CHAP 1571 CHAPTER XXII. S the summer of 1571 passed away, each week had brought fresh information on the intended invasion of England. The confessions which had been forced out of Baily in the Marshalsea and the Tower had revealed the general fact that a treasonable correspondence was going forward between the Netherlands, the Bishop of Ross, and other parties whose names were concealed behind a cipher. Sir John Hawkins had penetrated into the confidence of Philip himself, and had linked the conspiracy with the person of the Queen of Scots; and details of Ridolfi's commission, with the formidable but still vague intimation that he had declared himself the representative of three-quarters of the English nobility, had been collected by the Florentine Ambassador at Antwerp, and communicated to Elizabeth.1 1 'In Flanders, by the Ambassador of a foreign Prince, the whole plot of this treason was discovered, and by a servant of his brought to her Majesty's intelligence.'- Speech of the Solicitor-General (Sir Thomas Bromley). Trial of the Duke of Norfolk. The Spanish account identifies the Ambassador and intimates that the communication was brought to England circuitously through the Duke of Florence. Un Embajador que estaba en Anvers descubrió la misma platica y negociacion de Ridolfo, y todas sus instrucciones y advertencias, que dió al Duque de Florencia su señor, el qual lo escribió muy á la larga á la Reyna de Inglaterra.'-Avisos de Londres á Don Guerau de Espes. MSS. Simancas. The Government was thus warned to prepare; yet it was not easy to determine on the measures which it would be wise to adopt. The Queen could not order a general arrest of the aristocracy; and disaffection in a greater or less degree existed over the whole country. The upper classes were deeply opposed to the revolutionary Protestantism which Cecil and his friends were supposed to desire to introduce among them, and were agitated with a fear, which amounted to a disease, of a disputed succession after Elizabeth's death. She could not throw herself on the patriotism of the nation, as her father did when Pole was preaching a crusade. In the absence of any distinct act which could be openly charged against Mary Stuart, it was unsafe to take her out of the hands of Lord Shrewsbury. Whatever doubts might be entertained of Shrewsbury's fidelity, Elizabeth thought it necessary to her position to be still able to tell Europe that the Queen of Scots was residing with a nobleman notoriously favourable to her. Nor could Cecil, with his utmost efforts, succeed in tracing the conspiracy distinctly to any English subject. As successive fragments of information came to his hands, he sent again and again for the Bishop of Ross, to cross-question and threaten him; but, although the whole affair from the beginning had been the Bishop's contrivance, he bore the examination without flinching. He pleaded his privilege as ambassador to keep secret whatever passed between himself and his mistress. He admitted that he had commissioned Ridolfi to sue for help to her party in Scotland. 'If there was any further matter in hand,' he said, 'no doubt it proceeded from the Pope himself, who was well known to desire CHAP XXII 1571 CHAP ardently the recovery of England to the Church, and would use all means possible to that effect.'1 XXII 1571 The suspicions of Cecil were not removed; he knew too much to be so easily deceived. The Bishop was not set at liberty, and was sent down to the Fens in charge of the Bishop of Ely; but still nothing had been discovered on which resolute action was possible. Country gentlemen from all parts of England visited the Duke of Norfolk at Howard House, and went to and fro without interruption. The Duke himself was so slightly guarded, that at any time he could leap on horseback at his back door and ride away, and send word to the Queen that he was gone.' His influence was supposed to be so great that the Queen's power was nothing by the side of his,'" and that alone and without Alva's assistance he would soon be able to dictate his pleasure to her. เ 2 Thus the Spanish Ambassador remained sanguine that all would still go well. The war with the Turks in the Mediterranean had interfered with the departure of the Duke of Medina, but the delay, if tantalizing, would not be necessarily fatal. The refugees at Louvain expected that with the coming spring at latest they would be at home again, purging their country of the stains of heresy; and the traitors in the Queen's household kept them constantly informed of every movement in the English Court.* 1 The Bishop of Ross before the 2 MSS. Hatfield, Aug. 1571. 4 The rebels all expect to be in new ministers heretics of all they have and hang them and not leave one of them alive. They all came of Luther; and the devil came to Luther by night to tell him what he should say. They say the Queen of England is no righteous Queen and ought to be put away. If the The young Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine had been at Brussels with Alva, and it was understood that if the French Government took the side of England the Guise faction would rise. Lord Derby was said to have Catholic service in his household without disguise, and to be casting cannon in the Isle of Man. Lancashire, Cheshire, Yorkshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex, were believed to be waiting only for Norfolk's instructions to rise at a moment's notice: and the Queen was thought to have lost her only chance of saving herself by trifling with France, and by neglecting at the same time to form a league with Count Louis and the German Princes.1 So matters stood when an insignificant accident threw the Duke of Norfolk into Cecil's power. A stream of money was being continually poured into Scotland to support the Marian faction there. From Rome, Madrid, and the Low Countries large sums had been repeatedly sent over; and France, as long as it was uncertain of Elizabeth, could not afford to be behind the rest. At the end of August, in reply to an urgent demand from the Queen of Scots, a letter of credit for 2,000 crowns was forwarded for her use through La Mothe, and the Ambassador handed it over to the Duke to be sent on to Lord Herries. Six hundred pounds were sealed up in a bag, with instructions in cipher that the money was to be delivered to one of the Lowthers, by whom it would be conveyed across the Border; and the Duke's two secretaries-Higford, of whom nothing further is known, and Barker, an old favourite of Anne weather is fair they have news from the Court of all that passes there every two days.'-Report of Conversation at the Earl of Westmoreland's ELIZ. IV. U table, by Henry Simson. Border 1 Avisos de Inglaterra, Sept. 1.— CHAP XXII 1571 CHAP XXII September Boleyn were directed to send the bag and its contents to the Duke's agent in Shropshire, a man named 1571 Banister. A Shrewsbury merchant, who had been in London making purchases, was returning home. Higford desired this person to take charge of it, telling him that it was fifty pounds' worth of silver, which the Duke was forwarding to his steward. The merchant, who suspected nothing, had almost reached Shrewsbury when the weight of the bag struck him as unusual. He opened it, found gold and a ciphered letter, and immediately returned to make known his discovery to Cecil.1 It was just at the moment when Fitzwilliam had returned the last time from Spain. Cecil, more than ever vigilant and especially watchful of Norfolk, sent at once for Higford and required him to decipher the paper. Higford hesitated, and said that he could not do it without the key; afterwards, being required to produce the key and being threatened with the rack, he said that it would be found under the mat at the door of his master's bedroom. Sir Henry Neville was despatched to look for it, and found there, not the key of which he was in search, but another letter in cipher also—the letter, unfortunately for the Duke, which the Queen of Scots had written to him preparatory to the mission of Ridolfi. The fresh mystery produced fresh suspicion. Higford, being again menaced with torture, read the first cipher from memory, and this established beyond doubt that Norfolk, who had sworn to Elizabeth 'to deal no further in the Queen of Scots' causes,' was corresponding with and assisting her friends in Scotland.2 1 Relacion de la prision del Secretario del Duque de Norfolk, Sept. 3. -MSS. Simancas. Examination of Higford and Barker.— MURDIN. 2 The words of the ticket deciphered': 'You shall receive sealed up in a bag by this bearer, Mr. Brown of . |