 
 himself by force of such wrongs as he complained of 
 receiving here (in England) in his absence," ^ which, 
 says Blount, both he and Southampton opposed. 
 
 Essex had many friends and was greatly beloved 
 by the populace. It was hardly likely that his harsh 
 treatment and present suffering on what appeared 
 publicly to be inadequate grounds should not pro- 
 voke some attempt at remedy. The Queen was so 
 jealous of any one having access to him, that most 
 of his relatives retired to the country, to remove 
 themselves from suspicion, and even " his servants 
 dared not meet or make merry lest it might be taken 
 ill." But still projects were not wanting for his 
 rescue. Old Sir Christopher Blount, who had ad- 
 vised him when he left Ireland to bring a sufficient 
 number of adherents with him to prevent his arrest 
 by force, was now for seizing him out of custody 
 and carrying him into Wales, guarded by a squadron 
 of cavalry ; but this was too bold and risky a course ; 
 
 Lieutenant rather than against us, we shall take ourselves much 
 dishonoured, and neither value anything that shall proceed from him 
 on such conditions, nor dispose our minds to be so gracious to him 
 hereafter." 
 
 ^ Confession of Sir C. Blount, Hatfield Papers, Ixxxiii.
 
 394 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 for the Queen was in no humour to be trifled with, 
 and a more secret but no less dangerous course was 
 adopted. A few days after Essex's arrival, Lord Mont- 
 joy, who was deeply in love with the Earl's sister, 
 came to Essex House, where the ruined gambler, 
 Earl of Southampton, had rooms, and told him that 
 even before Essex had returned from Ireland he had 
 seen that his disgrace was impending, " and desiring 
 to save him, if it mought bee, he (Montjoy) had sent 
 a messenger to the King of Skottes to wish him to 
 bethincke himselfe, and not suffer, if he could hinder 
 it, the government of this State to be wholly in the 
 handes of his enemies ; and if hee (James) would 
 resolve of anything that was fitt, he should find him 
 (Montjoy) forward to do him right, as far as he 
 mought with a safe conscience and his duty reserved 
 to her Majestie." ^ James sent a prompt but timid 
 verbal answer to the effect that "he would think of 
 it, and put himself in readiness to take any good 
 occasion." This, however, was not sufficient for 
 Montjoy, who thereupon sent a bolder suggestion 
 to him. He was destined, he said, to go to Ireland 
 as Lord-Deputy, and when he was there he would 
 at convenient time declare himself and place the 
 English army at James's disposal. With half the 
 troops he would have, he said, he might " doe that 
 which was fitt in establishing such a course as should 
 be best for our country." This proposal was backed 
 by a letter from Southampton to James offering his 
 services on his behalf. After some delay, the King 
 
 * Confession of the Earl of Southampton, Hatfield (imcalenilared), 
 Ixxxiv. (Printed as an Aiipendix to the Letters of Cecil and James, 
 Camden Society.)
 
 TREASON AT WORK 395 
 
 of Scots signified that " hee lyked the course well, 
 and would prepare himself for it ; " but it is very 
 evident that James was lukewarm. The encourage- 
 ment and money he was getting from the Catholic 
 Powers and his warlike talk were intended by him 
 as a means of forcing Elizabeth to acknowledge his 
 heirship ; he had no real intention of precipitating 
 events by commencing war, and certainly not to 
 participate in a treasonable rising in England, which 
 must necessarily turn a large number of his future 
 subjects against him for the sole benefit of Essex. 
 The friends of the latter gradually understood this, 
 and dropped James for the present out of their 
 plans. Sir Charles Danvers thought that the Eng- 
 lish army in Ireland under Montjoy would be suffi- 
 cient of itself to force Essex upon the Queen and 
 destroy the Cecil party. Essex himself, now a 
 prisoner in his own house, ^ approved of this idea, 
 and Southampton was sent to Ireland to propose 
 the matter to Montjoy. But responsibility had 
 sobered the new Viceroy, and "hee utterly rejected 
 it as a thinge which hee could no way thinke honest, 
 and dissuaded me (Southampton) from thinking any 
 more of such courses." 
 
 All this, although perhaps suspected by Cecil, 
 was unknown to the Queen at the time, and in pity 
 for her late favourite's despairing state and dangerous 
 illness, on more than one occasion she seemed in- 
 clined to relent towards him. Once, indeed, when a 
 consultation of physicians had pronounced him to 
 be dying she had sent him a message of comfort, 
 
 1 He had been transferred thither from York House on the 19th 
 March 1600.
 
 396 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 saying, with tears in her eyes, that if it were con- 
 sistent with her honour she would visit him. But 
 the mood soon changed. She wished to correct, not 
 to destroy, she told Francis Bacon ; but it needed 
 all the reasoning of the jurists and the abject prayers 
 of the prisoner to dissuade her from submitting 
 Essex to the tender mercies of the Star Chamber. 
 At length a commission of the Privy Council was 
 appointed to inquire into his conduct and to hear 
 his defence, with power not to sentence, but to cen- 
 sure. As usual, the Crown lawyers, amongst whom, 
 to his eternal shame, was Francis Bacon, were viru- 
 lent and grossly unfair in their attacks upon the 
 accused, whilst Essex, pathetically eloquent, broken 
 in health and heart, drew tears from eyes more 
 accustomed to frowns by his pleading ; the result 
 of the inquiry being the suspension of the Earl from 
 all his offices, and his remaining under arrest during 
 the Queen's pleasure.^ Cecil through all this was 
 prudently moderate ; it was clear that Essex's temper 
 would ruin him without much aid from his oppo- 
 nents, and though Ralegh vindictively urged seve- 
 rity," the Earl was liberated at the end of August, 
 
 ^ The trial or inquiry took place early in June. Bacon's account of 
 the proceedings will be found in his works (Montagu). 
 
 2 This famous letter from Ralegh to Cecil, which has so often been 
 misinterpreted to mean the writer's desire for Essex's execution after 
 his rising, bears no date ; but the context shows it to have been written 
 at the period now mentioned. " If yow take it for a good councell to 
 relent towards this tirant, yow will repent it when it shal be too late. 
 His mallice is fixt, and will not evaporate towards any your mild 
 courses. For he will ascribe the alteration to her Majestie's pusillani- 
 mitye, and not to your good nature, knowing that yow worke but 
 uppon her humour, and not out of any love towards him. The less 
 yow make hyme the less he slialbe able to harme yow and yours. If 
 her Majestie's favour fail hyme, he will ngain decline to a common
 
 IRELAND STILL IN REVOLT 397 
 
 but was still forbidden to appear at court. He 
 professed a desire to retire from public life and live 
 away from London ; but it is highly probable that 
 at this juncture he made his way unbidden into the 
 Queen's presence at Greenwich, trusting to his old 
 fascination to regain her love/ If so, he was de- 
 ceived, for she thrust him from her presence with 
 scorn and resentment, and thenceforward his heart 
 had no room for other feeling but hatred for her and 
 those who he thought had stolen her love from him. 
 All his hope of regaining his mistress's favour was 
 abandoned, and " his speeches," as Harrington said 
 after an interview with him, " of the Queen become 
 no man who hath mens sana in covpore sano." 
 
 No sooner had Essex fled from Ireland than 
 Tyrone began to haggle about the terms and re- 
 newal of the truce. He would have nothing to do, 
 he said, with any Minister of the Queen but Essex ; 
 he must, he declared, consult O'Donnell, Avho dis- 
 approved of peace altogether, and he must include 
 the other rebels in the truce ; but finally a renewal 
 of six weeks was agreed to. Truce or no truce, 
 however, Leinster was being ravaged still, and 
 Munster, outside of the garrisons and Lord Barry's 
 lands, was in open rebellion. The great territorial 
 jMunster chiefs, Florence M'Carty More and the 
 Earl of Desmond (.James FitzThomas Fitzgerald), 
 
 person. For after revenges, fear them not." (See Edwards' " Life and 
 Letters of Raleigli," and " Sir Walter Raleigh," by the present writer.) 
 ^ See Devereux's " Lives of the Devereux Earls of Essex." The 
 evidence as to Essex having seen the Queen at this time is slight. It 
 depends mainly upon a remark contained in a letter subsequently 
 written by the Earl to Elizabeth, to the effect that she had by her 
 voice commanded, and by her hands thrust him out of her presence.
 
 398 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 were re-established by Tyrone ; and Connaught 
 since Sir Conyers Clifford's defeat and death was 
 at O'Donnell's obedience. Thus Tyrone could afford 
 to speak haughtily to the Queen's commander, the 
 Earl of Ormonde. The terms of the truce, he com- 
 plained, were being violated by the English, and he 
 threatened that, after a fortnight longer, " I will, for 
 God and my country, do the best I may against 
 enemies and tyrants." " I wish you to command 
 your secretary to be more discreet," wrote the Irish 
 chief to Ormonde, " and to use the word ' traitor ' 
 as seldom as he may. By chiding there is little 
 gotten at my hands." ^ 
 
 All this made it obvious that further parley would 
 end in no good. " To use her name to so odious a 
 traitor," ordered the Queen, " no more than to cast 
 pearls before swine," and Lord Montjoy was in- 
 structed to make ready in England to crush Irish 
 rebellion once for all, cost what it might. Garrisons 
 were to be established everywhere throughout Ire- 
 land and no further truce or quarter was to be given 
 to Tyrone." An army of 12,000 foot and 1400 horse 
 were to be at the new viceroy's disposal, and the 
 
 ^ Tyrone to Ormonde, October 30, 1599, Irish State Papers. 
 
 2 Although Cecil was even blasphemously indignant — on paper — at 
 Tyrone's assertion at this period that the Government hiid plotted to 
 have }iim murdered, there is now no room to doubt that such was the 
 case. The Irish State Papers disclose that at various times Lord Borough, 
 Sir Geoffry Fenton, the Earl of Ormonde, Sir Robert Cecil, and the 
 Queen herself countenanced the assassination of Tyrone, and Ralegh goes 
 so far as to defend the goodness of such a course in a letter to Cecil 
 (October 1598). The Carew Papers and " Pacata Hibernia" also 
 prove that murder was a regular instrument of English policy in Ireland, 
 and Sir George Carew quite coolly mentions to Montjoy the despatch of 
 a man to Spaiu to kill O'Donnell, who had fled thither (Carew MSS., 
 October 1602).
 
 MUNSTER IN REBELLION 399 
 
 blow, it was agreed, must be struck at the rebel 
 before the Spaniards could come to his aid in force. 
 It was felt even in England now that the nerve- 
 lessness hitherto shown in the dealings with Tyrone 
 could not fail to encourage the new King of Spain 
 to send the powerful aid for which Irish churchmen 
 and chiefs had been praying so long and so earnestly. 
 The adhesion of Munster especially to the rebellion 
 was seen to be the great peril in this connection. It 
 was perhaps the most fervently Catholic part of 
 Ireland ; its splendid harbours were the easiest of 
 access from Spain, and the re-erection of its native 
 southern princes, McCarthy More and Desmond, had 
 given a temporary appearance of national solidity to the 
 Irish cause. For this reason Tyrone himself attached 
 the greatest importance to fomenting the rebel cause 
 in Munster, which became in consequence the prin- 
 cipal battle-ground upon which finally the cause of 
 Catholic supremacy in England, Scotland, and Ire- 
 land was to be fought out to the bitter end. 
 
 The Geraldines in exile and the crowd of Irish 
 priests in Spain continued to beg fervently for aid to 
 their cause. Soon after he had arranged the truce 
 with Essex, Tyrone had sent yet two more emissaries 
 to plead his cause with young Philip ; and hopeful 
 messages and promises were again sent back to 
 Ireland and made the most of by the ardent Celts 
 who carried them. But still the habit of long de- 
 liberation weighed heavily upon the Spaniard, and 
 old Philip's love for infinite information dwelt in the 
 statesmen who had sat at his feet. So, instead of a 
 powerful fleet for which the Irish looked, there 
 sailed into the bay of Donegal in April 1600 a ship
 
 400 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 carrying some presents of money and munitions and 
 a Spanish friar, Mateo de Oviedo, whom the Pope 
 had appointed Archbishop of Dublin, and with him 
 came an experienced soldier, Captain Martin de la 
 Cerda, to inspect and report to the King upon the 
 military position of Tyrone. The new Bishop was 
 delighted with his foreign flock. Writing to his 
 King from Donegal (April 24) he assured him that he 
 had in Ireland "the bravest and most faithful vassals 
 that any king could have, such indeed, that if they 
 were not already devoted to Spain it would be neces- 
 sary to obtain their adhesion by all possible means." 
 The meeting of chiefs in the monastery of Donegal 
 was less optimistic now than when Captain Cobos had 
 gone thither four years before. " When we arrived 
 empty-handed only to repeat again the old pro- 
 mises, they were overcome with sorrow and dis- 
 may. . . . Although O'Neil and O'Donnell are full 
 of courage they cannot prevail over the other chiefs, 
 who fear the long delay in the arrival of succour, 
 and suspect that they are being played with. We 
 have done our best to stiffen them by every possible 
 argument . . . and again promised that help should 
 be sent with all speed. This has tranquillised them 
 somewhat, and they have promised to wait for five 
 months, as they think that they cannot, in any case, 
 hold out longer than that without help, at least in 
 money to pay their men. They have done great 
 things last summer, O'Neil having overrun all 
 Munster and submitted it to your Majesty, whilst 
 O'Donnell has subjected Connaught." Tyrone, the 
 Archbishop informed Philip, had almost gained over 
 the Earl of Essex, and had recently refused the sur-
 
 SPAIN AND THE IRISH REBELS 401 
 
 render of Cork, as he could not hold the city without 
 the Spaniards. "These sixty gentlemen," he con- 
 tinues, " met in this Monastery of Donegal and 
 discussed matters, not like savages, but like prudent 
 men. They received the chains and your Majesty's 
 portraits with great ceremony, saying that they 
 would wear no other chains nor bonds than those 
 of your Majesty. They are very grateful for the 
 arms, munitions. &c., and I, for my own part, 
 humbly supplicate your Majesty to bear in mind 
 the importance of this business. With 6000 men 
 you may carry through an enterprise which will 
 bridle English insolence in Flanders and secure 
 Spain and the Indies from future molestation." ^ 
 
 Whilst the Archbishop remained at Donegal as 
 Philip's representative, Don Martin de la Cerda hur- 
 ried back to Spain, equally impressed with the great 
 results that might now be obtained by the sending of 
 timely assistance to Tyrone. W^ith him he carried 
 fervent letters from the Irish chieftains to the 
 Spanish king. That signed jointly by Tyrone and 
 O'Donnell is the most important. They were, they 
 said, in the last extremity. Their estates, men, and 
 resources were exhausted ; and as the Spanish aid is 
 delayed from day to day, after so many messengers 
 and letters have been sent, thev are sure that all 
 spirits must fail, and they will have to give way, 
 unless the Spanish succour reaches them this year 
 {i.e. 1600). Without it, all is lost. Don Martin de 
 la Cerda takes a schedule of their requests, and of 
 the money needful, if the army cannot possibly come 
 this year. They have placed the chains and portraits 
 
 ^ Simancas (Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.). 
 
 2 C
 
 402 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 round their necks in token of Philip's favour, and 
 they fervently pray him not to forsake them and the 
 Catholic cause. " God knows, if it had not been for 
 the service of God and Spain, they would not have 
 undertaken the war at all, as they might have lived 
 in peace." ^ Above all, they beg that Maurice Geral- 
 dine, heir of Desmond, now in prison in Lisbon for 
 participation in a riot there, should be released and 
 be sent to Ireland with the Spanish expedition, as 
 well as all the Irish bishops and men of rank in Spain 
 and Flanders. As a further pledge of Tyrone's 
 faithfulness to Philip, he sent with La Cerda Henry 
 O'Neil, his son, to be educated in the Spanish 
 court.^ 
 
 A few days before these reports arrived in Spain, 
 Philip's Council had exhaustively considered the 
 question of Ireland, in consequence of a letter sent 
 from Flanders by the Archduke Albert on the sub- 
 ject. Tyrone, apparently in despair of getting a 
 prompt decision from Spain, had appealed to the 
 Archduke in March. The Irish, he assured him, 
 had sustained the war, and had routed the English, 
 in the confident expectation that the long-promised 
 
 ^ Simancas (Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.). 
 
 2 The Archbishop of Santiago wrote to Philip III. (May i8, 1600), 
 saying that, in accordance with the King's order that he was to welcome 
 and assist any person sent from Ii'eland by the Spanish Archbishop of 
 Dublin, he had received at Santiago young O'Neil and his attendants, 
 " welcoinin<j; them spiritually by confession, absolution, and the Mas8, 
 in which they showed themselves truly Catholic ; and he had enter- 
 tained them bodily to the best of his ability." The King, he says, is 
 doing a truly pious work in supporting the Irish Catholics. In June 
 young O'Neil was brought to Madrid with much distinction. John 
 O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone, the other son of the great Hu;j;h, fell at the 
 storming of Barcelona in 1641. He commanded the Irish regiment in 
 the service of Philip IV.
 
 SPANISH AID TO BE SENT 403 
 
 aid from Spain would be sent to them, but as 
 nothing came, they fervently begged the Archduke 
 to intercede for them. But the new sovereign of 
 Flanders was at that moment in close negotiations 
 with the English Government for peace, as will be 
 related presently ; his hands were full of his own 
 affairs, and he had no desire to be involved in the 
 old Spanish ambitions ; so he simply passed on 
 Tyrone's letter to Spain, as a matter that concerned 
 him not. 
 
 The Council of State, on this occasion, sent a 
 report to the King of a somewhat more practical 
 character than the canting platitudes which they had 
 usually presented to his father. They deplored that 
 all the efforts to aid the Irish had ended in disaster, 
 and that the Catholics were in a more desperate 
 plight than ever; "but as past failures have not 
 occurred through want of will, and our Lord always 
 helps in the direst need, we must trust to His mercy 
 in this case to infuse fresh spirit into them, whilst 
 your Majesty aids them as far as you can, pending 
 the possibility of undertaking the matter in force. 
 Your Majesty will greatly serve God and your own 
 interest by doing so, as in no place can the Queen 
 of England be so effectually and cheaply embar- 
 rassed as in Ireland. It will also enable us to im- 
 prove our conditions of peace and encourage the Eng- 
 lish Catholics. It is therefore recommended that at 
 least 20,000 ducats and 4000 quintals of biscuit^ 
 should be forwarded to Corunna, to be sent, with 
 some arms and munitions, to Ireland by quick-sailing 
 ships, so that the Irish may see that we are helping 
 
 ^ A^quintal is loo lbs.'
 
 404 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 them with the things they most want, without delay. 
 They should be written to kindly, and assured 
 that, in any case, your Majesty will continue to pro- 
 tect them, and when God wills, that a full force may 
 be sent to liberate them." ^ 
 
 It will be noted that as the Spaniards became 
 more practical they became more modest. Past 
 failures, after all, had taught them something ; and 
 the 20,000 ducats and two cargoes of biscuits 
 show up but poorly by the side of the pretentious 
 promises of the past. When, however, La Cerda 
 came back in May with his report and fresh letters 
 from Tyrone and O'Donnell, the whole matter had 
 to be reconsidered, for the exhortation of the Spanish 
 Archbishop of Dublin, and the imposing array of 
 sixty Irish chieftains in the Monastery of Donegal 
 protesting their loyalty to Spain, impressed Philip 
 and his advisers with the reality of the opportunity. 
 Don Martin told the King that the five havens in 
 the hands of the rebels would receive the whole 
 fleet in safety, and that the food necessary for the 
 5000 or 6000 Spanish soldiers expected existed 
 already in the island. Plorses they had, he said, in 
 plenty, though no carts or traces ; and if the Spanish 
 expedition came promptly, Tyrone could raise a well- 
 equipped army of 20,000 foot and 1000 horse. 
 The enthusiastic opinion of La Cerda evidently pro- 
 duced great effect upon the Council, and the latter 
 warmly recommended to the King that the Irish 
 Catholics should be supported, " so that the Queen 
 should be served as she serves his Majesty by help- 
 ing the Flemish rebels." 
 
 ^ Simancas (Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.).
 
 PHILIP III. TO THE RESCUE 405 
 
 But alas I then comes the characteristic Spanish 
 touch, which shows us that the administration, at all 
 events, had not changed for the better under the new 
 King. Two months had already passed since it was 
 decided to send immediately the 20,000 ducats and 
 the biscuits, which, it was again stated, was all that 
 could possibly be afforded (July i, 1600); but the 
 Council, after this interval, had to pray that " the 
 Marquis of Poza should be instructed to provide the 
 necessary funds without delay, because, although his 
 Majesty has given orders, and application has been 
 made to the Marquis, he has not delivered the 
 money, saying that his Majesty has given him no 
 orders." ^ When young Philip had before him this 
 opinion of his Council again urging him to send, at 
 least, the small aid decided upon without delay, he 
 scrawled across it an order, which of itself proves his 
 youth and ignorance of affairs, as well as the wide 
 gulf which in character separated him from his 
 father. His Council had told him that the utmost 
 that could be done for the Irish at present was to 
 send them the temporary assistance mentioned, but 
 he astounded them by ordering peremptorily that a 
 powerful army and fleet should be sent at once to 
 conquer Ireland. Idiaquez, the King's secretary, 
 explained the reasons for Philip's decision, and the 
 Council of State consisted of courtiers too submis- 
 sive openly to dispute his wisdom. They had no 
 doubt, they replied, that the enterprise would be 
 quite easy and safe, and " your Majesty would gain 
 enormously in prestige by conquering a kingdom 
 thus unexpectedly. The bridle which the possession 
 
 ^ Simancas (Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.).
 
 4o6 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 of Ireland by your Majesty would put upon England 
 and the Northern Powers, would enable you to divert 
 them from all other points of attack, and prevent 
 them from molesting Spain, &c. It would also en- 
 able you to make good terms of peace and recover 
 the Flemish fortresses held by the English for the 
 rebels. In case of the Queen's death, your Majesty, 
 as master of Ireland, would be in a greatly improved 
 position to nominate a successor to the English 
 crown." But — although they applauded the King's 
 decision as the quintessence of wisdom and godliness, 
 they humbly pointed out that there was no money 
 and no time to send an expedition to Ireland that 
 year ; and finally they repeated their former advice, 
 to send only the ducats and the biscuits, whilst 
 making preparation for an Armada of conquest in 
 the following year (1601). 
 
 Philip was young, ardent, and unwise, and would 
 not be gainsaid. Again he returned the Council's 
 report, ordering them to discuss and decide upon 
 the means for sending out at once the Armada 
 of conquest upon which he had set his heart. 
 His decision, the Council again assured him, was 
 " worthy of his grandeur and catholicity ; " but 
 again, they pointed out the impossibility of carrying 
 it into effect. The fitting out of the fleet, the 
 raising and training the men, the supply of the arms 
 and stores, and the provision of at least 150,000 
 ducats to pay the troops during the campaign, 
 would all have to be done in six weeks ; because, to 
 send an expedition later than the middle of Septem- 
 ber, would be to risk losing it altogether. Besides, 
 they pleaded, where was the money for it all to
 
 PHILIP III. IN A HURRY 407 
 
 come from ? No effort should be spared to obey 
 his Majesty's orders ; and the Adelantado should be 
 requested at once to send a report of all that would 
 be needed and the money it would cost. Troops 
 should be warned for service, and every man and 
 weapon that could be drawn from Spain, Italy, or 
 the Islands should be utilised for Ireland. Still the 
 Council were doubtful, and could only promise to 
 do their best. Philip's autograph note in reply to 
 this is so characteristic that it deserves to be repro- 
 duced entire, as I transcribed it myself at Simancas: 
 " As the expedition is so entirely for the glory of 
 Almighty God, all difficulties to it must be over- 
 come somehow. The greatest energy and diligence 
 must be exercised on all hands. I will find money 
 for it, even if I have to sacrifice what I need for my 
 own person, so that the expedition may go this year. 
 Settle everything without delay. Get statements 
 of all that will be needed, and forward them im- 
 mediately to me. Do not wait to send to the 
 Adelantado. I will give orders for the immediate 
 collection of the money sufficient to send a force 
 of 6000 men. In the meanwhile, send to Ireland 
 instantly Don Martin de la Cerda, with the 20,000 
 ducats and the 4000 quintals of biscuits." Such 
 hastiness and disregard for "information" were 
 enough to make Philip II. turn in his porphyry 
 tomb ; but old Philip's system was stronger than 
 young Philip's despotism, and nothing was done. 
 
 These deliberations of the King and Council had 
 delayed matters to the end of August, and three 
 months later (23rd November 1600), the Council of 
 State were asked to report upon fresh letters from
 
 4o8 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Tyrone and O'Donnell, which had just been brought 
 to Spain by Richard Owen.^ In the course of their 
 report, to which reference will be made presently, 
 the Council say that great efforts had been made to 
 complete the expedition which had been ordered 
 by the King. " But your Majesty's absence has 
 so delayed matters that the vessels and galleys in 
 Andalusia are still very much behind-hand. Of the 
 sixteen needed, only eight have been fitted out, and 
 the raising of the sailors has not even begun." They 
 pray the King to insist upon greater speed being 
 used, and that the rest of the ships should be got 
 ready at once, as well as the necessary provisions. 
 " Out of the 30,000 quintals of biscuit expected, 
 only 12,000 have yet arrived in Lisbon, of which 
 it was decided to send 4000 quintals to Lelaud." 
 Thus, as we see, whilst Tyrone was at close grip 
 with Montjoy in Ireland, the administrative para- 
 lysis of Philip's system was preventing the de- 
 spatch of the precious aid which might have turned 
 the scale in his favour. Councils might recommend, 
 kings might command, realms might go a-begging ; 
 but corruption, poverty, sloth, and bigotry reigned 
 supreme over all. 
 
 Tyrone's demands now brought by Richard Owen 
 were more important and far-reaching than any 
 that he had sent previously. Prince O'Neil, as 
 
 * Richard Oweu was an Irislimau who for years had been in the 
 pay of Spain, and was formerly in Sir William Stanley's Irish traitor- 
 regiment. He had accomjjanied Tyrone in the latter's famous interview 
 with Essex ; and after Essex had returned to London the latter tried to 
 excuse Tyrone's sulkiness towards other English officers by saying that 
 Owen, an agent of Spain, was always by his side, and Tyrone dared 
 not seein friendly with the English in his presence.
 
 TYRONE'S DEMANDS OF SPAIN 409 
 
 Tyrone now calls himself, must be appointed Cap- 
 tain-General of all Ireland, " as no Irishman will 
 consent to be governed by one of lower rank 
 than himself." O'Uonnell and Desmond (James 
 FitzThomas), respectively, must be recognised as 
 governors of Connaught and Munster, and the Irish 
 people must be adopted by Philip, either as sub- 
 jects, allies, or proteges. The war should be actively 
 prosecuted during the spring and summer, and all 
 the Irish gentlemen in Spain and Flanders should 
 be sent in the expedition when it comes. The 
 Pope, moreover, should be urged to excommunicate 
 all Irishmen who aid the heretics, and no Irish 
 ship should be allowed in a Spanish port without 
 a licence from Tyrone. Artillery and harness must 
 be sent, but no horses are needed. The plan now 
 proposed by Tyrone was for Philip to seize in 
 Spanish ports all the Irish, Scottish, and Breton 
 ships that had gone thither as usual for cargoes 
 of wine. These should be loaded with men and 
 arms, and. under the convoy of ten small ships 
 of war, be sent to Ireland. " If any disaster 
 occurs," says Tyrone somewhat ungenerously, "your 
 Majesty will lose less than if you sent your own 
 galleys." Above all, he says, the way to cast out 
 the heretics speedily and cheaply will be for the 
 expedition to go to Carlingford, forty miles from 
 Dublin. " Operating from there, the Spaniards may 
 expel in three days four of the six English garrisons 
 in O'Neil's country, and more can be done there 
 against the English in six months than elsewhere 
 in many years. If the force goes to Munster the 
 war will be interminable."
 
