March well out of the enquiry that after Count Schwegen- CHAP XX hem's departure, Walsingham recommended him to 1571 Cecil as a person who might be trusted to talk over with Philip the conditions of a possible arrangement. An opportunity was thus created to Ridolfi's hand, to repair unsuspected to the very countries where he wished to go, and to the persons with whom he wished to communicate. His ostensible business would lay with Alva and the King of Spain, and the disputed question of the ownership of the money originally seized would necessarily take him to Italy. So far nothing could be more fortunate. But if a larger movement was now to be attempted in England, the character and object of it had to be clearly determined. Divided counsels had ruined the first rising, and before Philip would think of moving he would insist on seeing his way before him. Was Elizabeth to be deposed at once? or was she to be allowed to reign for the term of her life, with a Catholic Council at the head of the government and the Queen of Scots for her successor? Who was to be the Queen of Scots' husband? was it to be Don John, as the Catholics desired? was it to be the Duke of Norfolk, the favourite of the great English country party? Norfolk had most friends, but he had not been reconciled to the Church, and the Pope and Philip could not move to give the throne to a Protestant. Was there sufficient security for his conversion in the event of a revolution being accomplished? The latter question was submitted by Ridolfi to the parties principally concerned just at the time when the restitution treaty was hanging fire in London. The Duke of Norfolk, irresolute as ever, had drifted on between falsehood and loyalty, trusting partly that 1571 March CHAP XX his friends would bring Elizabeth to consent to his marriage with the Queen of Scots, on the terms originally conceived between himself and Leicester and Pembroke, partly looking to the contingent insurrection if other means should fail. By hesitating at the critical moment he left his friends in the North to failure and exile; when the Stanleys would have raised the standard again, he was still uncertain and would not sanction their rising; but the Queen of Scots was now determined to force him to a resolution, and she sent him word, through the Bishop of Ross, that he must make up his mind. It was idle to wait any longer for Elizabeth's approval. An application was about to be made to the King of Spain in the Queen of Scots' behalf. If the Duke of Norfolk would commit himself finally to the measures which were in contemplation, she was ready to fulfil her own engagements with him. If he shrunk from the danger or felt unequal to the enterprise, she said that she must hold herself free to make other arrangements. The English Peers still looked to Norfolk with a feudal attachment as the first of their order. Many of them represented to Don Guerau that they were still anxious that the Queen of Scots should marry him if the King of Spain would sanction it. Two alternatives therefore, and two only, now lay before the Duke: either to retire from the field, and leave the Queen of Scots to look for some other alliance, or to declare himself privately a Catholic and offer himself 1 'Hallandose ahora aqui la Corte, yen ella los mas principales Catolicos, han aprestado otra vez la platica del casamiento del dicho Duque de Norfolk con la Reyna de Escocia y restitucion de la religion Catolica. Pi den socorro de V. Magd, pero yo no he querido salir de la orden del Duque de Alva ni darles confiança ni desconfiança, hasta que el dicho Duque me tiene mandado.'-Don Guerau to Philip, Feb. 6. MSS. Simancas. through Ridolfi to the Pope and Philip as the instru- CHAP XX ment of an armed revolution.1 True to his character, Norfolk struggled hard to avoid committing himself. The prospect of the throne was too tempting to be abandoned, but he shivered at the thought of palpable and positive treason. He allowed Ridolfi to visit him at his own house. He talked over a plan of invasion which would give Alva, as he conceived, a certainty of success. He even empowered Ridolfi to assure Alva that he would come forward immediately on the landing of a Spanish army, but he shrunk from setting his name to any document of which Ridolfi was to be the bearer. The papers might fall into wrong hands, and the scaffold had terrors for him. But Norfolk's signature was the one security which Ridolfi knew to be indispensable. He insisted, and the Duke yielded. He was assured that by consenting he would heal the divisions by which the Catholics were prevented from acting together. The threatened marriage between Elizabeth and Anjou screwed his courage to the sticking point. Being still under surveillance at his own house, he was unable to consult freely with his friends, but he gathered heart from a list of Peers who Ridolfi told him would sign if he would sign. No less than forty noblemen professed to be waiting only for an opportunity to declare in 1 Confession of the Bishop of Ross. -MURDIN. 