XXXV. enlarged, that the earl of Leicester stated, in Novem- CHAP. ber 1587, that the prince of Parma had under his command nearly forty thousand men. Practices were also pursued to raise a Spanish instead of a Marian party in Scotland, and even to assassinate Elizabeth by Spanish emissaries. Preferred at last, from the pope, and was looking at England in the same perverted view, under his pretended lineal claim to its crown. In January 1584, he demanded passage of the dukes of Savoy and Lorraine for 22,000 men, and they have granted it to him.' ib. 390. To calm the fears of Geneva, 'the duke of Savoy himself sent them word of the passing of these Spaniards, under color of friendship, but they mean not, for all his friendship, but to stand upon their guard.' Lett. 8th January 1584, ib. 391. The Spanish ambassador at Paris made similar representations to Henry III. that Philip would attempt nothing to his prejudice; but the king very sourly in countenance heard him, and answered with the same countenance.' ib. 392. The earl wrote from Flanders on 6th November 1587: In this meanwhile the enemy is grown very mighty, both by land and water. He never yet had that strength by much. He hath all preparations ready, as well by water as by land, to besiege or attempt any place. He is near 40,000 men for certain.' Hard. v. 1. P. 354. 6 On 23 May 1584, sir E. Stafford wrote, that in his audience with Henry III. he had, as directed, told him, ‘That I was rather afraid, by the secret dealings of some of his subjects, that Scotland was become rather Spanish, than either French or English, as might appear by certain extracts, which her majesty had sent him to see, which I desired him from her majesty to read. The king took them, and desired me to leave them with him.' Murd. 399. 7 On 27 July 1584, sir E. Stafford wrote from Paris: Don Antonio sent to speak with me the last day in great haste. Declaring the affection he had to her majesty, he declared to me a very certain advertisement he had from a very good place, and out of the Spanish agent's house, that the same practice which had been executed upon the prince of Orange, there are practisers, more than two or three, ABOUT TO EXECUTE UPON HER MAJESTY, and some other, and especially her majesty, and that to be done within these two months. I have stated the like advertisement given to me by other means, who have had it by a Spaniard, which Spaniard indeed haunteth the agent's house much, and so doth also don Antonio.' Then rightly suggesting a soothing and cautious possibility, that what could not but greatly alarm his sovereign might not be true, he added, 'It is necessary for her majesty to take good heed, and have a care of herself more than ordinary, for there must no doubt be had, that she is a chief mark they shoot at; and seeing these were men, knowing enough to enchant a man, and to encourage one to kill the prince of Orange in the midst of Holland; and that there was a knave found, desperate BOOK as already noticed, by the pope and Jesuits, to Mary of Scotland, before her death, he became the single object of their schemes and solicitations afterwards. It was not unnatural that it should be so; for he was felt to be a main pillar of the popedom, and therefore of popery, at that time in Europe, and was considered by the English ambassador in France to be using the Jesuits as his ministers and servants. Sixtus V. the most able and aspiring and warlike of the Roman pontiffs since Gregory VII. and Julius II.; the admirer,10 but the determined enemy of Elizabeth, resumed that activity against enough to do it, we must think, that hereafter any thing may be done, for nobody was more certain not to escape untaken or unpunished, than to enterprise to kill the prince of Orange in the midst of Holland. Therefore God I pray Him, with His mighty hand, preserve her majesty.' Murd. 415. Sir E. Stafford discovers to us this impression in June 1584, on a false report of Philip's death. Some news is come within these two days, that the king of Spain is dead. But he hath been so often dead, that I will never believe that he be dead, till he be rotten. If that did happen, and at this time, I think there never came such a peril to the pope's crown. But it is too good to be true, or at the least, too pleasing for me to believe it.' Lett. 21 June. Murd. 410. 9 On 24th August 1584, sir Edward Stafford's dispatch was, that Henry III. is Catholic in extremity, led by JESUITS, who are only servants and ministers for the king of Spain, upon whom the pope dependeth wholly. Then, if the Jesuits may lead the king, and the king of Spain the Jesuits; and the pope, colorably them all, I conclude, that it standeth upon the king of Spain's greatness to maintain the pope, and upon the pope's greatness to maintain the house of Guise, his only pillar, against the king of Navarre' [Henry IV.] Lett. Murd. 417. 10 Gregory XIII. dying 24 March 1585, to whom we owe the last reformation of the calendar, Sixtus V. was chosen in the next month to replace him. From the success of his own management, by affecting to be feeble and unwell, the other cardinals, who would not agree on any other at that moment, nominated him as one whose honor would be brief and temporary. This impression, when securely fixed in his dignity, he removed at once, by a loud and strong intonation, with all the vigor of health, of his thanksgiving hymn. He is said to have declared, that Elizabeth and he ought to have married, that a new Alexander might be their progeny. He was an able, extraordinary and aspiring pope, tho he reigned little more than five years, as he died 29 Aug. 1590. See G. Leti's Life of him. XXXV. her, and that favor to Mary, from which the ante- CHAP. cedent pontiff had, from other views, been declining." But, in truth, the ambitious Sixtus Quintus rather doubled his instruments and his schemes, than peculiarly befriended Mary. While he upheld and urged the Spaniard with the one hand to pursue his personal claims and expedition, his legate in France entered into conspiracies with the Guises and Mary's ambassador, and the Jesuits in France, in the Spring of 1586, to assail Elizabeth also with the results of their devices.12 But this was only to keep two "So Mary's friend, Morgan, notices in his letter of 25 Jan. 1586, Murd. 473. "We may infer, from a paragraph in the report of Morgan to his mistress Mary, on 31 March 1586, how far pious and sacred objects as to Elizabeth and England, were the only objects of her ambassadors, of the Jesuits, and of the papacy. He