 4IO TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 But Tyrone closes his long despatch discourag- 
 ingly. The Catholics, he says, are tired of fighting, 
 and if aid be not promptly sent they must make 
 peace with the English. The Queen ofiered them 
 liberty of conscience, and to each chief the pos- 
 session of his lands, with many new privileges. The 
 Catholics have hitherto refused peace out of affec- 
 tion to his Majesty ; but the King of Scotland has 
 now offered to make good terms for them with the 
 Englishwoman, and they may be forced to accept 
 them. "Most nations dislike Spain. The Irish 
 love it." It is only just, therefore, that they should 
 be succoured ; but help must come at once to be of 
 any use. 
 
 This reference to James was hardly likely to 
 strengthen the Irish cause in Spain. The Scottish 
 envoy already referred to (page 388) had been re- 
 ceived ceremoniously, but, as we have seen by 
 Fitzherbert's report, insincerely. The rallying to 
 James's side of the non-Spanish Catholic elements 
 in Europe had, in fact, caused the utmost uneasiness 
 amongst the Jesuits and thorough-going Spaniards 
 everywhere, as it had also done to a large number 
 of the English people, though for opposite reasons. 
 The logical result of James's Catholic intrigue, so 
 far as the English Government was concerned, was 
 to cause an active renoM^al of the negotiations for 
 peace with Flanders and Spain, to which reference 
 will be made presently ; but in the Spanish court it 
 gave a pretext for the opening of a fresh series of 
 intrigues with the object of defeating the party of 
 compromise, and seating upon the English throne 
 a nominee of Spain.
 
 THE JESUITS AGAIN INTERVENE 411 
 
 Father Persons was now the Rector of the English 
 College in Rome/ and from him came, fittingly, the 
 renewed note of alarm. Notwithstanding his famous 
 book and his constant efforts to forward the Infanta's 
 candidature, he had never been able to persuade 
 Philip II. to proclaim officially his daughter's claim 
 to the English throne. The Queen of England was 
 now getting old and feeble, the King of Scots, with 
 his cunning and ability, was grouping around him 
 every interest that could help him, and Spain 
 alone, for which Persons and his friends had worked 
 incessantly for twenty years, stood slothfully by 
 boasting, whilst the great prize of England ripened 
 to drop into the ready hands of the very man whose 
 accession seemed to threaten Spain with extinction 
 as a power, and the final defeat of Spanish-Catholic 
 supremacy in Europe. Persons therefore asked the 
 Duke of Sessa, the Spanish Ambassador in Rome, 
 to address a despatch upon the subject to the King ; 
 and at the same time he arranged through his agents 
 in England for the extreme English Catholics to send 
 a memorandum to Father Creswell, their representa- 
 tive in the Spanish capital, praying Philip for a 
 decision in accordance with their views, in anticipa- 
 tion of the proximate death of Elizabeth. 
 
 * Persons' ability and authority had reduced the turbulent Eoman 
 College to something approaching order, but in the meanwhile his own 
 college of Valladolid was feeling strongly the revulsion caused amongst 
 the young English students to the anti-patriotic Jesuit teaching. A 
 considerable number of them ran away and took the Benedictine habit 
 especially ; and thenceforward some of the most unselfish mi.~sionaries 
 who faced martyrdom in England were drawn from that order, which, 
 according to Father Watson (" Quodlibets "), the Jesuits were desirous of 
 suppressing in the event of a revival of the Catholic supremacy in 
 England. A very interesting account of the Benedictine Mission at 
 the period will be found in Dom Bede Camm's " Life of John Roberts."
 
 412 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 This was in the spring of 1600, and the inter- 
 minable secret discussions on the question in the 
 Spanish Council took place at the same time as their 
 deliberations on the Irish expedition related on pages 
 403-407. The result they arrived at was to recommend 
 the King to adopt his half-sister the Infanta as his 
 nominee to the English throne, and that Father 
 Persons alone should be cautiously informed of the 
 fact by the Duke of Sessa, in order that it might be 
 conveyed in strict secrecy to the leading Catholics 
 in England, who were opposed to a Scottish ruler. 
 The Infanta^ and her husband were also to be in- 
 formed, by means of an autograph letter from the 
 King, of the honour intended for them. They were 
 to be urged to promote the plan by means of secret 
 agents in England, and to be lavish of money and 
 promises in order to win over useful adherents. In 
 the meanwhile it was recommended that the Irish 
 expedition should go forward, and 200,000 ducats 
 be sent to the Spanish Ambassador in Flanders 
 (Zuniga), to hold for the moment that Elizabeth 
 should die : "so that he may be able promptly to 
 provide troops and whatever else may be needed for 
 successfully carrying through the business, which 
 principally depends upon celerity of action at the 
 proper time." ^ Some of the councillors were alarmed 
 at the idea that Flanders and England under one 
 sovereign might in time become a danger to Spain ; 
 and it was decided that the Infanta should be told 
 that if she became Queen of England she must give 
 
 > Isabel Clara Eugenia, the eldest daughter of Philip, was, it will 
 be recollected, married to her cousin, the Archduke, and was with him 
 joint sovereign of Flanders. 
 
 ^ Simancan MSS., Spanisli Calendar, vol. iv.
 
 THE ENGLISH SUCCESSION 413 
 
 up the Belgic provinces to Philip. This, although 
 only two members seemed to see it, was sufficient 
 to render the whole plan nugatory. The Infanta 
 was not likely to give up the .State she had inherited 
 for one she would have to conquer and hold by force 
 of arms ; whilst the main attraction to Englishmen 
 of any such solution as that proposed was the cer- 
 tainty of a close union between Flanders and England, 
 always a necessity for both countries. 
 
 The despatches from the Duke of Sessa which 
 had given rise to this discussion are more important 
 for the elucidation of an obscure point in English 
 history than for the inept, self-destructive, decision 
 just described. Father Persons assured the Duke that 
 if action were taken promptly, " not only Catholics, 
 but also many heretics will flock to his Majesty's 
 side ; even the principal councillors, such as the 
 Lord- Admiral, the Lord Treasurer {Buckhurst), and 
 Secretary Cecil. It is impossible now to say how far 
 Father Persons was warranted in making this state- 
 ment ; but it is evident that communications had 
 passed between a group of English noblemen and 
 his agents,^ because in his list of possible candi- 
 dates as alternatives to the Infanta proposed by the 
 English Catholics, he mentions the Duke of Savoy, 
 whose wife (a daughter of Philip II.) had recently 
 died ; and suggests that he should marry Arabella 
 
 1 It is likewise very significant that at this period (July 1600), 
 Cobham and Ralegh, who were afterwards sacrificed for having 
 plotted with Spain against James, had been sent by Cecil to Flanders, 
 ostensibly for the purpose of informing Lord Grey that the Queen was 
 relenting towards him. It is quite within the bounds of probability 
 that communications then Dassed between them and the English refu- 
 gees with regard to the succession.
 
 414 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Stuart ; and more curious still, the only English 
 nobleman suggested in the list was the Earl of 
 Worcester,! " a Catholic of good parts, who, 
 although he has no claim to the crown, might 
 marry the daughter of the Earl of Derby." These 
 suggestions could not have been made without the 
 connivance of the persons mentioned. Still the 
 English Catholics for whom Persons spoke ex- 
 pressed their great preference for the Infanta ; and 
 the Spanish Council decided to mention no other 
 name, either in approval or otherwise, until matters 
 were further developed. On one point every Coun- 
 cillor was absolutely agreed, namely, that the most 
 important thing was " utterly to exclude the Kings 
 of Scotland and France." " As in a matter of this 
 sort right is the least important element of the 
 claim, although it is necessary in order to justify 
 the employment of force, the Council is of opinion 
 that the financial question should be first considered 
 and decided ; whilst the forces in Flanders and the 
 fleet should be made ready, so that on the very day 
 that the Queen dies a movement may be made from 
 both sides (i.e. Flanders and Ireland) simultaneously 
 in favour of the object aimed at." Philip was, as 
 we have seen, slothful and pleasure-loving, deciding 
 
 1 The Earl of Worcester (Henry Somerset) was an elderly man, who 
 died in the following year (1601), leaving a small fortune and a large 
 family. The person referred to in the text is probably his son, Lord 
 Herbert, and curiously enough at the period when the Spanish Council 
 were discussing his candidature for the English crown, he was marry- 
 ing with great pomp and splendour Anne (or Elizabeth) Russell, a cousin 
 of Sir Robert Cecil's. Accounts of this magnificent festivity will be 
 found in Chamberlain's " Letters " and Nichols' " Progresses of Queen 
 Elizabeth." See also Lady Russell's letter to Cecil, Hatfield Papers, 
 vol. vii. p. 267.
 
 THE ENGLISH SUCCESSION 415 
 
 often by impulse, but neglecting to insist upon his 
 decisions being carried out. Everything was left to 
 Lerma, who was too lavish in Spain to be anxious 
 to undertake much expenditure elsewhere. So, 
 month after month passed without any active 
 orders being obtained from them with regard to the 
 English succession.^ Father Creswell, who, of course, 
 was ignorant of the discussion I have just described, 
 incessantly prayed for an answer that he might send 
 to England, but for months he begged in vain. 
 There was no promptitude to be expected from 
 Philip III. any more than there had been from 
 Philip II., in the one case because he worked too little, 
 and in the other because he had worked too much. 
 
 At length, early in December 1600, Father Cres- 
 well appears to have been asked his opinion as to the 
 form in which an answer to the English Catholics 
 should be drafted ; and the memorandum which 
 he consequently submitted to the King begins with 
 a somewhat obscure suggestion. " The answer," he 
 says, " should include some general reference to the 
 pretensions of the Earl of Essex, so as to open the 
 door to an arrangement by which he may be gained 
 
 1 During tliis period (the autumn of looo) an event happened which 
 shows how keen the Jesuit ijarty was to lose no point in the game. 
 The Duke of Parma, who had a far better cLaim to the English throne 
 than Philip or the Infanta, was intriguing in Rome to obtain a cardi- 
 nal's hat for Arthur Pole (nephew of Cardinal Pole) ; but the Jesuits 
 took fright at this at once. Pole, they said, was only twenty-five, and 
 practically a foreigner, and worst of all, " he will not be a fit instru- 
 ment to aid in the object desired by all good English Catholics in your 
 Majesty's interests, as the most intimate English friends he has have 
 been those opposed to your Majesty." The English Jesuit party, 
 through Thomas Fitzherbert, therefore, urged Philip to move the Pope 
 to make Father Persons a cardinal instead of Pole (Brit. Mus. MSS. 
 
 28,420).,S
 
 41 6 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 to the service of God and your Majesty." ^ As he 
 did on a former occasion (page 224), Creswell urges 
 the necessity of an appearance of great moderation 
 and mildness, and his draft answer points out " that 
 the fault being national rather than personal, it will 
 be unjust to treat heretics in England as they are 
 treated in Spain, or as they were treated in England 
 by Queen Mary. Conversion may be best forwarded 
 by caring well for working people, and by winning 
 converts by suavity and mildness." The principal 
 Catholics, he thought, should be informed privately 
 that the King of Spain would support the Infanta's 
 claim with a powerful force when the Queen died, 
 but no time must be lost or they will rally to the 
 King of Scots. Certainly, continues Creswell, 
 " any new sovereign of England (except a Spanish 
 nominee) will be worse for Spanish interests even 
 than Elizabeth ; because by granting freedom of 
 conscience he will conciliate a certain faction in 
 
 '■ It is not easy to see how Essex's pretensions could have been re- 
 conciled with Spanish aims ; but as it was known that he had been 
 in treasonable communication with Tyrone, who had reported that he 
 (Essex) was willing, in return for favours to himself, "to hand the 
 country over to your Majesty" (Philip), Father Creswell doubtless 
 believed this to have been the case, and that Essex could be bought by 
 the concession to him of power and wealth. It is, however, fair to say 
 that this statement only rests upon Tyrone's word as repeated by the 
 Arclibishop of Dublin, Mateo de Oviedo. Considerable strength is 
 given to the chance of its truth liy a note written in April 1601 by 
 Father Bluet on a letter from Dr. Eagshaw to him, asking for further 
 particulars of Persons' hand in Essex's matter (" Jesuits and Seculars," 
 from Petyt MSS.). Bluet writes : " Mr. Parsons about three yeares 
 since was tampering and hatching a plotte to set up Essex against her 
 Majestic. Hereof he brake w^"^ a priest, and acquayting hym w*'^ ye 
 helpes y'' he shuld haue out of Spayne and ye Lowe Contries, moved 
 ye said priest to be his messenger of this matter unto ye earle. But ye 
 priest refused to be a dealer in such cause, and yet gaue him good woi-ds 
 lest otherwise he might haue procured hym to be sent to ye galleys."
 
 BOTHWELL IN SPAIN 417 
 
 Rome, and will prevent the Catholics from looking 
 to your Majesty." Above all, he prays that an 
 answer should be speedily sent to England, in which 
 recommendation the Council concurred, though they 
 rejected his hint that iirabella Stuart or the Earl of 
 Derby's daughter (sister?) should be mentioned as 
 alternatives to the Infanta. But again the whole 
 business was relegated to the pigeon-holes of Philip 
 and Lerma, and still no decided answer was sent to 
 the English Catholics. 
 
 Nor were the Irish and English appeals the only 
 ones that at this time occupied the ponderous delibe- 
 rations of Philip's advisers. Bothwell, after trying un- 
 successfully to intrigue with Cecil, to whom he offered 
 his services as a spy, had travelled from Flanders to 
 Spain, and was for ever bombarding the King and 
 Lerma with projects and memoranda for the "con- 
 version" of Scotland. His first plan was for 3000 
 troops to land in the Orkneys, which belonged to his 
 brother, the Earl of Caithness. The latter was to 
 contribute 4000 clansmen, and, after fortifying the 
 islands, the force was to seize Broughty and Perth, 
 which, Bothwell said, could be made impregnable. 
 The advantages he promised from this step were 
 enormous. The Dutch could be crippled by the 
 stoppage of all their commerce ; the Queen of 
 England would be forced to stand on the defensive 
 with all her resources ; the Irish could be supported 
 with ease from the west coast, and the King of 
 France would find himself checkmated by the only 
 means that could frustrate his plans, ^ as he would be 
 
 ^ War between France and Spain was threatening in consequence of 
 the claim of France to the Marquisate of Saluzzo. 
 
 2 D
 
 41 8 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 obliged to send troops to Scotland. The principal 
 object, however, at first professed by Bothwell was 
 that James should be rendered powerless to push 
 his claim to the English crown when Elizabeth 
 should die. If he is allowed to establish himself in 
 England, " he will be a greater enemy to God and 
 Spain than ever, since he will be very powerful by 
 land and sea, aided by Denmark, Holland, and all 
 the heretics." ^ Again and again Bothwell returned 
 to the charge. The Irish enterprise could not be 
 undertaken successfully, he assured Philip, unless in 
 conjunction with an invasion of Scotland, which 
 would furnish a base of supplies. Then his plans 
 became larger : 4000 men should land in the Orkneys 
 and 4000 in Kirkcudbright, the noblemen of the 
 north and west, all of whose names he gives, will 
 be ready to join the Spaniards when they land ; the 
 Catholic Church in Scotland must pay the whole of 
 the expense of the war, and a Spanish ambassador 
 should be sent to Scotland at once to arrange the 
 business secretly with the Catholic nobles. 
 
 All this was, of course, visionary, and in the cir- 
 cumstances impossible, seeing the financial and ad- 
 ministrative condition of Spain ; but to add to its 
 impracticability Bothwell somewhat later suggested 
 conditions that might, he thought, be proposed for 
 bringing in James himself. The King of Scots 
 might be recognised by Spain as King of England 
 if he would marry his son to the Duke of Savoy's 
 daughter and his daughter to the Duke of Savoy 
 himself, the Prince (Henry) being sent to live in 
 Spain under Philip's control. "There is no other 
 
 ' Spanisli Calendar, vol. iv., Simancas.
 
 JAMES STILL ACTIVE 419 
 
 alternative but to make peace and a firm alliance 
 with the King of Scots before the Queen of England 
 dies, or else to make a determined war which will 
 utterly ruin and destroy him, which will be easy for 
 his Majesty." Bothwell did not apparently care 
 very much which course was adopted so long as 
 his intriguing spirit might be employed in promot- 
 ing it ; but Philip was powerless to undertake such 
 a task as the invasion of Scotland, even with the 
 questionable aid of the shifty Scottish nobles. It 
 was seen that in every Scottish plan there still lurked 
 the possibility of James Stuart being placed on the 
 English throne by the Catholics as a consequence of 
 his assumed conversion, and this, as we have seen 
 from the first, was the one solution which Spain 
 dreaded of all things. So Bothwell's grand schemes 
 were all vaguely praised and relegated to the oblivion 
 of Lerma's pigeon-holes, whilst he was kept in hand 
 by great pensions on paper and small payments in 
 cash.^ 
 
 Whilst the Spaniards were thus trifling, James 
 Stuart was busier than ever, Patrick Stuart and 
 James Drummond were sent to the Pope in the 
 summer of 1600 "to confirm the promise previously 
 
 ^ One scheme of Botliwell's was accepted (August 1600), although I 
 can find no record of its having been carried into effect. Lord Burleigh, 
 a Scottish Baron, had been sent by James as his ambassador to Holland 
 to obtain the recognition of the States to his English claims. Burleigh 
 was instructed to purchase in Holland 20,000 muskets and as many 
 cuirasses to send to Scotland; "but,"' said Bothwell, "he is so good a 
 servant of mine that it will be easy to induce him to bring all these 
 arms hither instead of to Scotland " (Simancas MSS., Spanish Calendar). 
 
 2 The Master of Gray sent to England the copy of the letter written 
 by James to the Pope, in which the Cardinal's hat was requested for 
 the Carthusian Chisholm, Bishop of Vaison, and a confirmation sent of 
 the promise taken by the latter of concessions to the Catholics in
 
 420 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 taken to Rome by the Scottish Carthusian Bishop of 
 Vaison (for whom James asked for a cardinal's hat), 
 and to pray for the money promised by the Pontiff 
 for making war upon heretic England. Father 
 Persons in Home was now almost fiercely remon- 
 strating with the Duke of Sessa, as the Scottish 
 King's successful hoodwinking of the Papacy and 
 the Catholics everywhere became more and more 
 apparent. Persons had persuaded the Pope to 
 throw cold water on Constable's romantic efforts to 
 convert James in the spring of 1600, but, as we 
 have seen in the last chapter, Constable had then 
 managed to enlist the French in his plans, and 
 had gone to Scotland in conjunction with Bethune 
 and other French representatives. They had man- 
 aged also to bring into the plan the Pope's Nuncio 
 in Paris, and had swept into their net most or all of 
 the English refugees, who had despaired of a Spanish 
 dispensation after the death of Philip II. and the 
 
 cotland. This was accompanied by professions of reverence to the 
 Pontiff. Elizabeth indignantly sent Bowes to demand an explanation 
 from James, who solemnly declared that he had sent no such letter, 
 which assertion the Secretary of State, Elphinstone (Lord Balmerino), 
 confirmed. At a subsequent period Cardinal Bellarmin published the 
 letter, and upon investigation Elphinstone confessed that the King's 
 signature had been obtained by a trick and that the King was ignorant 
 of the contents of the letter. Elphinstone accordingly was tried and 
 condemned, but pardoned on the intercession of the Queen of Scots. 
 Both Robertson and Dr. Gardiner appear to accept Elphinstone's con- 
 fession in good faith, and the Scottish Jesuit, Creighton, who had 
 been concerned at Rome in Drummond's mission, endeavoured to let 
 his King down gently by declaring that in the letter James did not 
 profess to be a Catholic. With the many letters now before us in 
 which James does pretend his desire for reconciliation with Rome, the 
 most probable explanation of Elphinstone's action in this i^articular 
 case is that he sacrificed himself to save his sovereign's reputation, and 
 on that, as on so many^ other occasions, James lied like the coward 
 he was.
 
 JESUIT EFFORTS RENEWED 421 
 
 stoppage of their pensions. Emissaries of this 
 strong combination actively sped between Paris, 
 Rome, England, and Scotland, and their errands 
 were soon divulged to Persons (December 1600).^ 
 The association of the King of France with James 
 in his plans made the matter all the more alarming 
 for the Jesuit party, for Henry Avas their deadliest 
 enemy, reigning as he did by means of conciliation 
 and tolerance. Persons reported that already Henry 
 had begun to make an arrangement with the English 
 nobles, both Catholics and heretics, to obtain some 
 measure of toleration for the former during the 
 Queen's life and for James to succeed on the same 
 lines when she died. The promoters of the scheme, 
 he said, had their agents with the Earl of Essex and 
 other members of the Queen's Council for the pur- 
 pose of settling the details, and if something was not 
 done at once the cause of the Infanta was ruined.^ 
 This seems somewhat to have aroused Philip's Govern- 
 ment, who in consequence sent orders to the Duke 
 of Sessa to watch matters closely in Rome and to 
 alienate the Pope from the King of Scotland. Again 
 the Spanish Council of State prayed the King of 
 Spain to make up his mind openly to champion the 
 Infanta's claim. Here was England slipping from 
 
 ^ It must not be forgotten that at this period also the Archpriest con- 
 troversy was in full swing. The English Seculars, many of whom had 
 been suspended by the Archpriest Blackwell for schism, had appealed 
 to the University of Paris for judgment on the points involved. The 
 Faculty of Theology decided in favour of the appellants, and Blackwell 
 condemned the judgment as injurious to the Holy See. A fresh 
 appeal from the Seculars was then sent to the Pontiff. Persons was, of 
 course, in the thick of the dispute in Rome, the political bearing of the 
 controversy being now as important as the religious. 
 
 ^ Simancas MSS., Spanish Calendar, vol. iv, p. 683.
 
 42 2 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 his grasp, they told him, for want of resolute action. 
 Persons had assured the Duke of Sessa that he had 
 means for gaining to his side certain members of 
 the English Council, and this was acknowledged to 
 be of the highest importance, but still no prompt 
 action was taken. Persons had to confer with Sessa, 
 and the latter had to communicate with Brussels 
 and Valladolid, where infinite time was wasted in 
 discussion and in the King's indecision. And so 
 everything on the Spanish side dragged and dragged 
 whilst all other interests were alert and working. 
 
 But these intrigues, impotent on the one side and 
 active on the other, give us a clue to the unsolved 
 riddles of Essex's fate and the obscure tragedies 
 that ushered in the reign of James. Exactly how 
 far Essex and his friends were pledged to the 
 Franco-Scottish intrigue just mentioned it is diffi- 
 cult to say, though, as he was in close and confiden- 
 tial communication with James, as the latter was 
 with the French King and the Pope, it is fair to 
 conclude that Essex was cognisant of the whole 
 plan,^ and was either convinced of the falsity of 
 James's professions of Catholicism or was content 
 to sacrifice the Protestant cause for the sake of his 
 personal ambition. It is quite as certain, on the 
 other hand, that Persons, probably through Garnet 
 or Blackwell, had some sort of understanding with 
 a group of English nobles who professed to have 
 gained, or to be able to gain, some of the members 
 of the Council. These members, of course, could 
 
 ^ It must not be forgotten also that after Essex's revolt Boissise, the 
 French Ambassador, interceded with the Queen for him, "the greatest 
 friend of France in all England."
 
 PEACE NEGOTIATIONS 423 
 
 only be those of the moderate party, most of whom 
 were secret Catholics opposed to Essex and to the 
 French or Scottish alliance/ The Lord Admiral, 
 Cobham, Pembroke, Shrewsbury, and Cecil belonged 
 to this party, and these, or some of them, must be 
 the men indirectly alluded to by Persons. It is pro- 
 bable that some whisper of these communications 
 may have reached Essex, and have given him the 
 pretext for the cry he raised on his hare-brained 
 attempt at revolution, that Cecil and his party had 
 sold England to the Infanta. 
 
 During the disgrace of Essex after his return from 
 Ireland, active negotiations for peace with Spain 
 were proceeding. As invariably was the case when 
 Scotland and France drew together, Spain and Eng- 
 land did the same. Sir Thomas Edmunds was sent 
 to greet the Archduke and the Infanta, and was 
 received with unusual honours, and in February 
 1600 Vcrreyken, the Flemish envoy, came to Eng- 
 land, where, says Chamberlain, the Queen received 
 him " with all the ceremonies and compliments that 
 could be devised." Whilst Essex was languishing a 
 prisoner at York House it must have been gall and 
 wormwood for him to hear of the grand feasts with 
 which the emissary of a Spanish prince was enter- 
 tained at the English court. " He (Verreyken) on 
 Monday and Wednesday sat at the Lord Treasurer's 
 in council with the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Admiral, 
 the Lord Chamberlain (Hunsdon), Mr. Secretary 
 
 ^ I consider it extremely unlikely that the Spanish Jesuits' plan of 
 winning Essex to their side was ever seriously undertaken. From the 
 note of Bluet, quoted on page 416, it is plain that though Bagshaw 
 was anxious to obtain particulars for the purpose of damaging Persons 
 and his party, the accusation rested on a flimsy foundation.
 
 424 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 (Cecil), and Sir John Fortescue. The negotiation is 
 kept very close. . . . Our discoursers shoot many 
 bolts in this business, which to them seems so 
 entangled and intricate that in seeking to undo one 
 knot they make two. . . . Whatsoever the reason 
 is, methinks we are not so hot on this peace as we 
 were, and the least stop in such a cause may turn 
 the tide." ^ There were many considerations which 
 made peace difficult of arrangement, but in good 
 truth the desire of Cecil was not so much peace — 
 unless indeed on such terms as Spain was not yet 
 humble enough to grant — as the appearance of a 
 rapprochement between England and Spain as a 
 countercheck to James's Catholic intrigues. In 
 March Edmunds was again sent back to Flanders 
 to discuss with the sovereigns the time and place for 
 a conference, whilst " Sir Walter Ralegh attends the 
 ambassador (Verreyken) much, and carries him up 
 and down to see the sights and rarities hereabouts. 
 He hath had him at Powles, at Westminster, at 
 Whitehall, and where not. This day he is feasted 
 at the Lord Treasurer's and to-morrow at the Lord 
 Chamberlain's, where methinkes it shold be some- 
 what strange to see carowses to the King of Spaine's 
 health."' 
 
 At length, after infinite bickering about the place 
 of meeting, Boulogne was agreed upon, where the 
 
 1 Chamberlain's Letters. See also Rowland Whyte's Letters in the 
 Sidney Papers, which give a glowing account of the festivities. 
 Verreyken lodged at the house of Alderman Baning at Dowgate, 
 •which being near the ancient Gildhouse of the Hanse, was the quarter 
 of the Easterlings. 
 
 2 Ibid., March 5. The Lord Chamberlain Hunsdon, the Queen's 
 first cousin, was a member of the Puritan party.
 
 NEGOTIATIONS WITH SPAIN 425 
 
 English Commissioners arrived in the middle of 
 May, and the Flemings and Spaniards shortly after- 
 wards.^ The difierences were quite irreconcilable 
 from the first, for Elizabeth could not afford to 
 abandon the Dutch unaided to the tender mercies 
 of Spain, or to allow them to seek safety by appeal- 
 ing to France ; whilst, on the other hand, Spain 
 would not yet acknowledge herself completely beaten 
 and surrender her dream of Catholic supremacy. In 
 fact, however, the grave issues were never even ap- 
 proached by the conference. The principal point in 
 the instructions of the Spanish representative was 
 that he must be "very circumspect to uphold the 
 dignity and prestige of our King." The first step 
 taken with this object was to arrive at Boulogne 
 after the English envoys, in order that the latter 
 might, as Zuniga says, have the good manners to pay 
 the first visit. But the Englishmen were on their 
 guard, and merely sent a servant to exchange copies 
 of powers. Then endless haggling by correspond- 
 ence took place as to the style to be given to the 
 Archduke, Serene Highness being at last agreed 
 to. When, however, the question of precedence in 
 the mention of England and Spain came forward, a 
 deadlock occurred. " They are so obstinate," wrote 
 Zuniga, " in claiming precedence, notwithstanding 
 
 J Sir John Herbert, Sir Robert Beale, Thomas Edmunds (afterwards 
 kniglited), and Sir Henry Neville were the English representatives, 
 Louis Verreyken and President Jehan Richardot the Flemish, and 
 Baltasar de Zuniga and Fernando Carillo the Spanish. A full account 
 of the negotiations will be found in Neville's and Winwood's Corre- 
 spondence (Winwood Papers), and in British Museum, Cotton. Vesp. 
 cviii., as well as in the uncalendared papers of the date at Hatfield, 
 the French Correspondence in the Record Office, and the Spanish State 
 Papers Calendar, vol. iv.
 