2 Norfolk swore afterwards that he had signed nothing. The Bishop of Ross, though he admitted that Ridolfi had received every encouragement short of absolute signature; that a letter written in his name had been read over to him, and had been 1571 March CHAP XX arms against Elizabeth, and of the rest a third were 1571 March neutral.1 It need not be supposed that all the party had been consulted man by man, or could have been admitted safely to a dangerous secret. They were men, however, notoriously opposed to the Reformation policy of Elizabeth's Government, and among them were Clinton, the admiral of the fleet, and Shrewsbury, under whose charge the central person of the conspiracy was residing. So supported, or so believing himself to be supported, the Duke of Norfolk took the fatal plunge, and gave power to Ridolfi, in his own and his brother nobles' names, to bring an invading army into England. Parliament was to open on the 1st of April. The arrangements of the conspirators were completed by the middle of March. Ridolfi, after a circuit to Brussels, Rome, and Madrid, expected to be again in London before the close of the summer, while the Peers would still be assembled and in a position to act.2 The forty were, the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquis of Winchester, the Earls of Arundel, Oxford, Northumberland, Westmoreland, Shrewsbury, Derby, Worcester, Cumberland, Southampton, Viscount Montague, Lords Howard, Abergavenny, Audley, Morley, Cobham, Clinton, Grey de Wilton, Dudley, Ogle, Latimer, Scrope, Monteagle, Sandys, Vaux, Windsor, St. John, Burgh, Mordaunt, Paget, Wharton, Rich, Stafford, Dacres, Darcy, Hastings, Berkeley, Cromwell, Lumley. Fifteen at most, according to Ridolfi, could be depended upon as true to Elizabeth, and of these, Sussex, Rutland, Huntingdon, and Hereford alone belonged to the old Eng lish aristocracy. The rest, Russell, Seymour, Sackville, Carey, were the new men who had grown out of the revolution, and so far as the Peers were concerned, rather aggravated the danger from the bitterness with which they were hated and despised. List of the English Nobility, with a note of the part which each nobleman was prepared to take.' -MSS. Simancas. 2 Norfolk himself, with many of the rest, gave letters of credit in their own hands to Ridolfi. The originals were left as a precaution in the hands of Don Guerau, and transcripts in Don Guerau's cipher were forwarded to Rome aud to Spain. Don Guerau, in a letter sent direct to Spain, pre- CHAP XX pared Philip for Ridolfi's coming DON GUERAU TO PHILIP.1 'March 16. 'The Queen of Scots, the Duke of Norfolk, and the ' other Catholic leaders, have arrived, after long delibera'tion, at a most important conclusion. The Queen of 'Scots will send a Commissioner to your Majesty, with 'instructions the copy of which I enclose. He will 'explain fully to his Holiness and to your Majesty the 'miserable state to which this country is reduced, the 'probability that the Catholics have yet greater cruelties 'to undergo, and the solitary prospect of escape which is open to them through the assistance of those who support the claim of the Queen of Scots to the succes'sion of these realms. The other competitors, the Earls 'of Hertford and Huntingdon, are heretics. Your Ma'jesty will be given to understand the unhappy state of 'that Princess, and the sufferings to which the good ' are exposed who favour the cause. The Queen of 'England does but dally in affecting to treat for her ' restoration. More than once she has proposed to put 'her to death, and she forbears only the more effectually 'to ruin her Catholic subjects. She entertains them 'with the hope of an agreement, while the heretics 'persecute them at their pleasure. The friends of the 'Queen of Scots therefore have decided that she must 'throw herself upon the protection of the Christian. Princes, and especially of the Pope's Holiness and of 'your Majesty. They are willing to venture their lives 'and fortunes for religion and for that Queen's title. 1 MS. Simancas. The usual phrase in these despatches to express the Catholics. 1571 March |