'must insist on my desire to serve him, and entreat CHAP XX 'him to think well of me. 'To the Duke of Alva you will give my commenda'tions: you will admit him as far as you think proper 'into our plans-and as you find him disposed, you 'will ask for his favourable letters to his Holiness ' and the King. You will require him as a Prince of 'honour not to betray us; and you will leave our cipher ' with him, that we may keep him informed of what is going on among us. And, because the King of Portugal is also much 'offended with the Queen of England, I think that, being a most Catholic Prince, he cannot but favour 6 us. As this Prince has no ambassador residing here 'through whom I can communicate with him, you will ask his Holiness and the Catholic King to introduce you to him; and when you shall have left them, and shall 'have let us know what we are to look for from them, you may return through Portugal, and tell the King, that if 'he will join our enterprise, I will undertake to see him letter of credit, which was forwarded in Don Guerau's cipher, was as follows: 'Christiani orbis Serenissime idemque Catholice Rex; hujus insulæ Britannica statum tot miseriis et ærumnis undique religionis ergo dissidii quoque fidei causâ deplorandum considerans, hunc nuntium Robertum Ridolfi, virum probum, de aliorum procerum hujus regni consilio in præsentiam V. Majtis mitto, adeo instructum ut de rebus ad publicum spectantibus commodum, Serenitatem tuam certiorem redderre poterit, cui fidem haberi et eundem bene expeditum eâ celeri diligentiâ quam ipsius negotii statum (sic) requirit ad nos remitti humillime supplico, servus, 1571 March CHAP XX 1571 March 'satisfied for the injuries which he has sustained. He 'can help us much by throwing men into Ireland or 'Scotland. It will not be suspected, and his transports 'could be on the coast before a word had been heard ' about them. The Queen will have to divide her force. She will be disturbed and terrified, and the rest of 'the work can be executed with greater ease.'1 That ambiguous crime of treason, which graduates, according to its object and circumstances, through all moral degrees, from the most sublime virtue to the deepest wickedness, has rarely appeared less favourably than in this unlucky paper. If the Duke of Norfolk is to be credited with a sincere conversion to the Roman faith, that faith itself assumed in his person its most revolting and perfidious aspect. The penitent was not to reveal his creed because he was still trusted by those whose cause he was betraying; and because, by retaining their confidence, he could serve the Catholic interests more effectually. If, as he afterwards protested, he remained at heart a Protestant, he was deceiving alike his new friends and his old. He was without the solitary excuse which he might have pleaded in palliation of his treachery. He was bringing an army of strangers npon England, he was preparing to inflict upon his countrymen inevitable horrors of invasion and civil war, to gratify his own pride and paltry ambition. Doubtless, to his conscience, if conscience pricked him, he could say that there was much in the administration of which he disapproved: the excesses of the Reformation, the social changes, and the growth of 1 Commission of the Duke of Norfolk to Ridolfi.-MSS. Simancas. An Italian version of the same do cument has been printed by Labanoff from the Vatican Archives. 1571 March a new order of men whom he may have hated as his CHAP XX father hated Cromwell, might have reasonably offended his prejudices. Doubtless, even while he called himself a Lutheran he had no sympathy with the Protestantism of France, and Scotland, and the Low Countries, which Cecil's policy encouraged and protected; yet, it was not to remedy such ills as these that Alva's legions should have been called in to water English soil with English blood. Not on such grounds as these should he have sought the overthrow of a government, which, however grave its shortcomings, was the mildest which England had known for many a century. He might sigh for the patriarchal days of feudalism, when the earls and dukes were local sovereigns, and no upstart commoner could stride before them on the road to power; but there was little likelihood that the ancient order and reverence which he and his friends so much regretted, could be re-established by lying and treachery, or that a purer creed could be brought back into the Church, by placing Elizabeth's sceptre in the hands of Bothwell's paramour. There had been a time when Norfolk would not have required to be reminded of such common truths. He was not naturally mean or false. But the spell of the enchantment was upon him, and the woman, for whose sake he was fouling his hands with baseness, was intending secretly, when she had used his services, to dupe him at last out of his reward. Thus Ridolfi went-ostensibly on Elizabeth's business -to return if possible in the summer with the Spanish army, and Norfolk lay waiting in Howard House for the springing of the mine, while Mary Stuart corresponded with Elizabeth about the treaty as if her thoughts were absorbed in that and that only. She appealed from Elizabeth ill informed by her detractors CHAP XX to Elizabeth who would one day hear her defence; she affected still to depend upon her to prevent her title being meddled with by Parliament, and she swore that she was not entertaining a thought in Elizabeth's prejudice.1 1571 April In signal contrast with all this treachery and conspiracy, a remarkable exploit in Scotland threw sudden credit on the Regent's government, gave heart to the Protestants, and encouraged Elizabeth in her resolution to postpone for a time at least the further consideration of the Queen of Scots' restitution. The Castle of Dumbarton has been many times mentioned in this history. The rock on which it stands forms the point of a peninsula at the confluence of the Leven and the Clyde. It rises sheer from the water to a height of two hundred feet. The circumference at the base is less than half a mile, and the sides, if not entirely perpendicular, are so near it that there is but one spot where it can be ascended without ladders or ropes. The rock is united to the mainland only by a low strip of marsh and meadow which at that time was flooded by high tides. In a cleft near the summit there is a spring of water, and thus before the invention of shells the place was virtually impregnable except by famine. It had been held by Lord Fleming, in the name of Mary Stuart, from the beginning of the troubles in Scotland. It was to Dumbarton that she was retreating when intercepted at Langside. Dumbarton was the open gate through which French or Spaniards could have entrance into Scotland. It was a sanctuary of disaffection; a 1 Veu comme desubs que je ne désire rien mouvoir de ma part pour ne vous desplayre sans aultre respect je vous jure.'-Mary Stuart to Eliza beth, March 27; and compare Same to the Same, March 31.-LABAnoff, vol. iii. 1571 April shelter for English Catholic rebels; a residence for a CHAP XX French minister, who was kept there to nourish hopes which might or might not be realised, and commanding free access to the sea was a focus and hotbed of intrigues with the Continental Powers. The two Regents had watched anxiously for a chance of getting possession of it. The journey in which Murray lost his life had been undertaken in the vain hope that it would be surrendered. Sir William Drury surveyed it after he had destroyed Hamilton Castle, and a ball from a ditch had nearly ended his course there. The occupation of Dumbarton by an English garrison was among the conditions demanded by Elizabeth in the treaty. But for the present Queen Mary's banner waved above the battlements on Wallace's Tower; Fleming was still in command; the Archbishop of St. Andrews, who had been proclaimed traitor after Murray's murder, found shelter behind its crags. De Virac was there, superintending the supplies of arms and money which were continually coming in from France, and beside others there was a young Englishman also, named Hall, a friend of Sir Thomas Stanley, who had been concerned in the last Lancashire conspiracy. It has been said that while the treaty was under consideration in London, the two parties in Scotland had suspended hostilities. The conference having broken up, the armistice was not to be renewed and was to terminate on the 1st of April. In the last week of March, a man who had been a servant in the castle, and had some grudge against Lord Fleming for ill-treatment of his wife, came to Lennox at Glasgow, and told him that the garrison was keeping negligent watch, and that the place might be surprised. Crawford of Jordanhill, Darnley's last friend, who had shared his |