 426 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 our serious arguments, that we closed the colloquy, 
 and we shall not again enter upon the matter." The 
 English then suggested that they shoald toss up or 
 cast lots for precedence, w^hich greatly shocked the 
 Spaniards, as being undignified. Much discussion 
 and various suggested ingenious expedients followed 
 to get over the difficulty, the most hopeful being that 
 the meeting should be held in the lodgings of the 
 Spanish envoys, who then, as hosts, would give their 
 guests, the English, the place of honour. But this 
 was refused by the English, and weeks more were 
 wasted whilst instructions came from the respective 
 Governments. The utter hollowness of the negotia- 
 tion is seen by the view taken by the Spanish 
 Council of State. They were furiously indignant 
 with Zuiiiga and Carillo for discussing or consider- 
 ing the English claim for precedence, or even for 
 equality. " Such a claim," they said, " had never 
 been advanced before, and it is not befitting so great 
 a King as ours that it should be listened to for a 
 moment." So the envoys were smartly reprehended, 
 and carefully warned to admit nothing derogatory to 
 the King's dignity, "which," said the Council, "was 
 so fully established that no discussion as to equality 
 must be allowed." The temper of Elizabeth and her 
 Government was, with better reason, quite as firm as 
 that of the Spaniards, and the deadlock continued, 
 both sides in the meanwhile looking to events in 
 Ireland and Savoy respectively to render their anta- 
 gonists more yielding. 
 
 But whilst it must have been evident almost from 
 the first that nothing would come of the negotia- 
 tions, Zufiiga made good use of his opportunities
 
 THE CATHOLICS IN ENGLAND 427 
 
 for plotting and planning with the English Catholics 
 of the Jesuit party. He wrote to his King in Sep- 
 tember 1600 : "The English Catholics and Jesuits in 
 England are pressing gravely for the invasion of 
 England to be undertaken, which they say they can 
 facilitate by means of the Catholics there. This will 
 be effected by opening negotiations in your Majesty's 
 name with some leading personages ; and Zufiiga 
 says that they (the English Catholics) desire above 
 all things that some decision should be adopted with 
 regard to the succession, as they are very distrust- 
 ful as to whether your Majesty will take the matter 
 up. He (Zuniga) is keeping them in hand as well 
 as he can, but arguments are no longer of any avail. 
 The Catholics tell him that the Irish enterprise will 
 not be of much use in the English affair ; because, 
 although the Irishmen are Catholics, they are not to 
 be trusted, owing to their ancient enmity against 
 England. Zuhiga himself is of opinion that no 
 money can be better spent than that employed in 
 supporting the Earl of Tyrone." ^ 
 
 This letter from Zuniga was seized upon by the 
 Spanish Council as an opportunity for once more 
 urging their slothful King to action, and at the 
 same time they made a noteworthy admission of the 
 wane of Spanish power. " There is no need," they 
 wrote, "to discuss the enterprise {i.e. invasion) pro- 
 posed by the (English) Catholics, as experience has 
 shown the impossibility of conquering the country 
 from here, even under better circumstances than at 
 present ; but, in order to keep hold of the English 
 Catholics, it will be advisable for your Majesty to 
 
 ^ Simancas MSS., Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.
 
 42 8 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 adopt some resolution respecting the succession. If 
 this be not done in good time, the Catholics may 
 join the King of Scots or some other claimant." 
 And so the negotiations for peace with England 
 simply resolved themselves into a conspiracy against 
 her ; but it answered the purpose of both Govern- 
 ments to drag them out for their respective national 
 objects. 
 
 This hollow junketing with Spain, from which 
 he, of course, was excluded, seems to have driven 
 Essex finally to despair. Still forbidden from the 
 Queen's presence, though in the autumn he had 
 been released from custody, he must have heard 
 through his zealous friends and spies plentiful 
 whispers of plots to counteract the Catholic acti- 
 vity of the King of Scots — plots which, if they were 
 successful, would mean his own ruin. Father Per- 
 sons' talk of his agreement with high English 
 Catholic nobles, and Zuniga's close communications 
 with the leaders of the same party, can hardly have 
 been entirely hidden from Essex, and drove him 
 onward to his catastrophe. By means of the papers 
 quoted in these pages we are able, perhaps for the 
 first time, to understand how futile all these in- 
 trigues were rendered by the sluggish ineptitude of 
 the Spanish King and his Government. There was, 
 we can now perceive, no danger really to be appre- 
 hended from plots which depended for their exe- 
 cution upon the decisions of Philip III. and Lerma; 
 but it must not be forgotten that contemporaries 
 were not able, as we are, to see the hands of all the 
 players at the great game, and Essex, doubtless, 
 represented many of his countrymen, especially of
 
 ESSEX'S REBELLION 429 
 
 the Puritan party, in believing that the work of the 
 Reformation was to be undone, and England sold 
 to Spain and the Jesuits by Elizabeth's principal 
 Ministers. 
 
 The scope of this book does not admit of a re- 
 petition of the details of Essex's foolish attempt at 
 revolution, but it will be necessary to glance at the 
 accusations brought by him, and against him, with 
 regard to the intended betrayal of the Protestant 
 cause. We have seen sufficient of his ambitious and 
 vindictive temper to know that his first thought 
 must have been to revenge himself upon those he 
 hated, and to secure for himself at least the dictator- 
 ship of England ; but it must have been obvious, 
 even to him, blinded by his popularity as he was, 
 that some better cause than his personal aims must 
 be alleged before he could arouse a law-abiding 
 people to rebellion. The not unfounded suspicions 
 of Spanish intrigue, to which I have referred, gave 
 him the cry he needed. Whether he believed them 
 to the full himself matters little ; if he could make 
 other people of his party believe them, his end would 
 be served. 
 
 After his liberation in August he tried desperately 
 to regain the good graces of the Queen. Lord 
 Henry Howard, his false friend, who betrayed him, 
 as he betrayed every other creature that trusted him, 
 carried to the Queen abject letters of submission and 
 despair from her fallen favourite. The Queen dryly 
 hoped that the writer's deeds might match his words, 
 but she showed no signs of relenting. In October, 
 we are told by Chamberlain, the friends of Essex 
 were trying to obtain permission for him to join the
 
 430 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 tilting on the Queen's birthday, "and they are very 
 confident to see him shortly in favour. You may 
 believe as much of it as you list, but I ne'er a whit, 
 for till I see his license for sweet wines renewed 
 (that expired at Michaelmas), or some other sub- 
 stantial favour, I shall esteem words as wind and 
 holy water at court." When Elizabeth came to 
 understand that the first object of his tearful prayers 
 was to obtain a renewal of his sweet-wine monopoly, 
 her heart hardened more than ever. Penitence and 
 remorse, that he might gaze upon her bewildering 
 beauty again, was of course natural, and might in 
 time have melted her, but to find that he was only 
 hankering after money aroused her rage, and she 
 refused his hint insultingly. " An ungovernable 
 beast," she said, " must be stinted of his provender," 
 and Essex, thus repulsed, sought for favour no more. 
 Thenceforward his only chance was to overturn 
 by force and destroy all the men who surrounded 
 the Queen. We have seen that he had appealed 
 in vain to his successor in Ireland, Montjoy, to 
 bring over the Queen's army to coerce the Queen's 
 Government, and that his cry for aid to the King 
 of Scots had been answered by vague promises.^ 
 
 ^ When Montjoy had first gone to Ireland in the early spring of 1600 
 (Essex's fate being then undecided), he had sent to James, offering to 
 bring over the Queen's troops to England for the jiurpose of co-operat- 
 ing with the Scottish King's forces and Essex, for the removing 
 Elizabeth's advisers and securing the acknowledgment of James's right 
 to the succession, with, incidentally, Essex's future paramountcy. 
 James hesitated ; for he did not really wish to be King of a faction or 
 to fight against his future subjects. When Essex, later in the year, 
 urged Montjoy to act alone, the latter naturally refused to risk his head 
 only to serve Essex's ambition (Confessions of Sir Charles Danvers and 
 the Earl of Southampton).
 
 ESSEX'S REBELLION 431 
 
 At length, however, James consented to send a 
 formal embassy to demand of Elizabeth the recog- 
 nition of his rights, on the understanding that 
 Essex should seize the Government by a coup de 
 main at the same time and force the Queen to con- 
 sent.^ During the winter of 1 600-1 601 Essex threw 
 aside the attitude of love-lorn despair, which had 
 proved inefl'ectual, and threw open the doors of 
 Essex House to the members of the advanced 
 Puritan party. Violent sermons were preached 
 against Rome and all her works ; the Earl's old 
 friends and adherents flocked to his anterooms, 
 as did the rabble of idle captains and younger sons, 
 who looked to him for advancement, and the lead- 
 ing citizens, to whom the very name of Spain was 
 anathema ; and it was impossible for Cecil to shut 
 his eyes to the fact that Essex was gathering around 
 him the elements of revolt. 
 
 Whilst this was going on at Essex House, 
 the leading conspirators, Essex, Southampton, Sir 
 Ferdinando Gorges, Sir Charles Danvers, and others, 
 matured their plans, as they thought secretly, at 
 Drury House hard by. The Government, however, 
 
 ^ The instructions suggested by Essex to be given by James to his 
 ambassador, the Earl of Mar, are important as showing that the pre- 
 text for the movement was to be mainly religious. Certain of her 
 highest Ministers, the Queen was to be told, meant to take advantage 
 of the succession being open to ruin the country. The "West Country 
 was commanded by Ralegh, the Cinque Ports by Cobham. The navy 
 was in the hands of the Lord Admiral, the Treasury was controlled by 
 the Lord Treasurer (Buckhurst), whilst Cecil had placed his brother as 
 governor of the north, and Sir George Carew commanded in Munster, 
 the key of Ireland. All these men bear malice against the King of 
 Scots, " and all theyre counsayles and endeavours tend to the advance- 
 ment of the Infanta of Spayne to the succession to the crown." The 
 reason for these assertions is given at length in Cuff's confession.
 
 432 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 were quite cognisant of the objects of the con- 
 spiracy, and it was important that the attempt 
 should be nipped in the bud before the arrival 
 of the Earl of Mar with James's demands. On the 
 7th February 1601, accordingly, Essex was sum- 
 moned by Secretary Herbert to appear before the 
 Council, but excused himself from attending on the 
 plea of illness. Gathering his principal friends at 
 Drury House on the same day, he told them that 
 the affair was discovered, and asked them whether 
 they would move thus prematurely or submit. 
 Dismay sat upon every brow, and there was a 
 general feeling that submission would be the wiser 
 course. A message from Sheriff Smyth promising 
 the aid of 1000 of the trained band of the city 
 seems to have turned the scale, and the fatal 
 decision was adopted of raising the cry of revolt 
 early next morning. The original plan of seizing 
 Whitehall by surprise was now, of course, impos- 
 sible, as the Queen's Guard was on the alert ; but 
 messengers were sent through the city in the even- 
 ing, Saturday, to spread the news that Ralegh and 
 Cobham intended to kill the Earl of Essex. And 
 early on Sunday morning the 8th February Essex's 
 friends Southampton, Monteagle, Sandys, Rutland, 
 and 300 gentlemen met at Essex House with the 
 intention of riding into the city, and arousing the 
 citizens with the cry that England was sold to the 
 Catholics, and that the people's idol, Essex, was to 
 be done to death by the unpopular Ralegh and 
 Cobham. 
 
 Whilst they were assembling in the courtyard, a 
 message came from Ralegh to his kinsman Gorges,
 
 ESSEX'S REBELLION 433 
 
 asking him to meet him. Essex consented to his 
 doing so, if the interview took place in boats on 
 the river. There Ralegh solemnly warned Gorges 
 of his danger, but without avail, for " I told him that 
 there were 2000 gentlemen who had resolved that 
 day to die or live as free men." A committee of the 
 Council was sent to Essex House to summon the 
 assembly to disperse in the name of the Queen. 
 They found the great courtyard opening from the 
 Strand filled with armed men, amidst whom stood 
 the Earl ; and as the gate closed behind the Lords 
 of the Council, they found themselves prisoners, 
 with a threatening crowd surrounding them. After 
 a heated harangue of complaint and accusation, 
 Essex led the Lords into the house, where they were 
 kept as hostages, whilst the misguided conspirators, 
 300 gallants and swashbucklers, hot-gospellers and 
 riffraff, trooped into the City through Temple Bar. 
 " For the Queen ! for the Queen ! " they cried some- 
 times ; but more often that Ralegh had tried to 
 kill Essex and that England had been sold to the 
 Infanta. The citizens, on their way to early morn- 
 ing service, flocked around agape, but raised no 
 hand and few cheers. The emissaries of the Council 
 sped forward to warn the Lord Mayor of his duty, 
 and the chief magistrate, being at service at St. 
 Paul's, ordered Ludgate to be closed. But when 
 Essex and his followers appeared before the closed 
 gate, and, waving his sword, the Earl told his story 
 to the custodians, he was granted admission, and 
 rode triumphantly up Ludgate Hill and Cheapside. 
 no man, so far, staying him. 
 
 Near the Exchange was the house of Sheriff 
 
 2 E
 
 434 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Smyth, his mainstay in the City ; but before the 
 Earl arrived there the Sheriff had taken fright and 
 had rallied to the Lord Mayor, for on the steps of the 
 Cross of Chepe, Cecil's brother, Lord Burghley, with 
 the Lord Mayor by his side, had, in the Queen's 
 name, proclaimed P.ssex and his followers traitors, 
 and treason was no light matter under Elizabeth. 
 Some of Essex's men had charged the Queen's ^osse, 
 and Burghley's horse was killed by a petronel 
 shot ; but Essex and his principal friends waited 
 in vain in Smyth's house, lingering over their break- 
 fast, until the Sheriff should return with his trained 
 bands. As he came not, Essex grew uneasy, and 
 walked up Cheapside into St. Paul's Churchyard, 
 still doing nothing but complaining of his wrongs 
 to his dwindling band. Whilst he was thus trifling 
 the City was arming. Chains were run across the 
 streets, gates were shut, and armed men were mus- 
 tering, and when Essex, thoroughly alarmed, at three 
 in the afternoon, thought of returning home, he 
 found that only a hundred men stood by him, his 
 way was barred, and the cry of treason followed him 
 as he rode. Driven back from Ludgate Hill, he fled 
 up Watling Street and Friday Street into Chepe 
 again ; but all were against him there, and, galloping 
 down Bow Lane to the river, he took boat at Queen- 
 liilhe to his house in the Strand. 
 
 He entered his water-gate a beaten man : the 
 Lords of the Council had been released by his 
 steward, and only a few followers were with him. 
 His first care was to take from his neck a little 
 black taffeta bag, with the reply of King James to 
 his appeal for aid, and another paper, both of which
 
 TRIAL OF ESSEX 435 
 
 he burnt, and then he and a few gentlemen deter- 
 mined to fight till they should fall. But the forces 
 against them were too strong ; the house was beset 
 by land and water, and presently the Lord Admiral 
 carried the gardens and banqueting-house. At nine 
 o'clock at night two great guns were dragged to the 
 main doorway, and then, after some parley, Essex 
 and his deluded friends surrendered, and the next 
 morning the Traitor's Gate in the Tower received 
 them, whilst their followers found in arms were sent 
 to the common jail,^ 
 
 On February 19 Essex and Southampton were 
 arraigned at Westminster before a court of twenty- 
 six peers, Cecil, who was only a knight as yet, 
 listening to all that passed, hidden behind an arras. 
 The accusations against the prisoner were confined 
 to the narrowest limits possible to secure his convic- 
 tion on the capital offence of treason. The Govern- 
 ment by this time were aware of the complicity both 
 of James and Montjoy, and unless they were prepared 
 to disqualify the former from the succession, and 
 risk a military revolt of the latter, they dared not 
 emphasise this grave element in the case. Essex 
 throughout his trial loudly and wordily protested his 
 loyalty to the Queen. His intention was, he said, 
 to remove the advisers who were bent upon ruining 
 her country by bringing in the Infanta ; and as a 
 proof of this he let slip a remark which gave occa- 
 
 ^ Some few days afterwards Captain Thomas Lea conceived a plot 
 for seizing the Privy Chamber of Whitehall by surprise and coercing 
 the Queen to sign an order for the release of Essex and his friends. 
 He foolishly divulged the plot to Sir H. Neville and Sir Robert Cross, 
 who informed Cecil of it. Lea was at once arrested, and executed 
 February 17, 1601.
 
 436 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 sion for a startling and dramatic scene, in which 
 practically the fates respectively of Essex and Cecil 
 vvere sealed. He had been told, he said, that Secre- 
 tary Cecil had observed to one of the councillors 
 "that the Infanta's title was as arood as that of any 
 other person." ^ In a moment Cecil sprang from 
 behind the arras, and dropping on one knee, prayed 
 the court to allow him to clear himself of *' so foul 
 and false a report." The peers thought there was 
 no need of it ; but Cecil persisted, and in vehement 
 speech dared Essex to name his informant. After 
 some evasion the name was given by Southampton — 
 Sir William Knollys, the uncle of Essex, and a 
 cousin of the Queen. Cecil pressed that the Queen 
 might be prayed to send Knollys to the tribunal 
 immediately, without stating why he was required, 
 and swore, on his salvation, that if the Queen sent 
 him not, he (Cecil) would never more be Minister of 
 hers. In breathless suspense the proceedings were 
 delayed for Knollys' appearance, and when he came 
 all present knew that the word he was to speak 
 must ruin either Essex or Cecil. His answer was 
 
 ^ The counter-accusation against Essex, that lie was in league with 
 Spain, was, on the other hand, industrioush'^ spread about by Cecil and 
 his party on equally slight foundation. Chamberlain writes in surprise 
 (February 24) that none of these accusations were included in the 
 charge. " I must say that one thing stickes much in men's mindes, 
 that whereas divers preachers were commanded the Sonday before to 
 deliver to the people, amongst his other treasons, that he had corn- 
 plotted with Tirone and was reconciled to the Pope . . . and that he 
 liad practised by the meanes of seminary priests with the Pope and the 
 King of Spaine to be King of England, there was no such matter once 
 mentioned in his arraignment." We know now that the two last of 
 these loose accusations were untrue. They probably rested mainly 
 upon the statements, already mentioned, of the secular priests anxious 
 to injure the Jesuits.
 
 CECIL'S DECLARATION 437 
 
 clear. " I never heard him (Cecil) speak words to 
 that effect." On the contrary, he cited instances 
 in which Cecil had referred to the King of Spain's 
 claim as " impudent." Essex's sole good pretext for 
 his rebellion was thus cut from under his feet. He 
 apologised to Cecil, but all was of no avail now, for 
 Knollys' evidence showed that his revolt was founded 
 on a lie. Then Cecil, with passion unusual to him, 
 made a pronouncement, which, if men could have 
 read the hidden meaning of it, would have shown 
 them the road he meant to take. " I have said," he 
 exclaimed, " that the King of Spain is a competitor 
 for the crown of England, and that the King of 
 Scots is a competitor, and my Lord of Essex, I have 
 said, is a competitor, for he would depose the Queen 
 and call a parliament and so be King himself; but, 
 as to my affection to advance a Spanish title to 
 England, I am so far from it that my mind is asto- 
 nished to think of it, and I pray God to consume 
 me where I stand if I hate not the Spaniard as 
 much as any man living." 
 
 So whilst Essex and his friends went forth to 
 their death, his rival cleared his position to the 
 extent of completely disavowing the Infanta's candi- 
 dature. Of the three claimants mentioned by him, 
 one he thus vehemently repudiated, another stood 
 before him a convicted and condemned traitor, and 
 the third, .James Stuart, was inferentially invited to 
 bid for his support. And yet very few men under- 
 stood this at the time.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 The change in the succession f|uestion in consequence of the death of 
 Essex — The secret understanding between James and Cecil — 
 James's new attitude towards the Catholics — Lord Montjoy in 
 Ireland — Occupation of Derry — Disappointment of Tyrone and 
 O'Donnell with Spain — La Cerda's mission to Ireland — Pre- 
 parations for a new Spanish expedition to Ireland — Carew in 
 Munster — Sailing of the expedition — O'Sullivan Beare — The 
 Spaniards in Kinsale — The siege — The Spaniards isolated in 
 Kinsale, Castlehaven, Dunboy, and Baltimore — Defeat of Tyrone 
 — Capitulation of Kinsale — The O'Sullivans and Dunboy — O'Don- 
 nell in Spain — Death of O'Donnell — Exodus of the O'Sullivans, 
 pardon of Tyrone, and the pacification of Ireland. 
 
 The disappearance of Essex from the scene com- 
 pletely changed the position of the succession ques- 
 tion. Essex had, in his secret correspondence with 
 James, persistently represented Cecil as the King's 
 enemy. It had always been the policy of the mode- 
 rate party in England to promote a close friendship 
 with Spain and Flanders, as a counterbalance to the 
 traditional union of France with Scotland ; and the 
 younger Cecil in this had followed the footsteps of 
 his father. But that either of them had the slightest 
 intention of subjecting England to Spanish interests, 
 or of favouring Catholic supremacy, as Essex averred, 
 is untrue. Yet whilst Essex, with his vindictive 
 personal jealousy and political ambition, took the 
 zealous Protestant party as the tool to serve his 
 ends, Cecil was obliged to lean for support, as his 
 
 father had done, upon the nobles and gentry whose 
 
 438
 
 CFXIL'S PROBLEM 439 
 
 sympathies were more or less avowedly Catholic, 
 tempered mainly by a desire to retain the vast landed 
 estates they held from the plunder of the Church. 
 This party had many reasons for disliking the idea 
 of a Scottish King. They had always looked upon 
 Scotland as an inferior and semi-subject couutry. 
 and upon Scotsmen as uncivilised boors of predatory 
 and murderous habits ; the levelling tenets of the 
 Scottish Presbyterian clergy filled them, moreover, 
 with alarm, and many of them would frankly have 
 preferred a pure Catholic domination under a native 
 sovereign to the acknowledgment of James as their 
 King. Cecil could not afford to do without the 
 support of these men ; and yet he saw that the 
 attempt to bring in any other sovereign than James 
 on the Queen's death could only succeed if aided 
 by foreign forces, which would mean civil war and 
 the almost certain subversion of Protestantism. 
 
 The problem before him was an extremely difficult 
 one. He was now by far the most powerful man in 
 England, — " King in effect," James called him in his 
 instructions to the Earl of Mar ; but still his power 
 in a great measure depended upon the Queen's good 
 opinion of him and the support of the moderate 
 party. For him to have openly favoured the King 
 of Scots would have deeply offended Elizabeth, who 
 was determined to have no successor legally acknow- 
 ledged in her lifetime, and would also have driven 
 the nobles, upon whom he depended, into schemes 
 from which he would be excluded. The only course 
 by which England could be saved from civil war 
 and the Protestant Church preserved from destruc- 
 tion was for Cecil secretly to reassure James of his
 
 440 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 fidelity and wean him from his Catholic dependence, 
 whilst Cecil kept in close touch with his own party 
 opposed to James, for the purpose of being able at 
 the critical moment to subvert their plans/ This 
 was the course that Cecil took, and in doing so 
 he not only betrayed and ruined Catholics like 
 his brother-in-law^ Cobham, but men of whom he 
 was personally jealous, such as Ralegh and Grey, 
 who were really stronger Protestants than he was 
 himself. 
 
 James's ambassadors, the Earl of Mar and Edward 
 Bruce, lingered on their way south until after the 
 head of Essex fell, and they did not reach London 
 until March 1601. Their instructions were greatly 
 modified from those originally suggested by Essex, 
 but they were to still urge the Queen to acknow- 
 ledge James's right, and more forcibly to threaten 
 Cecil and his party with vengeance if they opposed 
 him, whilst to Cecil especially they were to promise 
 James's favour for his timely aid. The instructions 
 were never carried out ; for the ambassadors, Bruce 
 notably, were cleverer than their King. They saw 
 in London how untrue had been Essex's libels upon 
 the Cecil party of favouring the Spanish domination 
 of England, and heard ho"sv Cecil had vehemently 
 disavowed the King of Spain at Essex's trial, and 
 they accordingly got into touch secretly with the 
 
 ^ Cecil on one occasion was afraid that James might be offended at 
 liis consorting with his enemies, but the King thns reassured him : " I 
 hairtely praye you to assure youre self, that ye can have no dealing 
 L|uhatsumever with jewe, gentile or heathen, that ever will breede the 
 least suspition in me of any crakke in your integretie towards me ; 
 but by the contraire the further ye are upon thaire secreats, the more 
 abil will I be to sitt as a godd uj^on all the imaginations of theire 
 heartcs" (Correspondence of James and Cecil, Camden Society).
 
 AGREEMENT OF JAMES AND CECIL 441 
 
 all-powerful Secretary. Lord Henry Howard, who 
 had been the go-between of Essex and James, appears 
 to have been the first promoter of the arrangement ; 
 and at a meeting between Cecil and the Scotsmen 
 at Cecil's House in the Stntnd, the terms were agreed 
 upon, and a cypher for the correspondence arranged. 
 Cecil's conditions were that he would assure the 
 peaceful succession to James if the latter would 
 trust him, and cease all endeavours to obtain the 
 recognition of his rights during the Queen's life. 
 The correspondence between tliem was to be kept 
 inviolably secret, and the extraordinary precaution 
 was taken of sending it all by way of Ireland to 
 divert suspicion.^ 
 
 Our main concern at present with this most in- 
 teresting correspondence is to mark how completely 
 it changed James's policy towards the Catholics. He 
 was now all amiability to the Queen, he ceased 
 pestering her about the succession, and he discoursed 
 quite eloquently of the foolishness and wicked- 
 ness of any suggestion that he could ever turn 
 his arms against England, which, as we have seen, 
 he had been so eager to do a little while previously.^ 
 All irritating embassies and activities with the 
 
 ^ This extraordinary correspondence, which was kept up until the 
 Queen's death, is published entire by the Camden Society. Cecil, on 
 one occasion at least, solemnly denied that any understanding existed 
 between him and James, and to the last the secret was well kept. 
 
 2 Nicholson, the English agent in Scotland, in a letter to Cecil al 
 Hatfield, tells the story at this period of how James rebuked the Laird 
 of Kinnard, in whose house he was staying on his progress. The Laird 
 drank to the speedy union of the two kingdoms, and said he had forty 
 muskets ready ; whereupon the King told him it was very wrong to 
 wish such a thing, "but in Godes tyme." Kinnard was not in the 
 secret, and no doubt wondered at the King's change of tone.
 