thus discloses his vexation at what 'Father Creighton' had unwisely and unexpectedly acknowleged :— 'A few days before I was committed to prison, I received from England, out of the Tower, an examination and confession of good father Creighton, which forthwith I imparted to your ambassador; for that it appeared to me manifestly, to my great grief, that there was foul and unhonest secrecy kept in a matter of great importance, wherein, at the first, there was only the duke of Guise, my lord of Glasgow [ Mary's ambassador,] father Claude, and myself, acquainted, and THE OLD NUNCIO. But in a short time after, I well understood that others of the fathers of the Jesuits had the matter amongst them, and had written thereof to some friends of theirs in England, which then terrified me much. Yet for that I well hoped that the matter should not come out of good men's hands to the enemies; I said nothing then, whatsoever I thought. But having seen the said examination and confession of father Creighton, I was not a little troubled; insomuch that I told my lord of Glasgow that I was ashamed to live, and to intermeddle with things of importance, and to have the same in some sort discovered by the adversaries: and therefore prayed my lord to confer of this discovery with the said fathers; and to pray them, for the time to come, that some few of them should handle the things IN SECRET: and that the same should not be communicated to all the rest; whereby such discoveries happen TO THE OVERTHROW OF GOOD SERVICE and good members.' He then rejoices that so much' was not discovered as to involve her, 'tho now I remember that your majesty wrote unto this country of the like matter, yourself altogether of this matter ignorant, here begun by the duke of Guise, THE II. BOOK powerful engines of his policy, and of the passions and aims of others, in perilous operation against her; in order that one at least might at length complete the grand hope of the inveterate Vatican. The death of Mary terminated the prospect of seating a Catholic sovereign, of the league and Guisian faction, on the English throne, and left Sixtus and the Jesuits free to pursue, with undivided energy and attention, their preferred plan of conquering England by force, with the revenues of Philip II., and of having in his person a more congenial king over this intractable country, whom they and the Inquisition could more arbitrarily govern." The jealousy and politics of Henry III. were always embroiling him with Philip." He was continually mistrusting him :15 yet tho seeming at times to be SAID NUNCIO, my lord of Glasgow, father Claude and myself.' Murd. 496. This father Claude looks like Claude Aquaviva, then the general of the Jesuits. Here this worthy agent regrets the discovery of their plots, but does not impeach the veracity of Creighton's statement; and he brings before us the fact, that there were five great plotters against Elizabeth at Paris: the pope's nuncio, Mary's ambassador, father Claude, Guise, and himself. This was a distinct nest of conspiracy connected with Mary, and different from the Spanish one, for the benefit of Philip. 13 We have already intimated how this haughty king, who was causing so many millions to dread him, was himself subjected to his own inquisition. See before, p. 141. 14 Thus Henry III. allowed, in Feb. 1584, don Antonio to take 800 French soldiers to act against Philip in Portugal (Murd. 393,) and permitted others to operate with Alençon in Flanders, yet avoiding direct war. 15 At the end of July 1584, sir E. Stafford reported from Paris to his court, that the king of France feareth the king of Spain. There are perpetual watches, at all hours, about the Spanish ambassador's house, to see who cometh at him; and when he goeth out of doors, continual secret attenders are upon him [to observe] whither he goeth, and with whom he speaketh.' Murd. 431. And in Feb. 1586, Morgan apprised the queen of Scots, that the Dutch states have had twice audience in this court, and made large offers of Holland and Zealand to this king [Henry III.] and five millions of gold towards the support of the wars, if the king would assist them against Philip.' Murd. 468. XXXV. on the point of direct warfare, would not allow him- CHAP. self to be urged into it.16 While his mind remained so ambiguous or fluctuating, Philip could only promote plots and form preparations privately against Elizabeth, but he employed the suspending interval in the formation of a new Romish league, to overwhelm Protestantism every where. The ardent mind of Sixtus Quintus had directed its perverted energies to revive and accomplish the exterminating projects of his predecessors, under the auspices of a potentate, so willing and so formidable as Philip; and Henry III. was solicited to make it irresistible by joining it." That the leading and favorite idea of the papal party was still extermination, altho so much bloodshed had been effected by it, unavailingly for six and fifty years since Francis I. and Clement VII. had begun it in modern Europe, as all were emerging so auspiciously from the darker 16 Sir E. Stafford, on 21 June 1584, reporting a rumor, that the malcontents and Spaniards have spoiled a great way in France about Peronne,' shews the king's reluctance to such a war in the expressive addition; 'I would to heaven they had taken that, and two or three places more, for I am afraid the king will never have any feeling, till he be bitten by the bottom at the least.' Murd. 410. 17 It is from Morgan, the agent of Mary, whom, by the preceding note 12, we have seen to be in such confidential conspiracy with the old papal nuncio and Jesuits, that we learn this great fact. He thus explicitly states it in his secret letter to Mary, of 25 February 1586: 'There is a league concluded between HIS HOLINESS, the emperor, the KING OF SPAIN, and the princes and states Catholic, for the SUBVERSION OF HERESY; and this king, [Henry III.] as I am informed, hath been moved by his holiness to join in this league, wherein he hath taken time to deliberate. If the king dissent from this HOLY UNION, his holiness is like to trouble this realm, and perhaps dispose the same in prædam, rather than suffer the same to stand to support heresy. The principal favorers of the same king of Spain do practise with the cantons of the Swisses in league with this king, to make them neutral, whereby the duke of Savoy may recover Geneva, and so remove THAT DEN OF HERETICS; for which purpose, the king of Spain is disposed to assist the duke of Savoy.' Murd. 469. |