 442 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Catholic powers were stopped, and James thence- 
 forward, with growing confidence in Cecil's strength 
 and wisdom, was content to await the death of the 
 Queen rather than "by climbing of hedges and 
 ditches for pulling of unripe fruit to hazard the 
 breaking of my neck." Incidentally the falsity and 
 baseness of the man are shown in a vivid light. We 
 have seen some of his cringing approaches to Spain 
 and his devout professions of Catholicism when he 
 thought such a course suited his interests ; yet when 
 Cecil asked his advice as to proceeding with the 
 peace negotiations with Spain, the King strongly 
 urged that no peace should be made, because the 
 prospects of his succession might be prejudiced by 
 the new friendship and by the possible presence in 
 England of Spanish agents, " Jesuites, seminarie 
 priests, and that rable, quhairwith England is 
 already toe muche infected, who would then re- 
 sort there in such suarmes as the katerpillers or 
 fiyes did in ^gipte." The King took this oppor- 
 tunity of giving to Cecil an account of what he 
 dignified by the name of his religion. Warning him 
 of the large number of priests who were allowed un- 
 molested to remain in England, he says, " I protest 
 in Goddi's presence, the daily increase that I hear of 
 Popery in England, and the proude vanterie that the 
 Papists daily make ... is the cause that moves me 
 to break forth in this digression." 
 
 Cecil knew better than James that the English 
 Catholics must not be driven to desperation at that 
 juncture, and replied that he, too, detested priests 
 and their doctrines, " only I confess that I shrinke 
 to see them dye by dozens when at the last gasp
 
 JAMES'S NEW ATTITUDE 443 
 
 they come so neere loyalty. ... But contrariwise 
 for that generation of vypars, the Jesuits, who make 
 no more than ordinary merchandise of the blood and 
 crowns of princes, I am so far from any compassion, 
 as I would rather look to receive command from you 
 to abstain than to prosecute." It is noteworthy, too, 
 in this secret letter, that Cecil repudiates all ideas 
 of toleration for the Catholics, and only asks that 
 " some charitable relief should be used in prison or 
 beyond sea" to those priests who have proved by 
 acts their loyalty to the Government and to the 
 claims of James. Thus, so far as the King of Scots 
 and Cecil are concerned, the plot is laid bare : both 
 of them hated priests and repudiated toleration ; but 
 for the furtherance of their aims, "loyal" Catholics 
 were to be dealt with mildly, in order that they 
 might expect toleration from a King who had so 
 often avowed himself a Catholic, and whose utter 
 baseness they did not yet know. 
 
 The interests were thus gradually nan-owing. 
 James dropped out of the international intrigue ; 
 the Spanish Council acknowledged the impossibility 
 of invading either England or Scotland direct ; and 
 thenceforward Spaiu could only work through Ire- 
 land, or through the English Catholics, who disliked 
 the idea of a Scottish king of England. When 
 Montjoy had landed in Ireland early in 1600, he had 
 found the whole country except the Pale and the 
 walled towns in the hands of the rebels. Though 
 the fastidious young lord had seen comparatively 
 little fighting, which was the fault of the Queen 
 rather than his own, he was a theoretical soldier of a 
 high order, and seized at once upon the tactical needs
 
 444 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 of the situation. His army was small, not exceeding 
 14,000 English infantry, mostly of very inferior 
 quality, and some 1 500 horse, and he could not hope 
 to march a sufficiently poNverful force by land through 
 trackless Ulster to beat Tyrone in his own fastness. 
 Munster was in different case. There the sturdy 
 veteran, Sir George Carew, had a free hand, by 
 severity and conciliation alternately, to bring the 
 province back again to its obedience. The smaller 
 chiefs were not overjoyed at the re-erection by 
 Tyrone of the feudal princes, M'Carty More and 
 Desmond, and the hold of the former, at least, over 
 his clan was sufficiently precarious for him to han- 
 ker after the recognition of the Queen's Government, 
 who were inclined to favour his kinsman, Donnell, 
 the chief chosen by the clansmen themselves before 
 Tyrone's interference. By working upon the greed 
 and ambition of these rival chieftains, and others in 
 like case all over Munster, Carew managed before 
 the end of the year to drive M'Carty and most of the 
 other Munster chiefs into a sulky and shifty obedi- 
 ence,^ whilst the Sugan Earl of Desmond lurked 
 in hiding with a few followers. 
 
 But Montjoy could not deal thus with the north 
 and west. The base of Tyrone's position was Lough 
 Foyle, and that of O'Donnell, Ballyshannon, be- 
 cause their supplies of munitions of war and other 
 
 ' Carew write? to Cecil, January 15. 1601 (Irish State Papers, 208, 
 uncalendared), advocating a decided policy of conciliation with the 
 Munster chiefs, with a general pardon. " 1 do not know any one man 
 of quality in Munster who was not Ijound by his oath upon the Sacra- 
 ment to assist the rebellion, though some have more openly declared 
 themselves than others." Full particulai-s of Carew's campaign in 
 Munster will be found in " Pacata Hiljernia" and the Carew Calendars.
 
 MONTJOY IN IRELAND 445 
 
 necessaries from abroad could reach them there alone 
 with safety ; and only by means of a force conveyed 
 by water could the English hope successfully to 
 attack them. Whilst, therefore, Montjoy made a 
 feint of marching against Ulster by land, a force of 
 4000 foot, 200 horse, and 3 guns, under Sir Henr}^ 
 Docwra, sailed to Lough Foyle and succeeded in 
 fortifying themselves at Derry (May 1600). The 
 second part of the programme, the occupation of 
 Ballyshannon on Donegal Bay, commanding the 
 string of lakes which stretch right into Connaught, 
 was not then possible, as Montjoy was obliged to 
 return into Leinster to suppress the fresh risings of 
 O'Byrnes and O'Tooles there. The seizure of Lough 
 Foyle, however, struck a shrewd blow at Tyrone, for 
 he dared not now take too large a force elsewhere, 
 for fear of seeing his own principality overrun by 
 the men from Derry ; ^ and Montjoy was able before 
 the end of the year to bring much of Ireland, outside 
 Lester and Donegal, into at least nominal obedience. 
 We have seen (page 407) that, notwithstanding 
 the peremptory orders of Philip III. to the effect 
 that a powerful force should be sent from Spain at 
 once to aid the Irish rebels, all the summer and 
 autumn of 1600 had been frittered away by his 
 officers, and by the end of November 1600 not even 
 the small preliminary supply of money and biscuit 
 had been despatched from Lisbon. Apparently, how- 
 ever, owing to the renewed prayers of Tyrone's envoy, 
 
 1 Fenton writes to Cecil on the ist January 1601 that "Tyrone is 
 not a little gravelled to see Leinster in hazard to be gott from him " 
 (Irish State Papers, 208, uncalendared). In the same letter Fenton says 
 that Tyrone remains in the south part of his country "attending on 
 Lough Foyle."
 
 446 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Richard Owen, a great effort was then made, and 
 early in December "two tall ships" sailed from 
 Lisbon with Don Martin de la Cerda on board, 
 taking with him 10,000 ducats in money and a 
 quantity of weapons and munitions of war. As 
 usual, the most exaggerated and alarming news was 
 spread in Ireland as to the strength of the expedi- 
 tion, but thanks to Fenton's desire to " beat out the 
 truth" and to the report of his trusty spy, we are in 
 a position to know exactly what happened^ when La 
 Cerda sailed into Donegal Bay. There promptly 
 came to greet him not only O'Donnell,^ but Tyrone 
 himself from Dungannon, OTiourke, MacWilliam 
 Bourke, O'Connor Sligo, Hugh Mostyn, and other 
 chiefs. They had, they told the King's officer, 
 already despaired of help from Spain, and O'Donnell, 
 much as he was needed in Ireland, was on the point 
 of himself sailing to make a last appeal to the 
 King.^ The Queen's troops had overrun Ireland 
 during the summer and the Catholic cause was 
 reduced to the last extremity, they told La Cerda, 
 but if their sovereign, King Philip, would send 
 them, without fail, at least 5000 infantry before 
 July they could hold out in LTlster and the west till 
 then. 
 
 When, however, Philip's two short Latin letters 
 
 1 Fentoii to Cecil, January 20, 1601 (Irish State Papers, 208, uu- 
 caleiiflared). 
 
 - Tyrone quarrelled with O'Donnell because he went on board the 
 Spanish ship and had speech with La Cerda before Tyrone arrived at 
 Donegal. The money, arms, &c., were divided, one half going to Tyrone* 
 and the other half between the rest of the chiefs (Irish State Papers, 208, 
 uncalendared). 
 
 •'' Sjianish Calendar, vol. iv. (Simaucas).
 
 SPAIN AND THE IRISH REBELS 447 
 
 were opened with much ceremony and read by 
 Tyrone and O'Donnell, disappointment again fell 
 upon them. There were only a few lines in each 
 letter of vague sympathy and exhortation to stand 
 iirm, with the same general promise of aid that had 
 been made and broken so often before. " Where- 
 upon O'Donnell was like a madd man, when he saw 
 no kinde of news neither of men or money to 
 come, and presentlie swore he would go himself to 
 Spain, and would indeede have gone, if the captain 
 of the Spaniards had suffered him. The Spaniard, 
 seeing O'Donnell and the rest so angry, he told 
 O'Donnell that he wronged himself, for, said he, you 
 thinke that if the King send here an armie that he 
 will let you or any one else know it ? No ! nor the 
 Council of Spaine shall not know it. For so, may- 
 hap, intelligence shall goe into England and so 
 draw an armie against us, and this is the cause that 
 none shall know what he meaneth to do." ^ With 
 this comforting suggestion of La Cerda, the chiefs 
 were only half satisfied, for of excuses they had had 
 more than enough. So they settled to send back the 
 Spanish Archbishop of Dublin and Tyrone's confessor, 
 Father Chamberlain, to add their verbal prayers to 
 the letters to the King which were carried by La 
 Cerda. " But by God," swore Tyrone to Teuton's spy, 
 " I have no longer any hope of help from the King 
 of Spain, although, peradventure, he will send us a 
 shippe with as much as he did now to feede us, for 
 the King of France is at war with the Duke of 
 Savoy, whom the King of Spaine will help, and so 
 will have no men to spare this year." ' 
 
 ' Irish State Papers, 208, uncalendared. ^ Ihid.
 
 448 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Tyrone was truly in evil case just then. His 
 cattle were now but few, and of corn, bread, or 
 butter he had none. The strong English garrison 
 at Lough Foyle was a sharp thorn thrust deeply into 
 his side, and the policy of keeping an English ship 
 or two on the Irish coast was stopping his supplies by 
 sea. His communications with Munster were almost 
 cut off'.^ John of Desmond, the fugitive Earl's 
 brother, had come to Donegal to pray for aid from 
 the chiefs, who agreed to send O'Rourke's brother 
 with looo men to the Earl's rescue,^ whilst Montjoy 
 now had Leinster well in hand, and the Pale was 
 safe from incursions. James Stuart, moreover, no 
 longer smiled upon the rebel chief, and it must have 
 been evident to Tyrone that his only hope of ulti- 
 mate success now lay in the questionable arrival of 
 powerful aid from Spain. The bulls he had received 
 from the Pope, from which such great results were 
 expected, had fallen fiat, for the real root of the 
 movement, in the case of the chiefs, was territorial 
 rather than religious, and they held (when it suited 
 them) that Rome had no power to dissolve their 
 allegiance to their sovereign, the Queen of England, 
 who made no serious attempt, moreover, to interfere 
 w4th their religious observances.'^ 
 
 1 The Spanish Archbishop, writing to the Sugan Earl of Desmond, 
 who was in hiding, bidding him farewell (January 13), says he should 
 have gone personally to him, but he could not go without an army 
 (" Pacata Hibernia"). 
 
 ^ This desperate attempt of Tyrone to force a way down to Munster 
 was frustrated by ('arew, who reinforced Limerick and held the line of 
 the Shannon (" Pacata Hibernia"). 
 
 •'' It is related in "Pacata Hibernia" that certain Munster Catholics 
 sent to Rome at this time priests to purchase from the Pope absolutioTi 
 for abstaining from helping the Catholic cause.
 
 CRISIS OF THE IRISH CAUSE 449 
 
 The Irish cause, therefore, was now at its turning- 
 point. If aid came from Spain promptly and strong, 
 Ulster, at all events, might retain its autonomy under 
 O'Neil and the old Irish tradition ; if it came not, 
 then Tyrone must make the best terms he could with 
 the Queen's Government. 
 
 La Cerda, with the Spanish Archbishop and the 
 Irish chieftains' letters, arrived in Spain towards the 
 end of January 1601 at a favourable juncture, for the 
 war between France and Savoy had just come to an 
 end, and the Spanish infantry that had been raised 
 to help Savoy was not now needed. The Archbishop 
 pleaded eloquently for the Irish. "The country," 
 he said, " and especially Tyrone and O'Donuell and 
 the rest of the Catholics, now stood in imminent 
 peril, and there was a danger of the entire extinction 
 of the faith and obedience to the Church which they 
 had hitherto upheld with so much bravery and blood- 
 shed." He submitted the " grave prejudice which 
 would thereby be suffered by Christendom at large, 
 and expressed deep sorrow that, after they had ex- 
 posed themselves to so much jeopardy in the service 
 of God, and so many promises had been sent to them, 
 they should be thus abandoned by a powerful and 
 Catholic monarch, upon whom, after God, they had 
 founded all their hopes." ^ These appeals touched 
 Philipinhismost tender points, namely,his Catholicity 
 and his pride ; and once more the whole subject was 
 turned over to his Council of State for consideration 
 and report. Again they told him that it was his 
 obvious duty to support the Irish Catholics ; and 
 they thought that in the circumstances 6000 men 
 
 ' Simancas MSS., Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. 
 
 2 F
 
 450 trf:ason and plot 
 
 might be sent instead of the 5000 asked for by 
 Tyrone. " Stores and munitions should be made 
 ready at once, for they have not even bread to eat 
 in Ireland. Everything should be done with great 
 secrecy ; the men should be quietly concentrated in 
 Lisbon, and an increased quantity of biscuit ordered." 
 Sufficient money should be sent with the expedi- 
 tion to last six months — 200,000 ducats, which sum 
 it was supposed already existed in Lisbon — and 
 105,000 ducats more must be raised for fitting out 
 the fleet. ^ In accordance with the recommendation 
 previously made, Irish and other ships in Spanish 
 soutliern ports were seized for the service,'^ and all 
 the preparations were detailed for the sending to 
 Ireland, at last, of a powerful force to strike a blow 
 for the Catholic cause." 
 
 In the meanwhile, alarming news of the threat- 
 ening Armada came to Ireland and to England. 
 
 ^ February 9, 1601. The Council to Philip. Simancas, Spanish 
 Calendar, vol. iv. 
 
 " Irish State Papers, 208, uncalendared. 
 
 ' Ibarra provided the following estimate of the cost of the expedi- 
 tion : — 
 
 Ducats. 
 40,000 
 20,000 
 I 2,000 
 1 7,000 
 16,000 
 
 Maintenance of 4500 men for two months 
 
 One wage for 4000 new soldiers to be shipped 
 
 Two wages for veteran cavalry 
 
 >^hipping and keep of men .... 
 
 'I'wo wages for Irish infantiy 
 
 Jt is most imjjortant that the troops should be kept 
 in good order and prevented from molesting the 
 natives, so they must be paid punctually. For 
 this and other needs there must be taken with 
 the expedition ....... 200,000 
 
 Total, 305,000 
 
 The remaining 1 500 or 2000 men were to be provided for in Lisbon, 
 presumaV)ly by the Portuguese Exchequer. Twenty caravels were to
 
 STILL ANOTHER ARMADA 451 
 
 Timothy Williams, a Plymouth mariner who had 
 been a prisoner in Spain, escaped from Corunna and 
 told of the vast collection of stores ; a merchant 
 arriving in Ireland from Spain said that 9000 men 
 were in Lisbon destined for Ireland.^ Montjoy 
 clamoured for more men and stores, especially for 
 Munster ; Carew caught the shifty M'Carty More 
 corresponding with the rebels and haled him to 
 prison (July 1601); the Suga7i Earl of Desmond 
 was tracked to his last cave by the White Knight, 
 and fell into English hands (May 1601) ;' there was 
 no great Munster chief now to lead the province, 
 and all men knew that the final trial of strength 
 was coming which should make Tyrone a semi- 
 independent vassal of Spain, or a beaten traitor at 
 the mercy of Elizabeth. Through the summer the 
 alarming news of a great Spanish fleet in prepara- 
 tion came. Sometimes Cecil believed that the desti- 
 nation was Flanders, and once there came in July 
 a false alarm that the Spaniards were already in the 
 Channel, where there were no English ships ready 
 to resist them but a few foul little vessels under 
 Sir Richard Leveson ; but the flocking of priests to 
 Ireland, the rising hopes of the rebels, and the irre- 
 pressible talk on the quays of Lisbon, convinced the 
 Anglo-Irish governors, at all events, that the Spaniards 
 were to strike at them. But at what point ? Carew 
 persisted in his belief that Munster would be at- 
 
 be freighted (those seized in the ports doubtless) at a cost of 140,000 
 ducats, to bring troops from the Azores. The accounts are extremely 
 detailed, and the above is a mere abstract of them. 
 
 ^ Harris to Cecil, March 9, and Lord Chancellor of Ireland to Cecil, 
 February 9. Irish State Papers, 208, uncalendared. 
 
 2 A most quaint and curious account of James Fitz-Thomas's capture 
 is in vol. i. of " Pacata Hibernia."
 
 452 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 tacked, either Cork or VVaterford, and the aged 
 Lord Admiral was of the same opinion. Carew, 
 therefore, with his quite insulhcient forces, made 
 what dispositions he could to hold Cork against an 
 enemy, whilst he still kept back an advance of the 
 rebels southward by grimly clinging to Limerick and 
 the line of the Shannon. Montjoy was determined, 
 if possible, to strike a blow at Ulster itself before 
 the arrival of the Spaniards, and though he got but 
 little help from England, he did nobly. In July he 
 captured the fort on the Blackwater, which formed 
 the door to Ulster from the Pale ; for Tyrone dared 
 not divert his force from Lough Foyle, or Docwra at 
 Deny would push down to Ballyshannon and so 
 divide Tyrone from O'Donnell. Though Docwra was 
 unable to reach so far south as that, he did the next 
 best thing possible to him, namely, to make a dash 
 at O'Donnell's capital of Donegal, which he captured 
 and held in August. 
 
 Thus month after month passed and still no 
 Spanish Armada appeared. By the middle of Sep- 
 tember a fine flying squadron of seven new galleons 
 had been fitted out in England to supplement Leve- 
 son's little Channel fleet, and the fear of a Spanish 
 descent upon England, M^hich still haunted the minds 
 of the men who had fought the Armada of 1588, 
 grew less alarming as England stood on her guard. 
 
 In the meanwhile affairs were proceeding in Spain 
 in the usual inept fashion. When Philip had again 
 accepted the advice of his council to send the fleet 
 to Ireland (February 1601), he had "entrusted this 
 matter to my confessor, as it is so much for God's 
 service, in order that he may see everything recom-
 
 THE FINAL ARMADA 453 
 
 mended here carried out with all possible speed." 
 And yet, although the soldiers were mostly mustered 
 in Lisbon in February, it was late in August 1601 
 before the Council could advise Philip that all was 
 ready for a start. Two flyboats had been sent to 
 Killibegs during the summer ^ cariying messages to 
 tlie chiefs as to the aid they might expect, and to 
 take counsel as to its destination ; but almost to the 
 hour of sailing of the fleet a difference of opinion 
 existed as to the most suitable place for it to attack. 
 Some of the Irish thought it should go to Ulster, 
 some to Drogheda, but it was finally considered 
 that the nearness of Munster to Spain gave it an 
 advantage over other parts of Ireland, and Cork was 
 selected as the port of debarkation. 
 
 Early in September all was finally ready. There 
 were thirty-three ships, great and small, for the con- 
 veyance of troops, besides storeships, flyboats, and 
 victuallers. Don Juan del Aguila, a famous Spanish 
 soldier, who had held Brittany for so long against 
 France and England combined, was in chief com- 
 mand of the troops, of which there were nearly 
 5000, besides six pieces of siege artillery and a 
 large quantity of stores. The shipping was under 
 the command of Don Diego Brochero as admiral, 
 and a fine old sailor, Pedro de Zubiaur, as vice- 
 admiral. Carew stood ready at Cork, determined to 
 fight as became his name, though the Government 
 in London had helped him but little. On Sep- 
 tember 13 a swift pinnace, under Captain Love of 
 
 ' One of these vessels was very nearly caught by Captain Plessing- 
 ton of the Tramontana, but she escaped by her superior sailing powers 
 (Irish State Papers, 209, uncalendared).
 
 454 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Crookhaven, brought him the news that the Spanish 
 fleet, with wind astern, was out of the Bay and sail- 
 ing straight for Ireland ; and that day, and the next, 
 and the next, the stout President of Munster looked 
 hourly for the invaders who came not. On the fourth 
 day the wind changed to the north, and he knew 
 that, whilst that wind blew, Cork was safe from any 
 Spanish fleet that sailed. Montjoy in the meanwhile 
 had pushed south as far as Athy, and thither Carew 
 rode to concert with his chief the plan of defence ; 
 but fatigue and sickness overtook him before he 
 reached Athy, and Montjoy found him lying ill near 
 Kilkenny. Whilst they were there conferring, the 
 wind changed to the east, and on the 23rd a breath- 
 less messenger came from Sir Charles Wilmot at 
 Cork to say that the Spanish fleet had two days 
 before endeavoured to make the harbour, and had 
 failed, whereupon the invaders had sailed towards 
 Kinsale. Munster was the place of danger ; and 
 Montjoy and Carew determined to concentrate every 
 available man to face the foe there, leaving Dublin 
 and the Pale to look after itself till the more press- 
 ing peril had passed. 
 
 The danger was again not so great as it looked, 
 Spanish organisation was still wretched, and Spanish 
 hearts were no longer in the task. When the 
 northern gale had struck the fleet ofl" Ushant, the 
 vice-flagship of Zubiaur, with eight other vessels 
 carrying 650 soldiers and most of the stores, had 
 been driven back crippled to Corunna, and another 
 of the largest ships, full of men, had straggled, and 
 had been captured at the mouth of the Channel by 
 an English privateer. Three more vessels, with 700
 
 INVASION OF IRELAND 455 
 
 men on board, fell ofi' too far to leeward, to make 
 either Cork or Kinsale, and sought shelter in O'Dris- 
 coll's harbour of Baltimore. The main expedition, 
 therefore, that sailed into the harbour of Kinsale 
 (October i, 1601, N.S.) brought only about 3000 
 effective soldiers under Don Juan del Aguila. The 
 town was garrisoned by one English company ; the 
 defences were obsolete and the place untenable ; so 
 the Spaniards were allowed to land without opposi- 
 tion. Don Juan was a chivalrous soldier of the old 
 school, brave as a lion, but thinking little of sailors ; 
 whilst Brochero, the admiral, like most of the men 
 of his profession, believed that, though their function 
 was conveyance and not fighting, seamen were, in 
 their way, as dignified as men-at-arms. The demo- 
 ralisation that afflicted the Spanish service also 
 touched him ; and when Aguila requested him not 
 to sail away until he had sent the food stores up the 
 river to the town, Brochero replied that he could 
 not wait to land the food, and simply cast the muni- 
 tions anyhow, without order or account, into the 
 ooze at the mouth of the harbour, " where they were 
 all ill-handled and wet as if the enemy had been 
 already playing with their artillery on the ships ; " 
 and so Brochero sailed away, leaving Don Juan del 
 Aguila with his little army, and only two field-pieces 
 and two demi-cannon, to do the best he could.^ 
 He endeavoured to tranquillise the townspeople, 
 
 ^ Don Juan reported that the rest of the cannon was not landed, as 
 he had not ammunition for it, much of the latter being spoilt by the 
 wet. Philippus O'SuUevan (" Historiaa Catholica Iberniae ") says that, 
 from the fir.^t landing of the force, dissensions existed between the 
 Spanish officers, and between Aquila and the Spanish Archbishop of 
 Dublin, who accompanied him.
 
 456 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 assuring them personally and by proclamation that 
 he would use them as friends and brothers; "yet, 
 withal, he findeth no assistance from them, neither 
 dare they declare themselves." The place, with its 
 crumbling mediaeval walls, was commanded by hills 
 on all sides, but a small peninsula jutting out in 
 front of the town would make a good point from 
 which the entrance from the sea could be de- 
 fended. This, however, Don Juan decided that he 
 had not sufficient men to effect, and to defend the 
 town from the land-side as well. Many of his 
 soldiers were boys and recruits, who began to skulk 
 and evade as soon as they landed. This, however, 
 he presently stopped, and his skill and firmness in- 
 fused some spirit and courage into them. Still it 
 was evident to him that in this exposed little town, 
 with a small isolated force, short of food and stores,^ 
 he could do nothing effectual until he had formed a 
 junction with Tyrone. Montjoy he knew was with 
 over 4000 English troops at Cork, only sixteen miles 
 away, and there was nothing to prevent the Viceroy 
 from pushing between Kinsale and the forces of the 
 northern rebels. Aguila, therefore, could only send 
 off beseeching messages to Spain for reinforcements 
 and supplies, whilst the English troops gradually drcAv 
 around him. Swift runners and pinnaces, too, were 
 sent by Don .luan and the Spanish Archbishop to 
 
 ' One of the lirst acts of the English was to burn all the food within 
 five miles of Kinsale and seize the cattle (" Pacata Hibernia"). As we 
 liave seen, the Spaniards had always been told that they need bring no 
 horses, but only harness. The former, however plentiful they might be 
 in Ulster, were non-existent in Kinsale, and the harness had drifted 
 back to Spain. Aguila had therefore no cavalry with which to prevent 
 the English destruction.
 
 THE SPANIARDS IN MUNSTER 457 
 
 warn Tyrone and O'Donnell of his coming. But 
 they were afar off ; the English troops held Derry 
 and Donegal, whilst Limerick and the Shannon 
 in English hands lay between the rebels and the 
 Spaniards, and before the chiefs could join Del 
 Aguila, the force of the Lord Deputy would have 
 to be utterly defeated. 
 
 The Munster chiefs saw, like the rest of the 
 world, that this was the struggle which was to de- 
 cide once for all whether the Catholic supremacy 
 should be restored or not. The fates had decreed 
 that at the critical point all the chances leant to the 
 side of England and Protestantism : but Catholic 
 churchmen had not been exhorting and preaching to 
 Irishmen in vain for so many years, and the Munster 
 men began to simmer into fervour for the cause, as 
 they thought, of God and Ireland. The great men, 
 M'Carty More and Desmond, were safe under lock 
 and key, offering to fight against their own country- 
 men and swearing unalterable loyalty to the Queen 
 in return for a recognition of their rank and posses- 
 sions, but the smaller chiefs, all of whom had taken 
 the oath of obedience, were impelled for many be- 
 sides religious reasons to think of the future. Many 
 of them held their lands, as English nominees, 
 against the hereditary claimants under the Irish law, 
 and if they sided with the English now, a rebel 
 victory would mean their ejection and ruin. Such 
 a man as this was Donal O'Sullivan Beare, Lord of 
 Beare and Bantry, whose importance had been of 
 late years enormously increased by the suppression 
 of his prince, M'Carty More, and by the patronage 
 of the English, who had dispossessed his uncle Owen
 
 45 « TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 in his favour. He, like most of his neighbours, had 
 always been effusively loyal, though some of his 
 kinsmen had risen up and joined the Fitzgeralds in 
 the Desmond wars. This chief, with his magnificent 
 harbour of Bantry and his apparently impregnable 
 castle of Dunboy, did not wish to offend the English, 
 but he was even more loath to lose his rank and 
 possessions at the hands of Tyrone. So from Dun- 
 boy a secret message went to Del Aguila to say that 
 a thousand sturdy clansmen, fully armed, were ready, 
 and a thousand more if arms were sent to them, to 
 march under their chief to check the advance of 
 Montjoy until Tyrone and O'Donnell could join the 
 Spaniards. The Spanish commander could only 
 reply sadly that his arms had drifted back to vSpain 
 in Zubiaur's ships, and he had none to spare. He 
 was, moreover, ignorant as yet of Tyrone's plan of 
 campaign ; and whilst thanking O'Sullivan, he ad- 
 vised him for the moment to stand firm but not to 
 declare himself.^ 
 
 In the meanwhile Carew and Montjoy worked 
 like the heroes they were. The artillery and stores 
 had to be brought from Dublin, and this delayed 
 them for weeks before a regular siege of Kinsale 
 could be undertaken ; but skirmishes and desperately 
 resisted sallies of the Spaniards took place almost 
 nightly, for the English force of about 4000 men 
 were now close around the town. One of the 
 victualling ships, under Captain Button, and a 
 pinnace called the Moon belonging to the Queen, 
 were the only vessels as yet available for blockade ; 
 and once they made an ineffectual attempt with 
 
 ' Philippiis O'Sullevaii.
 
 THE SIEGE OF KINSALE 459 
 
 their little guns, as they lay in the harbour uiouth, 
 to capture the Castle of Rincorran, which commanded 
 the entrance to Kinsale on the east side of the 
 channel. At length, however, towards the end of 
 October, the siege artillery and stores were landed in 
 a little haven to the east of Kinsale toAvards Cork, 
 and the siege of the town began in earnest. The 
 first task of the English was to reduce the Castle of 
 Eincorran, where Aguila had posted 150 men with a 
 promise that they should be reinforced if the place 
 were attacked. The Englisli had only two faulty 
 culverins for their battery, and numberless mishaps 
 befell them before they could be eifectually used. 
 Again and again they broke down, and during the 
 first night of the attack Aguila endeavoured to re- 
 inforce the castle by means of boats from the town. 
 In this, however. Captain Button, the sturdy victualler, 
 who was on the alert, frustrated them by means of 
 his popguns of dcmi-sakers. 
 
 On the second day of the cannonade Carew lost 
 patience at the poor practice, and laid and worked 
 the guns himself. Aguila seeing that the fort must 
 fall if not relieved, made a bold attempt to thrust 
 reinforcements into it by land. A desperate little 
 battle ensued, in which many fell on both sides before 
 the Spaniards were driven back.^ The gallant little 
 
 1 It shoiild be explained that the harbour of Kinsale lies inside the 
 serpentine mouth of the Bandon, which opens into the ocean towards 
 the south. A little way inside the river suddenly turns west, forming 
 a peninsula in front of the town, which lie.*: on a slope facing the east- 
 The Castle of Rincorran was on the east side of the outer channel, facing 
 the peninsula towards the west, so that to relieve it by land from the town 
 a detour had to be made on the north side, and it was here that the 
 battle in question was fought on October 31st, in which the Spaniards 
 were driven back.
 
 460 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 garrison of Riucorran did their best to make terras, 
 but Montjoy insisted upon complete surrender and 
 this the Spanish captain, Paez de Clavijo, refused 
 unless he might retain his sword and return to Kin- 
 sale. His own men threatened to throw him over 
 the walls for his obstinacy, and many of them escaped 
 by the waterside ; but by the ist November all was 
 over at Rincorran ; Paez surrendered his sword to 
 Montjoy, and Aguila now found friendly access to 
 him cut off by land and sea. In the meanwhile, 
 both England and Spain had awakened to the im- 
 portant crisis that had been reached. The troops 
 to be sent from England were increased from 2000 
 to 5000, but unfortunately mariners were hard to 
 get, for all sea service except privateering for plunder 
 was unpopular. Thus the soldiers stood waiting, 
 and it was quite the end of October before the flying 
 squadron of six royal galleons with merchantmen 
 and transports sailed out of the Thames, crowded 
 with troops, under Sir Richard Leveson. Then bad 
 weather, head winds, and accidents delayed them in 
 the Channel, and it was the 15th November before 
 the naval force reached the offinar of Kinsale with the 
 reinforcements which placed Montjoy in a position of 
 at least numerical equality with the enemy. 
 
 Tardy as had been the English naval preparations, 
 those of the Spaniards were fortunately more lagging 
 still. Zubiaur's squadron had to be refitted and re- 
 inforced, and, notwithstanding Aguila's urgent and 
 repeated messages, did not sail from Corunna until 
 the 7th IJecember (N.S.). Tlie force was a strong 
 one, consisting of ten ships with 829 foot-soldiers 
 and a large quantity of food and stores. Again mis-
 
 THE SPANIARDS AT KINSALE 461 
 
 fortune or want of skill clogged the Spaniards from the 
 first. One of Ziibiaur's ships was wrecked going out 
 of port, and he lost sight of three others in the bad 
 weather that followed, one of which was wrecked on 
 the coast of Brittany, one returned to Galicia, and the 
 third was captured off Kinsale by the English. With 
 the six ships remaining Zubiaur approached Kinsale, 
 but learning from Irish fishermen that the mouth of 
 the harbour was full of English men-of-war, he sailed 
 off to the convenient port of Castlehaven to the west. 
 Sir Finnan O'Driscoll and his sons had always been 
 loyal to the Queen, like their neighbour, O'Sullivan, 
 but this fresh force of Spaniards arriving in their 
 country turned the scale. Tyrone and O'Donnell 
 were hastening south with the rebel army, Carew's 
 attempt to intercept the latter at Cashel with a flying- 
 column having failed, either by reason of O'Don- 
 nell's better knowledge of the ground having enabled 
 him to slip past the English into West Munster, or 
 from Carew's disinclination to engage the Irish in an 
 action, of which., from the first, he disapproved. 
 
 There had also drifted into the O'Driscoll port of 
 Baltimore three of the vessels of the original Brochero 
 squadron, which had remained there isolated but un- 
 molested. Now that Zubiaur's fresh reinforcement 
 had arrived in their country, it seemed wise for the 
 O'Driscolls and the O'Sullivans to throw over] their 
 loyalty and to rally openly to the Catholic side. The 
 fortresses of Castlehaven and Baltimore were solemnly 
 handed over by their owners to the Spanish officers 
 for King Philip. The news ran like wildfire through 
 Munster, and from bog and mountain shaggy clans- 
 men flocked down to their chiefs to fight for faitli
 
 462 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 and Ireland against the Sassenach. O'Sullivan Beare, 
 to be denied no longer, tendered the submission of 
 his lands and castles to the King of Spain. ^ Zubi- 
 aur armed 700 Irishmen, whom he despatched with 
 200 Spaniards to join O'Donnell, and then putting 
 Spanish garrisons into C'astlehaven, Baltimore, and 
 Dunboy, he sent pinnaces flying to Spain to beg for 
 powerful reinforcements. 
 
 Here were three little isolated Spanish forces, 
 whose very existence depended upon the victory of 
 the rebel chiefs over the English. AVith an in- 
 credible want of skill or good fortune, each separate 
 Spanish expedition had got itself bottled up in a 
 different port, and practically beleaguered by land 
 and sea. In the meanwhile, the siege of Kinsale, 
 whither Carew had now returned from his abortive 
 attempt to intercept O'Donnell, proceeded briskly ; 
 the fleet under Leveson co-operating effectually with 
 Montjoy. Two of the naval guns were landed, and 
 forced tlie surrender of the entrenched fort on the 
 peninsula facing the town that defended the inner 
 harbour, and this enabled some of the ships to warp 
 
 ^ O'ISullivau wrote a iainous letter to Philip III. on December 20, on 
 the occasion of his voluntary submission to the Spaniards. After setting 
 forth his own noble lineage and the racial connection between Ireland 
 and Spain, he continues : " For these considerations and for manj' other 
 commendable causes, I beijueath and oiler in humbleness of mind and 
 heart, my own person, with all my forces, perpetually to serve youi- 
 Majesty, not only in Ireland, but in any other place where it may please 
 you. I commit, also, my wife and my childi'en, my manors, towns^ 
 country, and lands, and my haven of Dunboy, next under God to the 
 ]>rotection, keeping, and defence or commerce of your Majesty, to be in 
 your hands and at your disposal," This letter was intercepted, and 
 although O'Sullivan was afterwards anxious to be reconciled to the 
 i*]nglish, he w as never forgiven. As will be told, he became a great 
 S]ianish noble, and lived and died in Spain, as did most of his kinsmeu.
 
 FIGHT AT CASTLHHAVEN 463 
 
 inside, facing the houses of the town, and to add 
 their battery to that of Montjoy from the land-side. 
 At length, by the end of November, the lower town 
 had become quite untenable, and the Spaniards were 
 driven to the trenches on the farther side, and higher 
 up the slope. Aguila looked, and looked in vain, 
 for the coming of Zubiaur, or for the descent of the 
 rebel chiefs, A great number of his men were sick, 
 and all were famished ; but they fought well, sally- 
 ing night after night and charging the English 
 batteries, sometimes almost successfully. In the 
 midst of this came the news of Zubiaur's arrival 
 at Castlehaven (December 11, N.S.), and thither 
 Leveson hastened with four galleons and two mer- 
 chantmen of his squadron to engage the Spanish 
 ships. The action that ensued is told variably by 
 the two sides. Zubiaur himself reported that the 
 English landed artillery to attack him ; but that he 
 drew off and sank the Queen's flagship, greatly 
 damaging the others, though two of his own ships 
 sank. Philippus O'Sullevan goes beyond this, and 
 says that 501 Englishmen were killed, 60 being 
 knocked over by one shot, as they sat at table : 
 whilst Leveson in his account to the Lord Deputy, 
 claims to have driven the Spanish flagship on to the 
 rocks, that another ship sank, and that two more 
 Spaniards ran aground. Leaving Zubiaur with one, 
 or at most two ships, Leveson then returned to 
 Kinsale and told his story, whilst Zubiaur waited 
 and prayed for succour in vain. 
 
 But still the rebel chiefs came not. Don Juan 
 del Aguila wrote to them on December 28, al- 
 most indignantly. He expected them long before,
 
 464 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 he said : the English were weak and weary, and a 
 blow struck now would be effectual. He spoke 
 truly. The march southward of Tyrone had drawn 
 all Munster into revolt behind him. Montjoy's army 
 was worn and reduced by the winter siege ; the 
 small English squadron of galleons at Kinsale was 
 quite inadequate to blockade the whole coast of 
 Munster ; and another Spanish expedition under 
 Don Martin de la Cerda was known to be ready to 
 sail from Lisbon. With a little good luck and 
 ability on the part of the Spaniards, Tyrone might 
 at this juncture have turned the tide of events and 
 have made England Catholic. But it was not to be. 
 The weather was bad ; O'Donnell lagged on the way 
 for Tyrone's coming; and it was January i, 1602 
 (N.S.), before the advance guard of the rebel army 
 appeared to the north on the hills overlooking Kin- 
 sale and the English position. Tyrone's plan was to 
 thrust the Castlehaven Spaniards and Irishmen, who 
 had joined him, round the extreme right (or western) 
 flank of the besieging line, where the Irish levies 
 were placed, into Kinsale, which he thought might 
 make Agnila strong enough to come out and join 
 hands with him. Intercepted letters and willing 
 Irish spies informed Montjoy of the plan,^ and when, 
 before dawn on January 2, 1602, the Spaniards and 
 Munster Kerns crept round and made their attack, 
 
 ^ In " Pacata Hibeinia," a somewhat significant account is given of one 
 of the sources of Montjoy's information. Two days before the battle, 
 Brian MacHugh Ogue MacMahon, Lord of Monaghan, sent a messenger 
 to ask Montjoy for old acquaintance sake to send him a bottle of aqua- 
 vita, which the Viceroy did. Either out of gratitude, or from a desire 
 to hedge, or else because he dreaded the overlordship of O'Neil more 
 than tlaat of the Queen, ]\IacMahon sent Montjoy a hint next day, 
 upon which the latter was prompt to act.
 
 ROUT OF TYRONE 465 
 
 they found themselves outnumbered by the English 
 whom Montjoy had stationed there since the previous 
 evening. Out of the 200 Spaniards 140 were killed 
 in the surprise ; and as they fled headlong, Tyrone, 
 still in the dark, ordered his forces to draw off, his 
 intention being to attack again with his main body 
 by daylight. As soon as Montjoy learnt this, he ad- 
 vanced rapidly and fell unexpectedly upon Tyrone's 
 right flank as he retreated. The Irish were already 
 demoralised by the confused retreat in the dark, and 
 were seized with panic. The whole six thousand of 
 them fled for life, being slaughtered without mercy 
 when they were caught. Fifteen hundred died thus, 
 and the next day every prisoner, not already sacri- 
 ficed, was hanged. Tyrone was wounded, and was 
 carried in a litter up into Ulster, and O'Donnell, 
 with Redmond Burke, Hugh Mostyn, and the few 
 remaining Spaniards, managed to reach Castlehaven. 
 Heart-broken, panic-stricken, and desperate, he 
 could only pray Zubiaur to carry them to Spain at 
 once, with the dire news that all was lost ; that the 
 heretic cause was victorious, and that Spain must 
 put forth the whole of her might now, or abandon 
 her dream for ever. 
 
 The news fell upon Spain like a thunder-clap, 
 and for once aroused the King and his Council to 
 some activity. "Your Majesty's prestige is at 
 stake," said the latter, " and yet there is no means 
 of sending effective and prompt aid, for want of 
 ships, arms, and men, everything being scarce and 
 short." But still, they said, something must be done 
 to keep up the war in Ireland, or the English would 
 descend upon Spain and destroy them all. Every 
 
 2 G
 
 466 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 man must be taken from the garrisons and sent to 
 Ireland ; money, stores, and arms must be collected 
 from every point and at any sacrifice. Knighthoods, 
 increased pay, and rewards must be promised to 
 officers to prompt them to activity. Nobles and 
 bishops must arm their vassals ; Italy and Savoy must 
 be scoured for war materials and men ; all the 
 galleys must come from Naples for the defence of 
 Spain ; ships must be sent to warn the Indies, and the 
 King himself must write a letter to Aguila, urging 
 him to stand firm until help reaches him, that at 
 least will allow him to leave Ireland with honour.^ 
 O'Donnell, deploring, beseeching, and exhorting, was 
 propitiated with flattery and presents ; but when he 
 asked that the chief command of the new expedition 
 should be given to the Adelantado, he was told that 
 the latter was too great a personage for such a force 
 as could be sent. In the tornado of fright that was 
 passing over the Spanish Administration, the most 
 extravagant advice was given. The Adelantado 
 himself, unpractical as usual, stormed at the policy 
 of sending aid by driblets : " which will only prolong 
 the agony, and let the patient die after all." If only 
 a great Armada had been sent under his command, 
 as he advised, all would have been well ; and even 
 now it might be done. Commissary-General Con- 
 treras was for raising an army of 14,000 men for 
 Ireland, half of whom might be Germans and Wal- 
 loons shipped from Dunkirk. The King's confessor, 
 Father Cordoba, thought they should be prepared for 
 the worst ; but, as the poverty-stricken treasury could 
 not hope to provide for the danger at all points, 
 
 1 The letter is printed in the Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.
 
 THE FALL OF KINSALE 467 
 
 *' the most important of all preparations will be to 
 appease the anger of Almighty God, provoked by the 
 vices and sins so prevalent in this country. We 
 must therefore earnestly seek a remedy by mending 
 our ways of life and by constant prayer." ^ In the 
 midst of all this panic and despairing effort, another 
 blow fell. The five ships loaded with men, arms, 
 and stores, which had sailed from Lisbon late in 
 December, under Martin de la Cerda, were driven 
 back again by storm, the flagship alone having reached 
 within sight of Kinsale. There she had captured 
 eleven Irish boatmen, from whom it was learnt that 
 the harbour was full of English ships and the town 
 in possession of the Viceroy ; one of the sailors 
 having that very day seen Don Juan del Aguila 
 dining in public with the Queen's representative. 
 La Cerda waited to hear no more, but sped off to 
 Spain under every rag of sail. 
 
 This news somewhat altered the plans. It was 
 clear that matters could not wait until a great force 
 was mustered from all quarters, and orders were 
 given that La Cerda's squadron, with four more ships, 
 should muster in Corunna, ready to sail with all the 
 stores and men then ready, as soon as news came 
 from Ireland of the real condition of affairs. In the 
 
 ^ Colonel Scrapie's idea at this time was to raise the number of men 
 for Ireland to 6000, and to send an embassy to Scotland in return for 
 his brother's mission to Spain in the previous year. The " envoy was 
 to be secretly instructed to assist the Catholics and endeavour to induce 
 them to obtain possession of the little Prince (Henry). If this be done 
 and he be married to the daughter of the Duke of Savoy, the Catholic 
 faith may be restored in Scotland." Semple also thought that the 
 West Highlanders might be induced to side with Spain, "as they are 
 greatly devoted to the Spaniards, from whom they boast their descent" 
 (Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.).
 
 468 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 meanwhile Aguila, shut up in Kinsale,had been grow- 
 ing desperate. Again and again he tried to cut his 
 way out, but ineffectually ; and finally, on the last day 
 of the year 1601 (O.S.), the Spanish general prayed 
 for a parley. To Sir William Godolphin, who met 
 him, he expressed his disgust at the Irish, being 
 " not only weak and barbarous, but, as he feared, 
 perfidious friends,"^ and finding Montjoy a gentle- 
 manly foe, he offered terms of composition. If he 
 might depart honourably for Spain, with all his 
 people, arms, and stores, he was willing to surrender 
 to the English the garrisons now occupied by the 
 Spaniards ; but otherwise, he said, with a bit of true 
 Spanish swagger, they *' would rather bury them- 
 selves alive, and endure a thousand deaths, than to 
 give way to one article that should savour of baseness 
 or dishonour." Aguila, with his 2000 good fighting 
 men, might doubtless, as he said, have held out 
 for a considerable time longer, but he plainly con- 
 fessed that, after Tyrone's behaviour, the Irish were 
 not worth fighting for. For the English the pro- 
 posal was distinctly advantageous, since Castlehaven, 
 Dunboy, and Baltimore, as well as Kinsale, were to 
 be delivered to them without further fighting, and 
 the voluntary retirement of the Spanish invading 
 force would be an object-lesson more significant to 
 the world than their destruction by superior num- 
 bers. Articles were accordingly soon agreed upon 
 for the Spaniards to leave, with all their property, 
 peacefully in English ships bound for Spain, of 
 which they were to pay the freight. 
 
 ^ One of his officers went further : " Surely," he said, " Christ never 
 died for this people."
 
 SURRENDER OF AGUILA 469 
 
 Whilst the arrangements were being made for the 
 transport of the Spaniards, Aguila and his principal 
 officers lived with the Lord-Deputy in Cork, and 
 one of the Spanish pinnaces sent from Corunna to 
 carry the King's letter already mentioned, and others 
 to his general, came into l^antry. Don Juan del 
 Aguila was now at peace with England, and techni- 
 cally had a right to receive his letters without 
 hindrance; but we are told that Montjoy's "heart 
 itched " to know what was in them, and Carew, who 
 thought everything fair in war against the Irish, 
 arranged to have the courier waylaid and robbed 
 as if by thieves, and the letters were accordingly 
 stolen and brought to Carew whilst Aguila was at 
 dinner with him. The Spaniard, when he heard of 
 the treatment of his courier, was indignant and 
 ** vehemently suspicious ; " but good George Carew 
 lied to him like a patriot, and offered a large reward 
 for the discovery of his own instruments. The letters 
 may now be read in " Pacata Hibernia," and that 
 of the King in the Spanish Calendar, vol. iv., and con- 
 firm the account of the active preparations in Spain 
 to help the beleaguered force, which I have already 
 given from the Simancas manuscripts ; but, as we 
 have seen, the letters came too late, and Don Juan 
 del Aguila and the last of his men sailed out of 
 Kinsale on the 8th March 1602, with a " flattering 
 gale," and the last struggle of expiring Spanish 
 potency to force Catholic supremacy upon Eng- 
 land through Ireland ended thus in ignominious 
 failure.^ 
 
 ' Don Juan del Aguila had carried with him to Ireland a large 
 number of gold chains, to the value of 2000 ducats, and ten swords of
 
 470 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Whilst Don Juan was feasting in dignified fashion 
 with the English commanders in Cork and ex- 
 changing mordant witticisms with George Carew, 
 O'SuUivan and the O'DriscoUs were raging and 
 fuming. Their castles and harbours had been volun- 
 tarily handed to the Spaniards, to hold for the King ; 
 not to surrender to the English without striking a 
 blow. For Irish chiefs to rebel was nothing new, 
 and nothing very heinous ; almost every great 
 gentleman in Ireland had been a rebel at one time 
 or another, and pardon could always be had by sub- 
 mission. But though it was not unpardonable to 
 rebel, it was the blackest of treason to surrender the 
 Queen's dominion to the King of Spain, her relent- 
 less enemy. The O'Sullivans and O'DriscoUs had, 
 doubtless, thought that the English rule over Ire- 
 land was doomed, and had sought salvation by en- 
 thusiastic adhesion to their new masters. When 
 they found that they had made a mistake their rage 
 and dismay knew no bounds. Our old acquaint- 
 ance, Pedro Lopez de Soto, who was in command at 
 Castlehaven, peacefully delivered the place to Cap- 
 tain Harvey ; but before the force to occupy it had 
 arrived, the O'DriscoUs slipped into the fortress and 
 held it against the Spaniards. Whilst the latter 
 were fighting to recover it, the English entered the 
 harbour and the O'DriscoUs retired. Baltimore and 
 
 honour, to be distributed amongst the Irish chiefs after the expected 
 victory. These presents were taken back to Spain by the general, and 
 early in the following year (1603) an interniinaljle discussion took place 
 in the King's Council as to their whereabouts and destination. It was 
 at last agreed that the chains and swords should be again sent to Ire- 
 land in the new expedition of aid then being prepared in Corunna 
 under the command of Don Martin de la Cerda, but which never 
 .sailed.
 
 O'SULLIVAN IN DUNBOY 471 
 
 Doneshead were delivered by the Spaniards without 
 difficulty, and old Sir Finnan O'Driscoll surrendered 
 himself to mercy, whilst his more warlike sons, 
 except those who had been killed before Kinsale, 
 lurked in hiding, later, as will be told, to escape to 
 Spain. 
 
 Dunboy and Bearhaven were a more difficult 
 business. The first English company of nearly 200 
 men sent in a hoy from Cork to receive the surrender 
 were driven back by foul weather and lost fifty or 
 sixty men from plague ; and when, finally, an Eng- 
 lish force appeared before Dunboy, they found that 
 Donal O'Sullivan had been before them, and had 
 surprised his own fortress. From the inside the 
 chief and his servants had, in the dead of night, 
 pierced a hole through the wall and had admitted 
 eighty of his clansmen, with Father Archer the 
 Jesuit, Thomas Fitzmaurice, Lord of Linxnaw, 
 William Burke, Captain Tyrrell, and others. At 
 daylight the priest Archer had begged the Spanish 
 Captain Francisco de Saavedra to go with him to 
 O'SuIlivan's chamber. There he was told by the 
 chief that he (O'Sullivan) would hold his castle 
 himself for the King of Spain. He had 1000 armed 
 clansmen outside and 80 inside the walls, and re- 
 sistance -was useless. The Spaniards were all dis- 
 armed, not unwillingly, it was said, and most of 
 them were sent to Baltimore and so to Spain. Aguila 
 was indignant, and wanted to recapture the place 
 again for the English, but Montjoy only wished to 
 see the back of the Spaniards and preferred to 
 conquer O'Sullivan himself. 
 
 Before this happened, O'Sullivan wrote the second
 
 472 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 of his series of eloquent letters to Spain.^ It was 
 addressed to Count Caracena, the Governor of 
 Galicia, who had written to tell him that O'Donnell 
 was coming with aid to Ireland, Indignantly, 
 O'Sullivan tells the story of the betrayal of his 
 castle by Aguila. " If this place of mine be sur- 
 rendered with the rest to the enemy, all of us who 
 are faithful to his Majesty in Munster will be lost 
 and the spirit of our people broken. I, by God's 
 grace, can serve his Majesty anywhere with a 
 thousand men armed in our Irish fashion, and will 
 muster them at my own cost from my twenty leagues 
 of well-protected coast. But once my castle, the 
 chief stronghold of my land, is surrendered to the 
 enemy, I shall be reduced to such straits that my 
 people will follow my castles, and the Queen of 
 England will get both. I must take refuge in the 
 woods, there to live miserably amongst the wild 
 beasts until some lure entrap me, and I am led to 
 my death." A day or two later (February 22) he 
 wrote a series of letters to the King, to Lerma, to 
 Zubiaur, to Caracena, and others, all in the same 
 strain of indignant determination. He would lose, 
 he said, 2000 vassals by the surrender of his land, 
 and " would barely find twenty to follow him to the 
 woods and mountains, there to live like wolves 
 until the English entrap us." In the Spanish 
 despatch -boat that carried these heart-breaking 
 epistles to Corunna, O'Sullivan sent his eldest son 
 and other boys of his kin, amongst whom was the 
 future historian, Philip O'SuUevan, with Donal, son 
 
 ' Most of these were intercepted and are in " Pacata Hibernia," but 
 there are two others in the Spanish Calendar, vol. iv., from Simancas.
 
 THE MARCH OF THE O'SULLIVANS 473 
 
 of Sir Finnan O'Driscoll, to clamour still for the 
 Irish who were holding out for Spain in Dunboy. 
 
 Of the heroic defence of O'Sullivan's castle for 
 four long months, and of its sanguinary destruction ; 
 of the marvellous march of O'Sullivan and his clan 
 through the west of Ireland from the wilds of Glen- 
 garrifi' to Connaught, after holding out for a whole 
 year, this is not the place to relate in detail. The 
 legends and ballads of Ireland are full of references 
 to the heroism which led the O'SuUivans, men, 
 women, and children, to the number of nearly 1000, 
 over rugged mountains and swollen rivers, fighting 
 and famishing, two-thirds the length of Ireland, 
 from Bantry Bay to the O'Rourke stronghold at 
 Leitrim, there to arrive a poor remnant of only 35 
 spent souls whilst Tyrone was already making good 
 terms with the English. Thenceforward O'Sullivan 
 and his kinsmen were Spanish nobles and Ireland 
 knew him no more; for, plead to Elizabeth as he 
 might for forgiveness, his crime was unpardonable. 
 Devout as was doubtless his Catholicism, and loud 
 as was his professed detestation of English rule, we 
 must need look facts in the face, and admit that his 
 Homeric struggle was, in good truth, neither for his 
 faith nor his country, but only for the O'Sullivan 
 lands and lordships, to which he had no right but 
 the favour of the English law, and which he had by 
 all rules forfeited by treason against the sovereign to 
 whom he had sworn allegiance. 
 
 The news of Aguila's capitulation and return to 
 Spain caused the abandonment of the preparations 
 for a great expedition to Ireland. It was patent to 
 every one now that Tyrone had overstated his in-
 
 474 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 fluence, and was a weak reed upon which to rest the 
 conquest of Ireland. But still it was considered 
 necessary for Spain to keep up English alarm by 
 supporting the Irish who were in arms. O'Donnell 
 in Corunna prayed fervently for an expedition in 
 force. Writing to the King on April 15, 1602, he 
 says : " Promptness is the very essence of success. 
 . . . I see the time going on apace, and as every 
 hour passes, nearer and nearer approaches the knife 
 to the throats of the faithful band of brave, sorely 
 tried people, whose hope alone is in God's mercy 
 and in your Majesty's pity. I cannot help repeating 
 my sorrowful reminders. . . . If I do not arrive 
 within a month in the north of Ireland, I will not 
 say with 2000 soldiers, but with 1500 or even 1000, 
 with victuals, munitions, stores, and money, to raise 
 5000 or 6000 natives, and to sustain the war by 
 expelling the enemy from O'Neil's country and my 
 own, I doubt if a large force arriving from your 
 Majesty even in June will be in time to find any- 
 thing there but the blood and ashes of the multitude 
 of faithful believers in your Majesty." 
 
 O'Donnell's plan was to sail at once for Killibegs, 
 which he would make his base of operations, and to 
 form a junction with O'Neil by Donegal and Sligo ; 
 but Caracena, with whom he stayed, and to whom 
 he clamoured, as he says, day and night, was not in 
 favour of sending hurriedly a small number of men, 
 but rather to " feed " Tyrone with munitions, food, 
 and money until a larger expedition could be got 
 ready. At last, in despair, O'Donnell prayed that if 
 all his supplications were unavailing he should at 
 least be allowed " to go thither myself to end my
 
 DEATH OF O'DONNELL 475 
 
 life with the rest of the Catholics of the north." 
 But Philip III. could not think of such a thing, and 
 Red Hugh O'Donnell could only weep and pray for 
 his lost cause. At length, in the autumn of 1602, 
 the beaten chief obtained permission to go to court 
 and personally urge the Irish Catholic cause upon 
 Philip and Lerma. They were at Valladolid, and 
 O'Donnell with his train was lodged seven miles 
 away, in the ancient castle of Simancas, where his 
 beseeching letters were first transcribed by the pre- 
 sent writer. There, worn out with grief and anxiety, 
 Red Hugh was seized with a burning fever, and the 
 great Irishman, almost the only one of the chiefs 
 who displayed any real disinterestedness in this 
 struggle, ended his short, strenuous life. Whether his 
 end was hastened by the poison hinted at by Carew 
 or not, I cannot say, but probably it was not.^ In 
 any case, his death left the Irish cause with no 
 great-hearted champion, for Tyrone ruffled and 
 smiled for years afterwards, a fine gentleman at the 
 English court, until the crafty hands of James and 
 Cecil fastened upon Ulster, and the " plantation " of 
 the country drove out of it the race that looked 
 upon O'Neil as its prince, as well as O'Neil himself. 
 O'Donnell's faithful confessor. Father Florence 
 
 ^ Carew to iMontjoy. — May 28, 1602.— "James Blake of Galway . , . 
 departed from me and is gone into Spain, with a determination, bound 
 by many oaths, to kill O'Donnell. God give him strength and perse- 
 verance " (Carew Papers). 
 
 Same to the same. — October 1602. — "O'Donnell is dead, and I do 
 think it will fall out that he is poisoned by James Blake, of whom 
 your Lordship hath been formerly acquainted. At his coming into 
 Spain he was suspected by O'Donnell, because he embarked at Cork 
 under my authority, but afterwards he insinuated his access and 
 O'Donnell is dead " (ibid.).
 
 476 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 Conroy, continued to press, as his master had done, 
 for help to the Ulstermen ; the Adelantado still pro- 
 pounded flighty schemes for the conquest of England 
 and Ireland/ for which he was severely snubbed by 
 the Council ; the King's confessor, Father Cordoba, 
 assured Philip that Tyrone could hold out until the 
 spring (1603) if money and arms were sent to him 
 by La Cerda ; and one O'Driscoll after the other came 
 backwards and forwards to Corunna, and prayed 
 fervently that something should be done for the 
 Munster Catholics. A few remittances of money 
 and stores were sent to them, but after the exodus 
 of the O'Sullivans and the submission of Tyrone, 
 the clamour and prayers of the Irish priests and 
 refugees died down. Red Hugh's son, like O'Sulli- 
 van, became a Spanish noble, leaving worthy de- 
 scendants to-day in the higher grandeeship ; those 
 of the O'Driscoll blood who dared not go back to 
 their native land settled down into Spanish citizens ; 
 Tyrone himself long afterwards fled and saw Ireland 
 no more. Tyrone's son died a Spaniard, fighting for 
 his adopted country thirty years after his father's 
 surrender, and thus ingloriously the hope flickered 
 out of Spain's great dream. Powerless long ago to 
 conquer England, as she first dreamed of doing, or 
 of carrying Catholicism by force across the Scottish 
 border, this last failure brought home to her what to 
 the rest of the world was proved by evidence, that 
 
 ^ In the spring of 1602 the Adelantado was full of a great scheme 
 for the invasion of England direct, by the co-operation of a force of 
 14,000 from Spain with Federico Spinola from Flanders, who could, 
 he said, bring 11,000 Germans, Walloons, and Italians in galleys from 
 a Flemish port.
 
 SPAIN'S WANING DREAM 477 
 
 her administration had lost honesty and grip, that 
 her sailors had lost boldness, that her captains had 
 lost skill, and that her people had lost everything. 
 Craft and cunning might yet prevail, but by force of 
 arms nerveless Spain could aspire no more to dictate 
 the religion of England.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Mission of Thomas James to Spain — The policy of Philip towards the 
 English succession — Discussion in the Council of State — The new 
 policy adopted too late. — Cecil's conduct — Dynastic intrigues in 
 England — Arabella Stuart's strange behaviour — Suggested ex- 
 planation — Lord Beauchamp — Attempted flight of Arabella — 
 Death of Elizabeth — Cecil triumphant — Extinction of the last 
 hope of Catholic supremacy by means of foreign intervention. 
 
 The only result of the repeated petitions of the 
 English Catholics urged upon Philip by Father 
 Persons in Rome and Father Creswell in Madrid, 
 and of the recommendations of the King's Council 
 detailed in chapter xii,, had been the transmission 
 of a message to the Duke of Sessa and Persons, 
 informing them of the King's intention to adopt 
 the candidature of his half-sister the Infanta to the 
 crown of England. Persons was to convey this in- 
 telligence to a very few only of the leading Catholics 
 in England, the rank and file being simply assured 
 generally that the King of Spain had not forgotten 
 them, and would help them when the time came. 
 The messenger by whom the English Catholics com- 
 municated with Father Persons was one Thomas 
 James, a rich London merchant settled in Spain/ 
 and this man carried from Rome to his Catholic- 
 Jesuit countrymen in Flanders the decision which 
 
 1 An account of this man will be found in Hatfield Papers, vol. viii. 
 He" lived when at home at San Lucar, but travelled much. He com- 
 municated with the Catholics in England through his brother, Francis 
 
 James, a merchant in Bread Street, London. 
 
 478
 
 THE MISSION OF THOMAS JAMES 479 
 
 had been sent to Sessa and Persons from Madrid. 
 The uncompromising section to which he was ac- 
 credited were not likely to be satisfied with so vague 
 a message, and determined to make another effort, 
 before it was too late, to urge the slothful Spaniards 
 to action. 
 
 With their renewed instances Thomas James 
 arrived at the Spanish court in the early spring 
 of 1602. He assured the King that "he found the 
 Archduke well disposed, and the English Catholics 
 anxious to participate in an action so conducive to 
 the interests of the Catholic Church. But they were 
 so loyal to the King of Spain that they would take 
 no steps without his orders, and, consequently, the 
 Archduke had sent him (James) to Spain, to make 
 the proposals to the King himself. They had 
 directed him to assure the King how they rejoiced 
 at the news, and how humbly they thanked him for 
 choosing such princes (i.e. the Archduke and the 
 Infanta) for their sovereigns." This was all very 
 well, but whether Thomas James and his country- 
 men in Flanders understood it or not, it really meant 
 that the Archduke would not raise a finger until 
 he was assured that sufficient support would be sent 
 to him from Spain to enforce his wife's claim against 
 all competitors. He and the Infanta were in the 
 midst of their hard struggle with Maurice of Nassau, 
 a struggle which had already reduced their princi- 
 pality to desolation, and almost to despair ; and they 
 knew that to make an open offensive war upon 
 England at the same time was absolutely beyond 
 their power. They were middle-aged people, and 
 were aware that they would be childless ; in addition
 
 480 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 to which, as we have seen, their succession to the 
 English crown was clogged with the condition of 
 their surrendering the dominions which they had 
 inherited ; and it is therefore not surprising that 
 they displayed no enthusiasm in accepting the im- 
 practicable task so vaguely suggested to them. It 
 was Thomas James's mission from the English 
 Catholics to obtain some practical decision from 
 the King, instead of the hollow, sanctimonious 
 bombast with which for years they had been put 
 off, and to this end they submitted a list of sug- 
 gestions. The Archduke, they thought, should 
 make Ireland his base, and a large Spanish naval 
 force and arsenals should be established there ; ^ and 
 that the King should publicly and formally transfer 
 his rights to the English crown to the Archduke 
 and the Infanta. Money, too, must be sent to 
 Flanders, in order that Dr. Garnet, the Provincial 
 of the Jesuits in England, might carry on his work 
 of gaining political adherents. Twenty galleys and 
 thirty ships should be maintained in Flemish har- 
 bours, ready for use at the critical moment, and, 
 besides the troops who will go in them, they should 
 carry arms sufficient to equip 6000 or 7000 English- 
 men on their arrival. This force should be supple- 
 mented by forty other ships, standing ready in Spain 
 to convey a like number of men to England at the 
 same time. They (the English Catholics) were quite 
 confident of success if these measures were promptly 
 adopted, for the King of Scots was very unpopular, 
 and their friends in England were numerous. '* Even 
 
 1 It must be recollected that this was written before the capitulation 
 of Kinsale was known in Flandeis.
 
 MISSION OF THOMAS JAMES 481 
 
 the heretics in office in England are only anxious to 
 keep their places, and may easily be bought, and 
 they will then gradually gain others to our side." 
 
 But the Council could only report to the King in 
 reply to all this that he had not a ducat to spare. 
 The large sum which it had been decided to send to 
 Flanders for the purpose two years before had never 
 been sent. " Indeed," they told Philip, " nothing- 
 whatever had been done, although the case was very 
 important." But they sadly confessed that now 
 much more than 200,000 ducats would be needed. 
 The army in Flanders should be reinforced and the 
 Spanish fleet mustered, ready for the pretended pro- 
 tection of Spain and Italy, but the Council knew 
 well that with an empty treasury all this was im- 
 possible. O'Donnell and the Irishmen were fretting 
 their hearts out for a tithe of the sum demanded by 
 the English Catholics, and even that could not be 
 provided. " If the money can be found for all this/' 
 the Council told Philip, " the blow can be struck at 
 the right moment, and in force sufficient ; but if not, 
 the Council can only repeat what it has already said 
 when the affair of Scotland was under discussion." ^ 
 
 At the same time the notorious George Ker, who, 
 it will be recollected, had formerly served the King 
 of Scots as a Catholic emissary, came to Madrid — 
 apparently on his own account this time, and as a 
 matter of business — to urge Philip to persevere in 
 helping Tyrone (whose defeat was now known) by 
 means of a large employment of Scottish ships and 
 men, and by the purchase, through Ker, of course. 
 
 1 That is to say, to conciliate the interests which they could not suc- 
 cessfully oppose, and make the best terms possible with James. 
 
 2 H
 
 482 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 of a number of armed vessels, to hold the Irish 
 coast for the Spaniards. Nothing, however, came 
 of this either ; for it all meant money, and of 
 money there was none to spare under such a king 
 as Philip III., and such a Minister as the Duke of 
 Lerma. 
 
 But still, the constant advices received from 
 England of the failing health of the Queen made 
 it necessary that some move should be devised, 
 unless the worst possible solution for Spain was 
 to be adopted on the death of Elizabeth, without an 
 attempt to prevent it. In November (1602), accord- 
 ingly, Father Creswell once more urged upon Philip 
 to take up the matter actively. Galleys and troops, 
 he said, should be mustered in Flanders, to hasten 
 to England the moment the Queen should die ; the 
 Spanish fleet should be kept ready to sail ; foreign 
 ships should be freighted : all the old counsels of 
 activity and expenditure were repeated, for the 
 claimants were many, said Creswell, and Spanish 
 aid at the right moment would turn the scale. 
 When this minute of Father Creswell's came for 
 examination before the Council of State, utter 
 helplessness dictated their report upon it. " Father 
 Creswell should be thanked for reminding your 
 Majesty of the papers he sent last year ; but it is 
 difficult to know what to say about them, as they 
 recommend the taking up of the Englisli enterprise ; 
 and things are here in such a condition as to make 
 this impossible." This was on the 5th December 
 1602 (N.S.), and up to this time it is evident that 
 nothing whatever had been done to comply with the 
 petitions of the English Catholics, or to promote
 
 SPANISH POLICY CHANGED 483 
 
 effectually a large party in England pledged to 
 support Spanish Jesuit aims. 
 
 Spaniards had been too proud to confess it, but 
 it was now quite clear that the aims themselves, 
 so far as they depended upon forcing the Infanta 
 upon England as Elizabeth's successor, were abso- 
 lutely impracticable and impossible. In any case, 
 only by means of overwhelming force or popular 
 consent could such a course have been feasible. 
 That Spain could no longer wield such a force was 
 demonstrated, and that the general feeling even 
 of Catholics in England was violently opposed to 
 a Spanish sovereign and to Jesuit methods, was 
 proved by a hundred signs ; and more than all else, 
 by the bitter antagonism of the English secular 
 priests, and by the wholesale desertion to other 
 orders of the Church of the English students in 
 seminaries controlled by Jesuits. But it needed a 
 bold man to tell the truth to Philip, and to propose 
 means for making the best of matters as they were. 
 The bold man was found in Guzman, that haughty, 
 rough-tongued Count of Olivares, who had lectured 
 and bullied Pontiffs for years as Spanish ambassador 
 in Rome. What was the good, he asked, of talk- 
 ing any longer of the Archduke and the Infanta? 
 Neither of them cared for the candidature : the 
 King had no money or resources sufficient to force 
 the Infanta on the English throne against the will 
 of the nation ; nor would it be to his interest to do 
 so, even if he could. Why not face the facts at once, 
 and promise support to the most popular English 
 Catholic claimant, and thus, at all events, keep out 
 the King of Scots, who would otherwise walk into
 
 484 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 the succession without an effort ? This was very 
 un-Spanish in its practical directness, and it took 
 tlie King and the Council of State two months 
 before they sufficiently recovered from the shock to 
 discuss and decide upon the matter finally for the 
 King's guidance. 
 
 On the 5th February and the 2nd March 1603 
 (N.S.), accordingly, the whole matter of Spain's policy 
 towards the English succession was passed under 
 review in the light of this new idea. The English 
 ('atholics, for whom Persons and Creswell spoke, 
 had in the interim again urged, through the latter, 
 that Philip should either make effective preparations 
 for action on the Queen's death, or else relieve them 
 of their pledges to support the Infanta or any other 
 Spanish nominee. If they knew that they had to 
 depend only upon themselves, they might take some 
 course advantageous to their cause ; but if they were 
 kept in suspense until a vacancy occurred, they were 
 certain that the King of Scotland would succeed. 
 They rather indignantly pointed out that, after all 
 their years of devotion to Spain, they and their cause 
 were likely to be ruined by the fault of the Catholic 
 King. In addition to this, Zuniga, the ambassador, 
 had been told by Henry IV., that if Philip would 
 agree with him to nominate a neutral King of Eng- 
 land, he would support him, but if Spain endea- 
 voured to foist the Infanta, or any other avowedly 
 Spanish candidate upon the throne, he (Henry IV.) 
 would throw in his weight on the side of the King 
 of Scots. The problem was thus complicated : 
 Henry must be excluded, but yet prevented from 
 helping James. All this made it necessary to discuss
 
 SPAIN FACES THE FACTS 485 
 
 again the whole of the candidates proposed three 
 years before by the English Jesuit Catholics through 
 Father Persons. The Infanta was ruled out, for the 
 reasons already stated, and the Dukes of Savoy and 
 Parma were dropped, because they were foreigners 
 connected with Spain, and would be opposed by 
 France. The only candidate, therefore, remaining 
 on the list presented by Persons in 1600 was the 
 son of the Earl of Worcester (Henry Somerset, Lord 
 Herbert), but no specific reference to him was made 
 in the new discussion. 
 
 It was considered by the Council the absolute 
 duty of the King to bring England, if possible, into 
 the Catholic fold ; and with this end the Catholics 
 of England were to be given to understand that he 
 had no temporal interest of his own to serve ; no 
 desire to control England or promote his own house. 
 They (the English Catholics) had formerly prayed 
 him to adopt the Infanta, and he had done so ; but 
 if there were any other Catholic candidate of their 
 own nation who would be more likely to unite the 
 country, the King of Spain would cede his own 
 rights to him and help him with might and main. 
 He (the King), for his part, will immediately make 
 ready for the eventuality, and urges the Catholics 
 to choose their candidate, but not to announce his 
 name prematurely. In the meanwhile, the Council 
 prayed the King to have ships fitted out with all 
 speed in Spain, a large sum of money sent to 
 Flanders, and means devised for raising money in 
 the abundance required. Count de Miranda here 
 put in a word of reason. He thought they had 
 better see first whether they could raise any money.
 
 486 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 and in the meanwhile avoid offending the Kin^ 
 of Scots by taking sides against him, until they 
 knew they could crush him. But Poza said it would 
 be better to have any heretic there rather than 
 James ; and again Olivares came down with his cool 
 (louche of common sense. He had always insisted, 
 he said, that the greatness of the empire did not 
 consist of a further extension of territory, and to 
 help an English candidate for the throne was the 
 only way to exclude James. As for listening to the 
 canting professions of the latter of his readiness to 
 become a Catholic and surrender his son in return 
 for the payment of a sum of money and the support 
 of Spain, he did not believe a word of it, nor of 
 the talk of the Italian and French priests about the 
 King of Scots' conversion. But still, he would not 
 quite shut the door even against James, in case of 
 unavoidable eventualities. 
 
 The great thing now was that no time should be 
 lost in assuring the English Catholics of effective 
 support for the Catholic candidate of their choice ; 
 their hatred of the Scots should be fomented ; very 
 liberal promises of reward should be given to all 
 prominent Catholics and heretics, " almost without 
 distinction," and the various other claimants and 
 their principal supporters should have given to 
 them " estates, incomes, offices, grants, privileges, 
 and exemptions ; almost, indeed, sharing the crown 
 amongst them." Olivares recommended, too, that 
 the anti-foreign cry should be promoted as much as 
 possible in England ; whilst the people should be 
 persuaded that the mighty King of Spain was 
 behind the chosen English candidate, not for his
 
 NEW SPANISH PLANS 487 
 
 own ends, but in order that England might be 
 happy, and prosperously governed by a native King 
 of her own free choice. If possible, moreover, the 
 Queen's Ministers were to be reconciled to the 
 Catholics, and peace negotiations with them again 
 initiated by Spain. The Pope, and through him the 
 King of France, as well as the English themselves, 
 were to be greatly impressed with the splendid 
 magnanimity of Philip in surrendering his paramount 
 claims to the English crown for the sake of the 
 Catholic Church and the tranquillity of England. 
 
 All these points were discussed ad nauseam, the 
 object mainly being to save appearances, and to con- 
 vince the world that the change of front was made 
 from generosity, and not from want of power ; and 
 the Pope especially was to be made an instrument 
 for spreading this view of the subject and for dis- 
 arming the King of France. At the same time it 
 was made clear that Spain still intended, if she 
 could, by religious chicanery to monopolise power in 
 England. The troops in Flanders were to be landed 
 in the Thames, or at any other point requested by 
 the chosen candidate ; the Spanish ships were to 
 land another force in the north-west of England, as 
 near to the Scottish border as possible. The King- 
 elect would take care that the English fleet would 
 be no longer dangerous to the Spanish ships ; and 
 Olivares thought that when the question of the 
 gratitude of the new King towards Spain came to be 
 discussed, there would be no difficulty in obtaining 
 the cession of the Isle of Wight. On no account 
 should an English port on the mainland be accepted 
 by Spain, even if offered, to avoid offending France
 
 488 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 or arousing English suspicion ; and if Henry IV. 
 was very much discontented about Spain getting the 
 Isle of Wight, he might have the Channel Islands 
 to keep him quiet. The whole business was to be 
 cautiously disclosed to Persons first, and to Cres- 
 well^ after arrangements had been made with the 
 Pope ; and when the time for action came, Father 
 Persons was to hurry from Rome to Flanders and 
 cross to England as cardinal with full power. 
 
 This was the plan finally adopted by Spain for 
 making England Catholic, and some activity really 
 seems to have been exercised in obtaining the money 
 necessary for the purpose ; but before the English 
 Catholics themselves could be fully enlightened, it 
 was considered necessary for Persons and Sessa to 
 make sure of the Pope, and through him of the 
 King of France. Father Creswell, in the mean- 
 while, was chafing with impatience. His principals 
 in England were sending him constant news of the 
 growing weakness of the Queen and the impatience 
 of the Catholics who looked to Spain. Creswell in 
 the months of February and March haunted Lerma's 
 ante-chambers, and prayed personally and by letter 
 for a resolution that he might transmit to England. 
 If he did not get one at once, he said, he would 
 wash his hands of the whole business, and tell the 
 English Catholics that they must take their own 
 course, for he had lost hope. A person upon whom 
 entire dependence could be placed, Federico Spinola, 
 or another, would have to be appointed in Flanders 
 
 ' It was decided that Creswell should be told at once if news came 
 that Elizabeth was like to die. This was the case, aiid Creswell was 
 told in March.
 
 FINAL ARRANGEMENTS 489 
 
 to make the final arrangements with the leading 
 Catholics in England, and to act when the moment 
 came ; the self-denying, soft-spoken proclamation to 
 be published in England when the Spanish troops 
 landed must be printed and sent to Flanders to be 
 ready ; and, above all, urged Creswell, the one hun- 
 dred thousand ducats which had been promised for 
 transmission to the English Catholics should at once 
 be obtained from Ambrosio Spinola, who had agreed 
 to lend it. " Otherwise," says Creswell, " 1 must 
 have permission to undeceive the persons to whom 
 the promise was made. They have spent, and are 
 spending, money on the public service, trusting to 
 the pledge given to their messenger (Thomas James ?) 
 by the Count de Miranda at San Lorenzo, and the 
 delay in the matter looks very bad. They are, more- 
 over, persons of so much importance that the whole 
 success of the affair depends upon keeping them : 
 and this can only be done by straightforward and 
 punctual dealing." ^ 
 
 It is plain from this that Creswell had now — the 
 middle of March 1603 (N.S.) — been informed of the 
 whole plan, and was hurriedly making the arrange- 
 ments for at least the remittance to Flanders of the 
 money to be used in gaining English support ; and 
 as this money had been promised by Ambrosio 
 Spinola on loan, it may be concluded that it was 
 duly forwarded before Elizabeth's death was known 
 in Spain, although it cannot have arrived in Flan- 
 ders until after the event. 
 
 At the same time as these deliberations were pro- 
 
 ^ All the papers referred to above are in the Simancas MSS., and 
 are printed in the Spanish Calendar, vol. iv.
 
 490 TREASON ANP PLOT 
 
 ceeding, one more effort was made by the Scottish 
 Catholics to revive the plan suggested by Bothwell 
 in the previous year, to restore Catholicism in Scot- 
 land by means of Spanish troops. The Scottish lords 
 sent Fernihurst (Andrew Ker) to Madrid with pro- 
 posals to this end in March 1603. He, Colonel 
 Semple, and Bothwell were urgent and persistent in 
 their prayers to Philip, and the oifers they made 
 would perhaps, at another time, have been tempt- 
 ing. They would establish the faith in Scotland, re- 
 inforce Ireland with troops and stores, and trouble 
 the Queen of England from the west coast of Scot- 
 land. They would surrender to the King of Spain 
 the four great fortresses of Scotland, Dumbarton, 
 Broughty, Blackness, and Hermitage, and in the 
 event of war between Spain and England, would 
 provide a mercenary army of 26,000 Scotsmen to 
 help the Spaniards. All they asked in return was 
 that a force of 4000 Spaniards should be sent to 
 Scotland at the cost of Spain ; and they promised for 
 repayment that, on the restoration of the Catholic 
 faith, a third of the ecclesiastical revenues of the 
 country should be set apart until the whole of the 
 cost was reimbursed to the Spanish King. Bothwell 
 tried hard also to make terms for his own reconcilia- 
 tion with James as part of the arrangement, but the 
 Spaniards declined to have anything to do with that ; 
 and as the whole proposal was, like all previous ones 
 from the same quarter, open to the suspicion that 
 in the end the King of Scots alone might benefit 
 by it, the Spanish King and Council discussed it 
 unsympathetically, until the great news of James's 
 peaceful accession to England rendered it obsolete.
 
 CECIL'S ATTITUDE 491 
 
 Whilst the fate of England was thus being dis- 
 cussed and decided in leisurely fashion in Spain, 
 matters in England itself were rapidly nearing the 
 crisis. The secret of Sir Robert Cecil's close under- 
 standing with James had been well kept even from 
 the most intimate friends of the former,^ There 
 were plenty of courtiers besides Cecil who sought 
 the smiles of the rising sun, and their private 
 advice to the coming King was duly conveyed by 
 the latter to Cecil. It was natural, of course, that 
 I'ilizabeth's oflficers and ministers should look with 
 some anxiety to the future. The Queen was old 
 and ailing, a disputed succession would inevitably 
 mean civil war, and probably foreign invasion, and 
 yet, so far as could be seen, the man who was of all 
 others most responsible for the prosperity and order 
 of the country was detached from every interest in 
 tlie matter and free from anxiety for the future. 
 His own political associates looked to him for a lead 
 but did not get it. They knew that the traditional 
 policy he had inherited was to keep Scotland and 
 France at arm's length by a friendship of England 
 with Flanders and Spain ; they saw that the talk 
 of peace with these powers always found a ready 
 listener in Cecil, and that practically peace now 
 existed between the new sovereigns of Flanders and 
 the Queen. Surely, thought those members of the 
 " Moderate " party who had always followed Lord 
 Burghley and his son, ** Mr. Secretary " will not 
 
 1 Cecil was in such fear tliat the correspondence mi^ht be discovered 
 that on one occasion he prayed James not to write to him direct, but 
 only through Lord Henry Howard. James, however, still continued 
 to send some of his letters to Cecil.
 
 492 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 stand helplessly by and see his own ruin consum- 
 mated by the unchecked accession of a King whose 
 national policy had always been that of Cecil's 
 enemies. Ralegh, his old friend, Cobham, his 
 brother-in-law, and others like them, tried to draw 
 from him some expression of his sympathies and 
 intentions, and that he purposely deceived them is 
 seen by his own ungenerous words written to James 
 on the subject : "This I do profess in the presence 
 of Him that knoweth and searcheth all men's harts, 
 that if I dyd not some tyme cast a stone into the 
 mouth of these gaping crabbs, when they are iu 
 their prodigal humour of discourses, they would not 
 stick to confess dayly how contrary it is to their 
 nature to resolve to be under your sovereignty, 
 though they confess (Ralegh especially) that [rebus 
 sic sta7itihus) natural policy forceth them to keep 
 on foot such a trade against the great day of mart. 
 In all which light and sudden humours of his, 
 though I do no way check him, because he shall 
 not think I reject his freedom or his affection, but 
 alwaies {sub sigillis confessionis) use contestation 
 with him that I neyther had, nor would ever in 
 individuo contemplate future idea, nor ever hoped 
 for more than justice in time of change, yet under 
 pretext of extraordinary care for his well doing I 
 have seemed to dissuade him from engaging himself 
 too farr even for himself, much more therefore to 
 forbeare to assume for me or my present inten- 
 tions." ^ Such talk as this from Cecil to Ralegh 
 under the circumstances the latter must have known 
 
 ^ Letters of James VI. and Sir Robert Cecil. Hatfield (published 
 by the Camden Society).
 
 BETRAYAL OF THE MODERATES 493 
 
 to be insincere. It was evidently intended to pre- 
 vent an approach of Ralegh to James, and to 
 encourage him to proceed w^ith any plans he might 
 have for arranging the succession on the traditional 
 lines of the party to which both he and Cecil be- 
 longed. That this was the case is seen by Cecil's 
 anger, expressed in his letter to the King that the 
 Duke of Lennox, who had recently passed through 
 London, should have approached Ralegh and others 
 of the Cecil party with the object of gaining them 
 to the King's side.^ A more startling proof still is 
 seen in the dastardly letter from Lord Henry Howard 
 to Cecil,^ suggesting how Ralegh, Northumberland, 
 Cobham, and others of the party should be led 
 astray and ruined, both in the eyes of Elizabeth 
 and of James. " So must you embark this gallant 
 Cobham by your wit and interest in some course 
 the Spanish waie, as either may reveale his weak- 
 ness or snare his ambition. ... Be not unwilling 
 ... to engage him in the traffic with suspected 
 ministers, and upon the first occasion of further 
 treaty (with Spain) to make him the Minister. For 
 my part, I account it impossible for him to scape the 
 snares which wit may set and weakness is apt to fall 
 into." By this it is evident that it was the delibe- 
 rate plan of Cecil and his ame damnee, Howard, to 
 use Cobham and Ralegh especially as their uncon- 
 scious instruments. To tempt them by half hints, 
 opportunity, and significant glances to enter into any 
 negotiation tending against the candidature of the 
 
 1 Letters of James VI. and Sir Robert Cecil. Hatfield (published 
 by the Camden Society). 
 ^ British Museum MSS., Cotton. Titus, cvi. 386.
 
 494 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 King of Scots, with the double object of allowing 
 Cecil to keep in touch with and frustrate any 
 intrigue that was afoot, and of ruining friends who 
 might possibly become rivals. 
 
 How far the Jesuit intrigues for the succession 
 really extended in England it is now extremely diffi- 
 cult to decide. We have seen by the deliberations 
 of the Spanish Council and by Father Creswell's 
 importunities that no decided action was taken or 
 any large sums of money sent from Spain to the 
 English Catholics in Flanders, at least until within 
 a week or ten days before Elizabeth's death, and it 
 was not possible for the 100,000 ducats promised to 
 have reached Brussels in time for employment before 
 that event. But we have also Creswell's word for it 
 that his principals were already spending consider- 
 able sums of money by anticipation, and it may be 
 concluded that the English Catholics of the Jesuit 
 party were acquainted with the probable intention 
 of Spain to help any acceptable native Catholic 
 chosen by them in place of the Infanta, as their 
 candidate for the English throne, before the discus- 
 sion in the Spanish Council of the ^^e^r^ary ^^^3- 
 This being the case, we shall be safe in assuming 
 that any movement at about this period amongst 
 Catholics and others in England to promote the 
 accession of a native-born candidate as opposed to 
 the Scotsman, was connected more or less directly 
 with the series of deliberations in Spain and Flan- 
 ders, which have been described in the preceding 
 pages. 
 
 The only English candidate mentioned in the
 
 THE ENGLISH CANDIDATES 495 
 
 petition of the English Catholics to the Spanish 
 King upon which the deliberations referred to were 
 based was the Earl of Worcester ; but in the inter- 
 minable discussions in the Council, neither his name 
 nor any other was adopted, in order, apparently, 
 that the choice of the English themselves should 
 seem to be quite spontaneous. It is, however, im- 
 probable that matters had gone so far as for Spain 
 to promise powerful armed and pecuniary aid with- 
 out some general understanding as to the person 
 likely to be selected. It is to be noticed that in the 
 course of the discussions in the Council the person 
 to be chosen is always referred to in the masculine 
 gender, and when the question was considered what 
 reply should be given to the English if they sug- 
 gested, "as they had done before," a marriage be- 
 tween the English sovereign of their choice and a 
 member of the King of Spain's family, it was agreed 
 that "inasmuch as France would be just as jealous 
 that the Queen (Consort) of England should be of 
 your Majesty's kin as if the King were, and as such 
 a marriage would additionally pledge your Majesty's 
 prestige in the success of the undertaking, and it 
 might be advantageous to the Catholics to have the 
 disposal of both positions, and thus enable them 
 to reconcile difficulties and silence discontents, the 
 Council is of opinion that your Majesty should reply 
 that . . . you think best to leave them absolute 
 freedom of action in this particular." 
 
 It will be seen by this that the Spanish Council, 
 at all events, anticipated the choice of a man and 
 a bachelor. Whom could they have had in their 
 minds ? The young Earl of Worcester had already
 
 496 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 been married three years, and from his character 
 and subsequent action it would appear extremely 
 improbable that he was the person now thought of. 
 The Earl of Derby was not likely to be approached 
 after his reception of previous advances — though his 
 sister had been mentioned more than once — nor was 
 the Earl of Cumberland, who was an avowed Puritan 
 and also extremely unpopular with the Spaniards for 
 his depredations upon their shipping. The Earl of 
 Huntington, the representative of the Poles, was 
 also a Puritan, and certainly had no connection with 
 the Catholics. There only remained, therefore, Ara- 
 bella Stuart and the descendants of Catherine Grey, 
 and it is quite possible that this may lead us to the 
 threshold of the mystery which has always sur- 
 rounded the doings of these personages at the 
 period, behaviour so extraordinary in the case of 
 xirabella as to lead those who knew her to conclude 
 that she was mad. 
 
 Some of the gossip of the English Jesuit party, 
 with regard to the selection of a candidate to take 
 the place of the Infanta, and pointing to Arabella 
 Stuart, must have reached the ears of James as early 
 as 1601 ; for writing to his secret agent. Lord Henry 
 Howard, in that year, he deplores " this accident 
 fallen to Arbell," and expresses a hope that for " her 
 own weal such order were taken as she might be 
 preserved from evil company, and that evil-inclined 
 persons might not have access unto her, to supplant, 
 abusing of the frailty of her youth and sex ; for if it 
 be true, as I am credibly informed, that she is lately 
 moved by the persuasions of the Jesuits to change 
 her religion and declare herself a Catholic . . . she
 
 ARABELLA STUART 497 
 
 hath been very evil attended on." That she had 
 been sounded by the party with this end is certain, 
 for we have already seen that in the confidential 
 accounts given by the English Jesuits to the Spanish 
 King she is distinctly called a Catholic ; but from 
 the absence of any specific mention of her in the 
 subsequent Spanish discussions, and from the assump- 
 tion throughout that the candidate was to be a man, 
 it is clear that she had not openly avowed herself 
 a Catholic, and was not at this time the principal 
 person in the minds of the anti-Scottish Catholics as 
 their candidate for the throne. The correspondence 
 of the Jesuit Father Rivers in England with Father 
 Persons in Rome ^ in the following year confirms 
 this, as he mentions her (March 1602) in connection 
 with a supposed plan of a party in England to place 
 her upon the throne by French aid. Although there 
 was no truth in this rumour, its transmission from 
 one influential Jesuit to another shows that Arabella, 
 at this period at least, was not the principal candidate 
 of their party. A few months later (July 1602) 
 Father Rivers informed Persons that he hears of an 
 intention of marrying Arabella to the Earl of Hert- 
 ford's second son, " and to carry the succession that 
 way ; but these supra nos nihil ad nos." This seems 
 to form the first clue to what I conceive was the plan 
 of the anti-Scottish Catholics in union with Spain. 
 
 Matters had not been going smoothly for some 
 time at Hardwick Hall. Arabella was fretting and 
 chafing at what she considered the undeserved semi- 
 imprisonment in which she was kept by her grand- 
 mother. She was disappointed at the way in which 
 
 1 Foley Papers. 
 
 2 I
 
 498 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 she had been treated by the Queen, sometimes 
 flattered with the idea that she was regarded as her 
 successor, and sometimes exposed to humiliation if 
 any of the courtiers dared to look towards her. She 
 had incurred the Queen's displeasure, amongst other 
 things, by some sort of flirtation with Essex, and 
 now that she was buried at Hardwick, she, and 
 those around her, were treated with ever-increasing 
 suspicion. She was, on the other hand, as amorous, 
 and probably as ambitious, as Elizabeth herself had 
 been at a similar age, and evidently endeavoured to 
 imitate the behaviour of Elizabeth before her acces- 
 sion. Both her Cavendish and her Talbot uncles 
 sympathised with her ; and her aunt, the Countess of 
 Shrewsbury, her greatest friend and a Catholic, was un- 
 questionably in communication with the Jesuit party. 
 Negotiations of some sort were in progress between 
 Arabella and these relatives of hers in 1602, and 
 during the summer of that year she endeavoured to 
 plan a flight from Hardwick by the aid of a chaplain 
 and tutor named Starkey, whose mysterious pro- 
 ceedings with her and his subsequent suicide gave 
 rise to an infinity of gossip and questionable scandal. 
 At some period early in that summer a suggestion 
 had been made, circuitously and secretly, by the 
 Earl of Hertford, or his son Lord Beauchamp, for a 
 marriage between Arabella and one of the two sons 
 of the latter. On the face of it the suggestion was 
 absurd, as the two boys in question were then only 
 sixteen and fourteen years old respectively, whilst 
 Arabella was twenty-seven. When the idea was 
 broached to the old Countess of Shrewsbury she was 
 in great alarm, and forbade all further mention of
 
 ARABELLA AND THE SEYMOURS 499 
 
 such a project ; but late in December of the same 
 year, 1602, Arabella, either because she now better 
 understood the significance of such a match, or 
 simply, as she pretended afterwards, to enable her to 
 get out of the clutches of her grandmother, renewed 
 the negotiation on her own account with the con- 
 nivance of her uncles. With much difficulty, for 
 every one was in mortal fear of the old Countess, she 
 managed to induce a servant, one Dodderidge, to 
 carry to the Earl of Hertford a letter of credence 
 from her, and a verbal message to the effect that if 
 he still wished for the marriage formerly proposed 
 between his eldest grandson and herself he should 
 renew the negotiation in another way and not 
 through the old Countess. She suggested also that 
 the boy suitor should be sent in disguise to Hard- 
 wick, in order that she might see him ; and her 
 Cavendish uncles were mentioned as approving of 
 the step she was taking. 
 
 The messenger arrived at Tottenham Park on the 
 30th December 1602, and with some trouble obtained 
 access to the Earl, who was at dinner. Kneeling, he 
 delivered his message out of earshot of the other 
 persons in the room ; but before the words were well 
 out of his mouth, Hertford, in great perturbation, 
 bade him be silent, and, placing the hapless mes- 
 senger under lock and key, he sent post-haste to 
 reveal the whole matter to the Council, and to beg 
 for orders as to what course he should take. At 
 first sight, this action of Hertford's was inexpli- 
 cable if he had, as was apparently the case, previously 
 made the same proposal secretly himself; and we 
 are driven to seek an explanation of his inconsistency
 
 500 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 in any change of the circumstances that had taken 
 place in the interim. His own venture in that field 
 had probably rendered Hertford somewhat shy of 
 dynastic marriages; he could have nothing personally 
 to gain by plunging himself and his family into re- 
 volutionary action unless with a certainty of success, 
 and it is most likely that the initiative had in the 
 first place come rather from his son, Lord Beauchamp, 
 than from Hertford himself. He must have seen, 
 moreover, how rapidly James's chances had advanced 
 during the course of the year, and what looked 
 possible when the proposal was first made might 
 look impossible later. But all this, though it may 
 explain Hertford's inconsistency, does not explain 
 the subsequent proceedings of Ai-abella and Lord 
 Beauchamp. 
 
 In any case, Hertford's message caused an immense 
 sensation at court, and the air was full of strange 
 rumours and conjectures. The Queen was in a 
 towering rage.^ Hertford himself was summoned to 
 explain personally ; the messenger was brought to 
 London and examined again and again, though he 
 had nothing fresh to tell ; and Sir Henry Brounker 
 was sent down to Hardwick to examine Arabella 
 herself. He found her flighty, fractious, and hys- 
 terical, contradicting herself repeatedly, writing in- 
 terminable letters so obscure that no one then or 
 since could fathom their meaning. Full of hints at 
 one time of some mysterious love affair, talking of 
 "my little little love," and bewailing that she, a 
 grown woman, could not have a sweetheart like any- 
 
 ' The Venetian ambassador in London says that the chagiin 
 shortened her life.
 
 ARABELLA'S BEHAVIOUR 501 
 
 body else ; and then suddenly declaring that the 
 man to whom she is attached is — of all persons — her 
 cousin, the King of Scots. At the beginning of 
 February her confidant, Starkey, hanged himself in 
 London, and this set afloat another swarm of 
 rumours. At one time (February 21) Arabella de- 
 termined to get out of her grandmother's clutches 
 somehow, and resolutely refused to eat or drink 
 under her roof. The old lady herself was extremely 
 unwise, exaggerating and treating with undue 
 seriousness Arabella's "tantrums," and Sir Henry 
 Brounker was kept continually running backwards 
 and forwards for two months, trying ineffectually to 
 discover what it all meant. On the 2nd March 
 Arabella wrote a letter to Brounker, asserting that 
 she was " free from all promise, contract, or inten- 
 tion to marry," and declared that she would never 
 do so, as she preferred death to matrimony. She 
 complained that her "conceits" were taken seriously, 
 and, at another time, confessed to Brounker that 
 what she said was only for the purpose of mystifying 
 him. To the Queen she wrote long, incoherent 
 letters, praying that she might tell her the great 
 secret personally, and said that two lines from the 
 Queen's own hand would gain more from her than 
 all the councillors could. ^ 
 
 I The correspondence and examinations are at Hatfield, and have, to 
 a great extent, been printed in Miss E. T. Bradley's "Life of Arabella 
 Stuart." One important letter is in Edward's "Life and Letters of 
 Ralpgh," in which Arabella hints that those who are abetting her are 
 abroad. " I can assure you that all that are of my counsell are out of 
 all possibility of danger and out of your reach. Neither doth her 
 Majesty's commandment prevail so far, though her fame and entreaty 
 be everywhere glorious and powerful. And for myself, I will rather 
 spit my tongue in my examiner or torturer's face than it shall be said 
 . . . that an extorted truth came out of my lips."
 
 502 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 As the Queen's death became daily more immi- 
 nent the plot thickened. Both Beaumont, the French 
 ambassador, and Father Rivers mentioned early in 
 March that the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury 
 were " very inward " with Secretary Cecil, with whom 
 they had constant secret meetings ; and rumours of 
 the wildest character were rife about the proceedings 
 of Arabella, Father Eivers repeating a strange rumour 
 that Cecil was going to marry her himself and raise 
 her to the throne. We can understand now better 
 than his contemporaries why Cecil was so friendly 
 and confidential with the Catholic Shrewsburys, in 
 whose plans for their niece he was probably pre- 
 tending to be a consenting party until the moment 
 came for action. On March lo Henry Cavendish 
 and a Catholic gentleman named Stapleton — a rela- 
 tive, be it noted, of the most influential English 
 Catholic ecclesiastic in Flanders — mustered a squad- 
 ron of forty horsemen in the neighbourhood of Hard- 
 wick Hall. The leaders, one of whom had a lady's 
 pillion upon his horse, awaited, according to agree- 
 ment with Arabella, at the church of Hucknall, 
 about half a mile from Hardwick, But the redoubt- 
 able old Bess, secretly forewarned, no doubt, by Cecil, 
 caused her granddaughter to be prevented from leav- 
 ing the domain. Finding that she came not, Henry 
 Cavendish and his friends rode up to his mother's 
 gates and demanded to see his niece. The old 
 Countess admitted her " bad son," as she called him, 
 but warned the Papist, Stapleton, away. Henry 
 Cavendish endeavoured to convey his niece outside 
 to his horsemen, but the Countess had assembled her 
 household and tenants, and a stormy scene ensued,
 
 ARABELLA'S FLIGHT PREVENTED 503 
 
 in which Arabella indignantly demanded if she was a 
 prisoner, and conversed through the closed gates with 
 Stapleton, with whom she arranged a meeting for 
 the following day. But by this time the alarm had 
 spread, the Countess declaimed and protested ui^hi 
 et orbi, and Stapleton sought safety in flight, whilst 
 Cavendish was summoned by the Council to I^ondon, 
 and Arabella was carried oft" to Wrest House, where, 
 under the guardianship of the Earl of Kent, all hope 
 of her escape was gone. Simultaneously with this 
 attempt to abduct Arabella, Lord Beauchamp, who had 
 recently become a widower, and was, it is said, be- 
 trothed to her, also disappeared,^ and it is impossible 
 not to see a connection between the two facts. 
 
 From a consideration of all these circumstances it 
 would appear probable that, although Hertford him- 
 self was a Protestantj as befitted a son of the Pro- 
 tector Somerset, Lord Beauchamp, the direct heir to 
 the crown under the will of Henry Vni., was ready 
 to accept Spanish and Catholic aid to raise him to the 
 throne, and that, at a period subsequent to the 
 autumn of 1602, the Jesuit party conceived the plan 
 of conciliating Arabella's friends and consolidating 
 the Catholic forces by a union between the two 
 claimants. The plan, if it existed, was a clever one, 
 for the Grey-Seymour succession would not fail to 
 please the Protestant party, whilst the anti-Scottish 
 Catholics, of course, would have rejoiced at the ex- 
 clusion of James and the accession of monarchs 
 under the patronage of Spain. But it is evident 
 
 1 Venetian Calendar, Scaramelli to the Doge, March 20, 1 603. It 
 will be recollected that years before this we have seen Beauchamp on the 
 point of escaping to Spain.
 
 504 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 that Cecil had his hand on the intrigue. His " in- 
 wardness" with the Shrewsburys gave him all the 
 information he needed about the plans of Arabella's 
 friends, and doubtless Hertford's panic when he 
 received Arabella's message was owing to a warn- 
 ing that Cecil had been made acquainted by the 
 old Countess, and disapproved of, the former matri- 
 monial proposal to Arabella ; as well as to the con- 
 viction that James's accession had now become 
 inevitable. These feelings may not have been 
 shared by his son, who was more adventurous 
 and more directly interested than Hertford him- 
 self, and the balance of probability seems to incline 
 to the conclusion that Beauchamp and Arabella 
 were the persons indicated as the candidates of 
 the Spanish Catholic party to succeed to Elizabeth 
 by the aid of the ships, troops, and money of 
 King Philip. 
 
 But the plot failed even before it reached maturity, 
 first, from the vigilance and secrecy of Cecil, which 
 enabled him to tranquillise James and make every 
 preparation for his peaceful accession, whilst remain- 
 ing himself, to all appearance, so entirely detached 
 as to invite the confidence of his own partisans; and, 
 secondly, from the procrastination and unreadiness 
 of the Spanish King and his Ministers ; who, as we 
 have seen, were prosily deliberating and laying down 
 a course of action that would take months to de- 
 velop, whilst Elizabeth had but a few days to live. 
 England was thus kept peacefully Protestant at the 
 critical moment by the craft of Cecil and the sloth of 
 Spain. 
 
 As the hour approached for which James had so
 
 ACCESSION OF JAMES 505 
 
 long and impatiently yearned ; the hour when he might 
 mount the "towardly rydding horse of St. George," in- 
 stead, as he said, of " daily burstin in daunting a 
 wylde, unreulie coalte," men of all parties in England 
 understood that nothing was likely to stand in the 
 way of his accession. On March 17 Northumber- 
 land wrote to him saying that the Queen had been 
 "evil now almoaste a month." The fact had been 
 kept secret for twelve days and the indisposition was 
 ascribed to Elizabeth's anger at the conditions granted 
 to Tyrone, to Arabella's strange vagaries, and to the 
 Countess of Nottingham's death ; but at length the 
 truth had to be told. The Queen ate and slept but 
 very little and the " phisitions conclud that if this 
 contineu she must needes fall into a distemper, not a 
 frensie, but rather a dulnesse and a lethargic." The 
 Venetian envoy in London, writing on the same day 
 (March 17), says that on the anniversary of Essex's 
 death a few days before, "the Queen had burst into 
 tears and dolorous lamentations, as though for some 
 deadly sin she had committed, and then fell ill of a 
 sickness, which the doctors instantly judged to be 
 mortal." 
 
 As the great Queen lay dying at liichmond all 
 things were made ready. Eight fine galleons, fully 
 armed, and with 500 troops on board of each one, 
 lay in the Thames ; the City of London was secured ; 
 Cecil's brother, Burghley, commanded in the north ; 
 the doubtful recusants throughout the country were 
 cast into prison/ and the draft proclamation to 
 
 • Bruce writes (for King James) to Lord Henry Howard (for Cecil): 
 "The means are most politique and wise by which yow have dispersed 
 the clowd of ane apparent Popish uprore, and it is a very safe and singu- 
 larly good rewle rather to prevent than to be prevented; but we did so
 
 5o6 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 be issued by the new King was sent for his approval 
 by Cecil/ " This accident," wrote Northumberland 
 to the King in reference to the Queen's illness, 
 "made all the nation looke about them. Men talke 
 freely of your Majestie's rights, and all in general 
 gives you a great allowance. The affections of many 
 are discovered to be wholly devoted to your service. 
 Every one almost embraces you." The only thing 
 necessary now to stamp the seal of right upon the 
 claim of James was for the Queen at her last hour to 
 acknowledge him as her successor, and this requisite 
 was thoughtfully provided by Cecil to make his work 
 complete. Elizabeth lay speechless with her hand 
 in that of the Primate when Cecil and the Council 
 clustered around her couch. On the mention of the 
 King of Scots' name the Secretary asserted that the 
 dying sovereign gave a mute sign of assent. It was 
 enough, and almost before the Queen's last sigh was 
 breathed, Robert Cary was galloping along the north 
 road as hard as swift horses could speed bearing the 
 pregnant news to the new King. 
 
 We have seen that for years past, when it suited 
 him, James had professed his leaning towards Catho- 
 licism, and even since the friendship with Cecil had 
 rendered unnecessary his advances to the Pope and 
 Spain, he had certainly led Catholics of all sorts to 
 
 muche trust in your Industrie that if thay had gon on to do their worst 
 yow could have pulled such feathers from their wings as might have 
 made them come shorte of the great prey they hunted for " (Letters of 
 Cecil and James, Camden Society). 
 
 ^ " Music," wrote Bruce, " which soundeth so sweetly in his ears 
 that he cannot alter no note in so agreeable an harmony" (Ibid.). "It 
 sail not be amiss," wrote the same agent, " if yow temper the King's too 
 great haste in removing hence in case God sail call the Queen . . . for 
 now he burnes to be gone."
 
 JAMES AND THE CATHOLICS 507 
 
 expect at least toleration at his hands. The Catho- 
 lics, checkmated as they were, and unprepared 
 either with an organisation or the assurance of 
 foreign aid, could only hope for the best, and 
 hasten as they might to secure the smiles of the 
 monarch, from whom a large number of them had 
 reason to expect some sympathy.^ A bold voice 
 here and there, like that of Ralegh, dared to say a 
 word of remonstrance at the adulation with which 
 Englishmen were preparing to receive the King of a 
 nation which they had always been taught to look 
 upon with disdain — " to spoil a gude King," as one 
 of James's Scottish courtiers said ; but as a rule, 
 each man was thinking of his own future, and the 
 race to greet the King was not for the purpose of 
 imposing conditions upon him, but to encourage 
 him in his extremest ideas of the sacredness of the 
 royal prerogative. Even the Jesuit party, either in 
 hopelessness of help from Spain or in the real belief 
 that James would keep his word, welcomed the new 
 King ; and Father Garnet, the Provincial, burnt two 
 briefs of the Pope exhorting English Catholics to 
 allow no one to succeed to the throne who did not 
 promise at least toleration.' They were soon unde- 
 
 1 In a notable secret letter to Cecil, in reply to the latter's remark 
 that he did not like to see loyal Catholics sacrificed by dozens, James 
 said, " I will never allow in my conscience that the blood of any mau 
 shall be shedde for diversitie of opinions in religion ; and I would be 
 sorry that Catholiques should so multiplie as they might be able to 
 practise their old principles upon us. I will never agree that any 
 should dye for erroure of faith against the first table ; but I think 
 they should not be permitted to worke rebellion against the second 
 table . . . No ! I am so far from an intention of persecution, as 1 
 protest to God I reverence their Church as our Mother Church, thougli 
 clogged with many corruptions." 
 
 2 Whilst James was on his journey south Garnet wrote : " The
 
 5o8 TREASON AND PLOT 
 
 ceived. There was to be no concession either to 
 Catholics or Puritans from a King who had pro- 
 fessed at different times to belong to both creeds ; 
 and the Catholics now, doubtless aware too late of 
 the tardy decision of the Spanish King, were doubly 
 chagrined to find how they had been betrayed. 
 
 That the Bye and Main Plots, and even the 
 Gunpowder Conspiracy, were the rank, sporadic 
 aftergrowth of the greater plan which Spanish pro- 
 crastination prevented from ripening in time, may 
 be accepted as certain. It is more than doubtful 
 if the sum of money offered by Count Arenberg, the 
 Archduke's ambassador, to Cobham and Ealegh 
 after James's accession was intended to promote 
 revolution or regicide ; it was far more likely to have 
 been employed to obtain better terms for Spain and 
 the Catholics in the coming treaty of peace. The 
 Spaniards and Jesuits must have seen now that 
 they had failed in conspiracy, as they had failed in 
 invasion ; the archpriest Blackwell, Jesuit nominee 
 though he was, was as anxious to denounce the dis- 
 loyal plots of secular priests like Watson,^ as was 
 the notorious Jesuit-hater Father Cecil himself, and 
 a cause thus divided and subdivided against itself 
 could not hope to prevail. The 100,000 ducats lent 
 by Spinola, and the knowledge of the decision of 
 Spain to have aided an English Catholic candidate, 
 
 Catholics have great cause to hope for great respect ; in that the 
 nobility, almost all, labour for it, and have good promise thereof from 
 his Majesty." 
 
 * The action of the Jesuit party in divulging the Bye Plot to Cecil, 
 partly, no doubt, owing to tlie bitter feud between the two sections of 
 Catholics, may also have been inspired by the knowledge that the aim 
 of the conspirators was toleration.
 
 PROTESTANTISM TRIUMPHANT 509 
 
 still drove a few ambitious hot-heads to dream that 
 they could turn back the hands of the clock and 
 undo what had been done. But it was too late. 
 Toleration perhaps might still have been wrung 
 from James by formidable united pressure from 
 without and within ; but the battle of Catholic 
 supremacy in England was finally lost when Robert 
 Cecil secretly rallied to James, and when the sloth- 
 ful Spanish King and Lerma wasted two years in 
 making up their minds finally as to their policy 
 towards the section of English Catholics that had 
 for so long looked to Spain for help and guidance. 
 
 Even if the Gunpowder Plot had destroyed the 
 King and his house, a Catholic sovereign of Eng- 
 land under Spanish tutelage would no longer have 
 been possible. James might cringe and truckle 
 before Gondomar and his master until good Eng- 
 lishmen blushed for shame at their sovereign's base- 
 ness ; his son might dance attendance on a Philip, 
 and endure the insolence of Olivares in the hope of 
 being honoured with a Spanish bride, but no Eng- 
 lish prince dared now adopt Catholicism as the ex- 
 clusive religion of his country, or attempt once more 
 to submit England to the yoke of the Papacy : for 
 out of the forty years of struggle a potent empire 
 had emerged, determined to choose its own form of 
 faith, and able successfully to resist all dictation from 
 the foreigner, even though its degenerate sovereign 
 had forgotten the dignified traditions of Elizabeth.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Adelantado, the (Don Martin 
 
 de Padilla), 217, 227-229, 247, 
 
 249-263, 288, 290, 366, 369, 
 
 378, 407, 466, 476 
 Aguila, Don Juan del, Spanish 
 
 commander at Kinsale, 453- 
 
 470 
 Albert, Archduke, 259, 278, 281, 
 
 302, 330-33 1 > 367, 402, 403, 423, 
 
 425, 479-480, 483 
 Allen, Cardinal, 11, 82, 87, 90, 95, 
 
 215 
 Almond, Priest, 91 
 Andrada, Manuel, 121-122, 124- 
 
 125, 126, 128-130, 137, 162-164 
 Angus, Earl of, 24, 27, 48, 65, 205 
 Annias' confessions, 103-104, 109, 
 
 115 
 
 Antonio, Don, Portuguese pre- 
 tender, 109, 118 pasaiTn 
 
 Arabella Stuart, 211, 215, 274- 
 281, 302,417, 496-504, 505 
 
 Archer, Father, 107, 471 
 
 Archpriest controversy, 85, 272- 
 
 273, 314-315, 327,421 
 Arenberg, Count, 508 
 Argyll, Earl of, 67-69, 313 
 Armada, Political effects of its 
 
 defeat, 1-17 
 Armagh, Archbishop of. See 
 
 M'Gavran 
 
 battle of, 306-309 
 
 Arundel, Sir Thomas, 319 
 
 Bacon, Anthony, 143, 194 
 Francis, 35, 337, 396 
 
 Bagenal, Sir Henry, defeat at 
 
 Armagh, 306-309 
 Bagshaw, Dr., 272, 315, 323-325, 
 
 416 
 Balgarys, Walter Lindsay, Lord, 
 
 26, 31, 69-74, 78-79, 201-203, 
 
 210-21 1 
 Baltimore, Spaniards at, 455, 461, 
 
 462, 468, 470 
 Baltinglas, Viscount, 56, 60, 63 
 Barclay, Hugh, sent to Spain, 69, 
 
 202-203, - 1 1 
 Barnes, 276, 283 
 Beauchamp, Lord, 257, 274, 279, 
 
 498, 500, 503, 504 
 Bethune, Maxmilian (Due de 
 
 Sully), in Scotland, 381 
 Bingham, Sir Richard, 54, 230, 
 
 231, 333 
 Bisley, priest, 97 
 Jjlaclv, Scottish minister. 205 
 Blackwell, Archpriest of England, 
 
 273, 314,421, 422, 508 
 Blanks, the Spanish, 27 
 Blount, Sir Christopher, 343, 393 
 Bluet, Father, 273, 416 
 Botello, Diego, 128 
 Boulogne. See Peace negotiations 
 Botliwell, Earl of (Francis Stuart), 
 
 64-65, 77, 78, 387; his plans 
 
 for invading Scotland, 417-420, 
 
 49c 
 Borough, Lord, Lord-Deputy, 265, 
 
 266, 267 
 Boyd, Charles, his mission to 
 
 Spain, 25-26
 
 512 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Briminghani, Tyrone's secretary, 
 
 sent to Spain, 302 
 Brochero, Admiral Don Diego, 
 
 453-455 
 Brounker, Sir Henry, 499-501 
 Bruce, Edward, Abbot of Kinloss, 
 
 364, 388, 440, 505, 506 
 
 Robert, of Bemie, 27, 42, 310 
 
 Buckhurst, Lord, 336, 413, 423, 
 
 431 
 Bull of excommunication, 84-85 
 
 Burghley, Lord, 18, 28, 32, 33, 
 37, 40, 61, 83-84, 89,1 28-130, 
 193, 282-283, 292, 297, 336 
 
 Lord, Thomas Cecil, 431, 
 
 434, 505 
 Burke, Redmond, 465 
 
 William, in Dunboy, 47 1 
 
 Button, Captain, 459 
 Bye and Main Plots, 508 
 
 Cadiz, the attack on, 194-200, 
 
 216, 220 
 Cahill's confessions, 106-109, no, 
 
 112 
 
 Calais, capture of, by the 
 
 Spaniards, 192, 244, 284 
 Caldeira, 136 
 Campion, Father, 1 1 
 Caracena, Count, 472 
 Carew, Sir George, President of 
 
 Muneter, 336, 431, 444, 45^-454, 
 
 454-469, 475 
 Cary, Robert, 506 
 Castlehaven, Spaniards in, 461- 
 
 462, 463, 464, 468, 470 
 Catholics in England, 80 et seq., 
 
 242-243,271-274, 276-281,315, 
 
 411, 427-428, 479-480, 483, 489 
 Cavendish, Henry, 498, 499, 502 
 
 William, 498, 499 
 
 Cecil, Father John, 41-49,61, 64- 
 
 65, 66, 69-74, 93, 201-203, 210- 
 
 216, 280, 281, 363, 508 
 
 Cecil, Sir Robert, 32-33, 35, 142- 
 143, 232, 244, 250, 281, 284, 292, 
 315. 359-364, 367-369, 375, 381, 
 390, 395, 413, 423, 431, 436; 
 his understanding with James 
 VI., 439-443, 491 ; his betrayal 
 of his party, 492-494, 504-506, 
 509 
 
 Cerda, Martin de la, Spanish 
 captain in Ireland, 400-402, 404, 
 407, 446, 449, 464, 467 
 
 Chamberlain, Father, Tyrone's 
 confessor, 447 
 
 Chateau Martin, spy, 37-38, 40, 
 61,66 
 
 Chisholm, Bishop of Dunblane, 45 
 
 — Bishop of Vaison, 45, 419, 
 420 
 
 Cisneros, captain in Ireland, 183- 
 187 
 
 Claimants to the English succes- 
 sion, 32, 166, 204, 211, 215, 221, 
 274-281, 411-417,478-480,483, 
 485, 486, 495-504 
 
 Clement VIII., Pope, 201-203, 214 
 
 Clifford, Sir Conyers, 351 
 
 Cobham, Lord, 292, 347, 365, 413, 
 432, 492, 493, 508 
 
 Cobos, Alonso, in Ireland, 182, 
 230-238, 266-267, 400 
 
 Coke, Speaker (Attorney-General), 
 
 34, 324 
 Collen's confessions, 103-109 
 Constable, English Catholic refu- 
 gee, 284, 380, 420 
 Creighton, Scottish Jesuit, 420 
 Cresswell, Father Joseph, Jesuit, 
 224-225, 318-319, 382, 411-417, 
 478, 482, 484, 488, 494 
 Cumberland, Earl of, 274, 292, 
 
 294, 295, 374, 496 
 Curlews, Battle of, 351 
 
 Dacre, Lord, 44, 285
 
 INDEX 
 
 513 
 
 Daniel's disclosures. 106-109 
 Dan vers, Sir Charles, 395, 431 
 Derby, Earl of, approached by the 
 
 Catholics, ro2, 108, 274, 414, 
 
 417, 496 
 Derrick, Francis, 275-276 
 Desmond, Earl of (James Eiiz- 
 
 thomas), 334, 397, 399, 409, 444, 
 
 448,451,457 
 
 John of, 448 
 
 Docwra, Sir Richard, 445, 452 
 Donegal, rebels meet in, 54-184, 
 
 193, 232-238, 399-402, 404, 446 
 Donnell, Spainagh (Kavanagh), 
 
 352 
 Douai, seminary at, 11, 82, 83 
 Drake, Sir Francis, 5-6, 18, 37-39, 
 
 47, 1 69-1 7 1 ; last voyage, 172- 
 174, 196 
 
 Drummond, James, Scottish en- 
 voy to the Pope, 419 
 
 Dunblane, Bishop of. See Chis- 
 holm 
 
 Dunboy, Spaniards in, 461-462, 
 468-470 ; captured by O'Sulli- 
 van, 471-473 
 
 Dynastic parties in England, 361, 
 411-417,421-422,427-428,431- 
 437, 485-487, 491 passim 
 
 Edmunds, Sir Thomas, 423-424 
 Egerton, Lord Keeper, 336, 338 
 Elizabeth, her attitude towards 
 
 the Catholics, 10, 17, 26, ^2, 35, 
 
 81-85 
 
 her death, 504-506 
 
 her letters to James VI., 29, 
 
 48, 66, 68, 205, 203 
 Elizabeth's attitude towards Spain, 
 
 18, 20-21, 35, 191, 193, 194, 
 282, 297 
 anger with Essex for his con- 
 duct in Ireland, 350-360, 391- 
 396, 429-430 
 
 Elliot, Captain, 257, 279, 318 
 
 Elphinstone, Secretary, 420 
 
 Engletield, Sir Francis, 87, 219, 
 222, 225 
 
 English Catholics against Spain 
 and the Jesuits, 14, 45, 86, 1 13- 
 114, 165, 204, 209, 215, 218, 
 243, 271, 284-287, 314-315, 
 325-327, 410, 420-421, 483 
 
 Errol, Earl of, 24, 27, 48, 65, 75, 
 205, 279-281 
 
 Essex, Earl of, 32, 89, 108, 109, 
 113, 131-132, 142-143, 161, 
 194-200, 244-250, 297, 302, 
 317-325 ; goes to Ireland, 332, 
 333, 337-357 ; return and dis- 
 grace, 357-360, 389, 391, 392- 
 397, 400, 416, 420-421, 428 ; 
 his rebellion, 429-437 
 
 Eustace, Captain, 54, 104, 115 
 
 Falmouth, plan to betray, 257, 
 
 259, 293, 316 
 Faux, English recusant, 99 
 Feagh, M'Hugh O'Byrne, 63, 230, 
 
 231, 241 
 Fenton, Sir Geoflfrey, 239, 241, 
 
 265, 298, 398, 445, 447 
 Fentry, Graham of, 26, 29 
 Feria, Duchess of, 45, 87, 225 
 Fernihurst, Ker of, sent to Madrid, 
 
 490 
 Ferreira da Gama, 132-152 
 Fitzgerald, Sir Maurice, 57, 58, 
 
 60, 63, 402 
 James Fitzmaurice, 52, 57, 
 
 60, 63 
 Fitzherbert, Nicholas, 218 
 Thomas, 317, 318, 319, 320 ; 
 
 his report on English and 
 
 Scottish aflfairs, 383-388, 410 
 Fitzmaurice, Thomas, in Dunboy, 
 
 471 
 Fixer, Father, 41,91 
 
 2 K
 
 514 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Fuentes, Count de, 138, 149, 152, 
 160, 366 
 
 Garnet, Dr.. Jesuit, 1 1 i-i 1 2, 422, 
 
 480, 507 
 Geraldines, the, 51-52, 56-57, 60, 
 
 63, 402 
 Gifford, Dr., 154, 156, 158, 159, 
 
 160, 166, 204, 209, 215, 218 
 Glenlivat, battle of, 67-68 
 Godolphin, Sir Francis, 171, 293 
 
 Sir William, 468 
 
 Gomez d'Avila, 1 33-1 41 
 Gordon, Father, 69, 280, 310 
 Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 316, 431, 
 
 432 
 Grey de Wilton, Lord, 358, 413 
 
 Harrington, Sir John, 348, 391, 
 
 397 
 Harvey, Captain, commands at 
 
 Castlehaven, 470 
 Haydon, Joseph, priest, 218 
 Heighington, English Catholic 
 
 refugee, 87 
 Henry IV. of France, 15-16, 25, 
 
 166, 169, 191, 211, 281, 282, 
 
 292, 297, 488 
 Herrys, Lord, 78 
 Hertford, Earl of, 497-499, 500, 
 
 504 
 Hesketh, refugee, 14 ; sent to 
 
 England, 102, 108, 218, 274 
 Holt, Father, 46, 87, loi, 104, 
 
 105, 106, 107, 154, 155, 157, 
 
 159, 161, 165, 207, 215, 225, 
 
 287 
 Howard, Lord Admiral, 195-198, 
 
 246, 250, 292, 375 ; Earl of 
 
 Nottingham, 376, 413, 423, 431 
 Lord Henry, 429, 441, 493, 
 
 496, 505 
 Lord Thomas, 197, 246, 247, 
 
 292, 374 
 
 Hungerford, Lady, 225 
 Hunsdon, Lord, 423 
 Huntingdon, Earl of, 496 
 Huntly, Earl of, 23-24, 27, 29, 
 
 31, 41, 64, 65, 75, 76, 78-79, 
 204, 210, 212 
 
 Hume, Lord, Scottish Catholic, 
 65, 380 
 
 Ibarra, Esteban de, 105, 112, 115, 
 
 134, 149, 152, 158, 160, 208, 
 
 216,253, 450 
 Idiaquez, Secretary, 44-45, 58, 60, 
 
 218, 318, 405 
 Infanta, the, 166, 225, 259, 277, 
 
 278, 367, 382, 411, 478-479, 
 
 483, 485, 496 
 Invasion, fears of, in England, 35, 
 
 37-39, 62, 169-174, 194, 204, 
 
 242, 244-250, 291-293, 328, 
 
 369-378 
 Ireland, reports on the condition 
 
 of, 63, 186, 401, 404, 409, 
 
 449 
 Irish rebellions, 50-64, 174-186, 
 193, 229-241, 263-270, 298- 
 309. 332-335, 344-356, 397- 
 410, 443-477 
 
 James VI., his claims to the Eng- 
 lish succession, 40-47, 49, 66- 
 79, 201, 204-216, 273, 281, 285, 
 312, 363, 364-365, 366, 389, 
 419-420, 431, 437, 439-443, 486, 
 491, 504-509 
 
 his Catholic intrigues, 23- 
 
 32, 40, 45, 48, 49, 64, 65, 66, 
 76-79, 203-216, 302, 310-314, 
 364-366, 379-390, 410, 419-420, 
 486, 507 
 
 his correspondence with 
 
 Elizabeth, 31, 75, 205, 303 
 
 his correspondence with 
 
 Cecil, 441 ^^assim
 
 INDEX 
 
 515 
 
 James, Thomas, his mission to 
 Spain, 478 et seq., 489 
 
 Jaques Francis, Captain, 46, loi- 
 103, 104, 106 
 
 Jesuits join the English mission, 
 11-13,26,85 
 
 Jesuit policy towards England, 11, 
 13, 41-46, 85-88,90-112, 165, 
 213, 217-225, 271-274, 284- 
 287, 314, 323-327, 365. 366, 
 410-416, 420-422, 427-428, 478, 
 482-483, 494, 496 
 
 Kelly, James, Irish rebel, 263- 
 
 264 
 Ker, George, 27-28, 43, 311-312, 
 
 481 
 Killaloe, Bishop of. See O'Neil. 
 Killibegs, 230, 231, 239, 265-474 
 Killigrew, 257, 259, 293, 316 
 Kinsale, Spanish occupation of, 
 
 454-469 
 
 siege of, 457-469 
 
 Knollys, Sir William, 336, 436 
 
 Ladtland, Laird of, 7^, 74, 201- 
 203 
 
 Lalley, Thomas, mission to Spain, 
 263, 302 
 
 Lea, Captain, his plot to rescue 
 Essex, 435 
 
 Leveson, Admiral Sir Eichard, 
 451, 460, 462 
 
 Lewis, Owen, Bishop of Cassano, 
 M, 45. 95> 116, 167, 204, 220, 
 225 
 
 Lingen, Catholic, arrested, iio- 
 III 
 
 Lopez, Dr., conspiracy, 11 5-1 53 ; 
 his antecedents, 117; pro- 
 posal to poison Don Antonio, 
 119; communication with the 
 Spaniards, 120 ; agent for Wal- 
 singham, 123; arrest, 142; par- 
 
 tial confession, 149 ; trial and 
 execution, 149-157, 162 
 Lopez de Soto, 250 2>assim, 288, 
 289, 470 
 
 M'Carty More, 397, 399, 444, 45 1, 
 
 457 
 MacDermot, 241 
 M'Donnell (James Oge M'Sorley- 
 
 boy), 236 
 M'Gavran, Archbishop of Armagh, 
 
 54 
 Macguire of Fermanagh, 53, 59, 
 
 174, 180, 182 
 Maclean, Sir John, 313 
 M'Mahon of Monaghan, 53, 404 
 M'Suyne, 182, 233, 239 
 M'William Bourke, 183, 230, 233, 
 
 235, 241, 264, 446 
 Maisse, De, French envoy, 282- 
 
 283 
 Mar, Earl of, envoy to England, 
 
 431-432, 439 
 
 Markham, Sir Griffin, 1 56 
 
 Marques Rodrigo, 121, 124-125- 
 126, 162 
 
 Medinilla, Captain, in Ireland, 
 183-187 
 
 Mendoza, Bernardino de, 23 
 
 Middletoii, Captain R. W., 154 
 
 Montjoy, Lord, Lord-Deputy, 332, 
 337, 389, 394-395» 398, 430, 435, 
 443-445,448-452,454; at Kin- 
 sale, 458-469 
 
 Moody, 88 
 
 Morgan, Thomas, 14, 45 
 
 Morton, Dr., 87 
 
 Mostyn, Hugh, 446, 465 
 
 Moura, Cristobal de. Secretary, 61 
 125, 129, 139, 148, 162, 217, 253 
 
 Mumford, Priest, 177 
 
 Munday, conspirator, 318, 324- 
 
 325 
 Mush, Father, 85, 273, 327
 
 5i6 
 
 INDEX 
 
 NoRRRTS, Sir Edward, 245 
 
 Sir John, 175, 177, 182, 232, 
 
 234, 239, 240, 265, 298 
 Northumberland, Earl of, 375, 
 
 493, 50s 
 
 O'Connor, Sir Charles, 60 
 
 Don, 180, 231 
 
 Roe, 180 
 
 Sligo, 351,446 
 
 O'Conroy, Father Florence, 475- 
 476 
 
 O'Cullan, priest, confession of, 
 176 
 
 O'Davitt, Hugh Boy, 238, 316 
 
 O'Dogherty, 230, 233, 236 
 
 O'Donnell, Brian, priest, 178, 189 
 
 Hugh, 52-53, 55-57, 59, 174, 
 
 178, 179, 181, 182, 184, 186, 230- 
 238, 239, 240, 241, 263, 266,- 268, 
 299, 304, 316, 333, 345, 351, 379, 
 397, 398, 400, 404, 408-409, 444, 
 449, 457, 458, 461-462 ; defeat, 
 464-465 ; flight to Spain, 465- 
 466, 474 ; death, 475-476, 481 
 
 O'Driscoll, Sir Finnan, 461, 471, 
 
 473 
 O'Driscolls, the, 455, 461, 470, 
 
 471, 473, 476 
 O'Ferrall, 180 
 O'Flaherty, 180 
 Ogilvie, Laird of Pury, 27 ; his 
 
 mission, 203-216, 290 
 O'Healy, Archbishop of Tuam, 
 
 his mission to Spain, 54, 64, 
 
 174 
 O'Kelly, 180 
 
 Olivares, Count, 483, 486, 487 
 O'Malley, 180 
 O'More, 180 
 O'Neil, The. See Tyrone 
 
 Cormack, 233, 239, 241 
 
 Cornelius, Bishop of Killaloe, 
 
 54,57-58,175-176,178,226,318 
 
 O'Neil, Henry, son of Tyrone, 402 
 
 John, son of Tyrone, 402-476 
 
 Macwilliam, 233 
 
 O'Reilly, 179 
 
 Ormonde, Earl of, 269, 299, 305, 
 
 398 
 O'Rourke, Brian, senior, 53, 59-60 
 Brian, 53, 59, 174, 178, 179, 
 
 180, 181, 183, 233, 241, 268, 446, 
 
 448, 473 
 O'Sullevan, Philippus, 463, 472 
 O'Sullivan Beare, 457, 461, 462, 
 
 470, 471-473 
 
 Sir Owen, 457 
 
 Oviedo, Mateo de, Spanish Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin, 400-402,416, 
 447, 449, 456 
 
 Owen, Hugh, 87, 97, loi, 106, 107, 
 109, 159, 207, 218 
 
 Richard, envoy of Tyi'one, 
 
 408, 446 
 
 Paez de Clavijo, Spanish cap- 
 tain of Rincorran, 460 
 
 Pagets, the, 14, 95, 158, 159, 160, 
 166, 209, 215, 218, 283, 284, 
 
 330, 363 
 
 Parker, Sir Nicholas, 293 
 
 Parliament of 1 593, 33 et seq. 
 
 Parma, Duke of (Ranuccio), 276- 
 277, 485 
 
 Parry, Dr., 88 
 
 Parsons, Robert. See Persons 
 
 Peace negotiations with Spain, 
 423-428 
 
 Pembroke, Earl of, 375 
 
 Perez, Antonio, 89, 104-105, 106, 
 109, 131, 152, 169 
 
 Persons (or Parsons), Father 
 Robert, 11, 13, 41-46, 85, 91, 
 95, III, 165, 167, 204, 214-216, 
 217-225, 273, 287, 290, 314, 327, 
 382, 411-417,420,428,478-479, 
 484, 488, 497
 
 INDEX 
 
 517 
 
 Persons, Father, hisbook on thesuc- 
 
 cession, 32, 166, 204, 221, 411 
 Pew, conspirator, 154 
 Phellips, Thomas, spy-master, 96, 
 
 97 
 Philip II., his policy towards 
 England, 6-10, 14-16, 1S-19, 
 23, 162-165, 168, 199, 217, 258, 
 
 259. 273. 301. 330 
 his attitude towards the 
 
 Scots Catholics, 36, 40-47, 49, 
 
 66-79, 201-216 
 his action in Ireland, 50-51, 
 
 60-61, 64, 171-176, 177-186 
 III., 366, 367, 403, 405-407, 
 
 465, 478, 481, 485, 490 
 Pierce, Dr., English refugee, 218, 
 
 220 
 Plots to assassinate Elizabeth, 88, 
 
 90-96, 97, 112, 115-152, 153- 
 
 164, 317-325 
 
 Political parties in England {i.e. 
 Cecil and Essex), 32-35, 37, 61, 
 89-90, 113, 131, 142-143. 161, 
 169, 195, 243-244, 278, 279, 281, 
 293. 297, 302, 310-31 1. 317-325. 
 359-364, 375-377, 394-395; 421, 
 431 passim, 491, 508-509 
 
 Polwhele's confessions, 101-106, 
 109 
 
 Porres, Spaniard, sent to Scotland, 
 47-48, 49, 64, 65, 66, 73-74 
 
 Portalegi-e, Count, fears of an Eng- 
 lish attack, 188, 193 
 
 Presbyterians in Scotland, 26, 65, 
 75, 203-205 
 
 Puckering, Lord Keeper, 33, 34, 
 99-100 
 
 Puritans, the, 10, 18, 33, 37, 311, 
 382 
 
 Kalegh, Sir W., 20, 36-37, 195- 
 198, 243, 245, 246-247, 248, 249, 
 292, 317, 342, 347, 360, 365, 374, 
 
 396, 413, 424, 431-432, 492-493, 
 507, 508 
 
 Randall, William. 46-48 
 
 Raphoe, Bishop of, 233 
 
 Rtivcnge, the, 21, 197 
 
 Rincorran, Castle of. See Kinsalo. 
 
 River.=?, Father, 497, 502 
 
 Rolls, his plot to murder Eliza- 
 beth, 319-325 
 
 Rome, English College at, 11, 85, 
 411 
 
 Russell, Lord-Deputy, 175, 177, 
 182, 231, 232, 239,240,265 
 
 Saavedra, Captain, commands 
 
 Dunboy, 471 
 Scottish Catholics, 14, 23-33, 3^, 
 
 40-48, 64-66, 67-69, 70-79, 171, 
 
 20 1 -204, 205-2 1 6, 3 1 0-3 1 4, 4 1 7- 
 
 420, 481, 490 
 
 rebels, 67-69-79, 417, 490 
 
 Secular priests, English, 14, 85, 
 ^ 271-273, 314-315, 324-327 
 Seminary priests, 1 1, 26, 41, 47-82, 
 
 85, 86,' 88-96 
 Semple, Colonel, 32, 76, 382, 467 
 
 Lord, Scottish envoy to 
 
 Spain, 383, 388, 410 
 
 Matthew, sent to Spain, 76- 
 
 79, 201 
 
 Sessa, Duke of, 201-202, 210-214, 
 
 41 1-4 1 3, 420,421,479,488 
 Sherwood, Father, loi, 102, 106, 
 
 277 
 Shrewsbury, Countess of, 277, 502 
 Dowager Countess of, 275, 
 
 277, 498, 502, 503, 504 
 
 Earl of, 375, 498, 502 
 
 Sidney, Sir Robert, 245 
 Slatimor, J., sent to Ireland, 63 
 Smyth, Sheriff of London, 432-434 
 Southampton, Earl of, 340, 343, 
 
 347, 393-395, 431 ; his trial, 
 
 435-437
 
 5i8 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Spain, real source of its power, 
 1-3; exhaustion of, 5, 6, 62, 170- 
 171, 189, 193-200, 250-254, 263, 
 
 295, 33h 379, 408, 483 
 Spaniards land in Cornwall, 171 
 Spanish expeditions to Ireland, 
 182, 183-184,227-229,230-238, 
 266, 346, 379, 400-410, 445, 
 
 450-477 
 
 plans of invasion, 37-39, 
 
 42, 217, 220-229, 245. 250-263, 
 288-296, 316,370-378,383-390, 
 403-409, 453-469, 487 
 
 navy, efforts to renew, 20, 
 
 22, 36, 250-256 
 
 Spinola, Ambrosio, to lend money 
 to attack England, 489 
 
 Squire, his plot to murder Eliza- 
 beth, 319-325 
 
 Staftbrd, 88 
 
 Stanley, John, conspirator, 317- 
 
 325 
 
 Sir W., 37, 44, 46, 54, 87, 88, 
 
 97, loi, 102, 109, 154-155, 158, 
 218, 274, 275, 382, 408 
 
 Stapleton, 502 
 
 Dr., 167, 219, 220 
 
 Starkey, Arabella Stuart's chap- 
 lain, 498, 501 
 
 Sterrel, spy, 97, 103, 221, 275, 276 
 
 Stillington, Dr., 87 
 
 Stuart, Patrick, Scottish envoy to 
 the Pope, 419 
 
 Throgmohton, Thomas, 158-159, 
 
 204 
 Tichborne, Henry, his Jesuit 
 
 treatise, 287 
 Tinoco (Manuel Luis), 134-135, 
 
 138, 152 
 Treherne, English refugee, 218 
 Trentine Decrees, 10 
 Treshani, Captain, 14, 159, 218, 
 
 363 
 
 Tyrie, Father, Jesuit, 213 
 Tyrone, Earl of, 52, 61, 170, 174 ; 
 passion, 230-238, 239, 240, 263- 
 270, 298-309, 313-314, 316, 333, 
 344-356, 366, 379, 389, 392, 393, 
 397, 398, 400-410, 444-449, 457, 
 458, 464 ; defeat at Kinsale, 465- 
 
 473, 474, 475, 476 
 Tyrrell, Captain, in Dunboy, 471 
 Tuam, Archbishop of. See O'Healy 
 
 Udal, Ralph, priest, 327 
 Unton, Sir H., mission to France, 
 191 
 
 Vaison, Bishop of. See Chisholm 
 Valdes, Don Pedro de, 39 
 Valladolid, English College at, 41, 
 
 47, 87,411 
 Vere, Sir Francis, 197, 244, 246, 
 
 374 
 Verreyken, Flemish peace envoy, 
 
 423 
 Vervins, peace of, 297 
 
 Walpole, Father Henry, loi, 107; 
 his arrest and confession, iio- 
 112 
 
 Father Richard, alleged com- 
 plicity in murder plot, 317-325 
 
 Warford, priest, 91 
 
 Watson, Father, 315, 363, 411, 
 508 
 
 Webster, English recusant, con- 
 fessions of, 97-99 
 
 Westmorland, Earl of, 44, 285 
 
 Weston, Father, 272, 314, 325 
 
 White Knight, the, 332, 451 
 
 Wight, Isle of, to be ceded to 
 Spain, 488 
 
 Williams, Richard, conspiracy of, 
 154-161 
 
 Wilmot, Sir Charles, 454
 
 INDEX 
 
 519 
 
 Wisbech Castle, 86, 166, 314, 323, 
 
 325 
 
 Stirs, 272 
 
 "Wood, James, of Bonnington, 
 
 Papal envoy to Scotland, 
 
 380 
 Worcester, Earl of, 275, 375. 414, 
 
 485. 495 
 Worthington, Dr., 154, 158, 159, 
 
 160, 218, 220 
 
 YoRKE, Edmund, conspiracy of, 
 153-161 
 
 Young, Father (Dingley), con- 
 fessions of, 90-96 
 
 Henry, conspirator, 1 54-161 
 
 ZuBlAUR, Pedro de (Admiral), 
 453-454, 460, 461, 462, 463, 465 
 
 Zuniga, Spanish ambassador, 425- 
 427, 485 
 
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