1571 May CHAP XXI prevented from making open war upon us by the want of men and money; and if Cobham is not now sent away with an answer of becoming spirit, an attempt to conciliate her will only involve us in fresh troubles, and we shall have ruined the Catholics, even while they have arms in their hands to help themselves and us. Let the Queen know that our King undertakes to protect her Catholic subjects: I warrant she will no more ill use them, and there is no other way out of our present difficulties. For two years now we have been taking the coward's road, we have found it a dirty one, and it is time for us to try another. No one has a better right than I to speak of this matter: I have had much to do with the English, I know the Queen, I know her ministers, I know their ways and their resources, and I cannot conceive for what reason we are so needlessly hesitating.1 Cobham called on me the morning on which he arrived. He brought me most loving messages from the Queen, and remained some time with me. But I could get nothing from him of any consequence, except entreaties that I would exert myself for the restoration of trade. He left me more assured than ever that this is not the time for us to turn our backs upon the Catholics. If we are not prompt in moving we shall find ourselves in a dilemma from which there will be no escape. Tell the Lords of the Council from me, to be careful what they do or say.' The English envoy seems to have been wholly unprepared for the temper with which his arrival was received. The Spanish Government considered themselves 1 De Feria's effective metaphor no longer in use in Spanish. It does not bear a closer translation. His words are: 'No se porque nos meamos en el vado tan sin porque.' The phrasemear en el vado' is means, however, obviously that the ford of a river is no place to stop in for purposes which can be attended to elsewhere. 1571 May beyond comparison the party most aggrieved. Cobham CHAP XXI presented himself merely with a list of complaints against Philip and his ministers. The Queen, he said, had desired above all things to remain on good terms with Spain. The Duke of Alva, without the smallest provocation, had arrested the English ships and goods in the harbours of the Low Countries. He had since attempted to arrange the quarrel, but his proposals had been such as the Queen could not honourably accept; and meanwhile, both at Madrid and at Brussels, English traitors were received with open arms, and treated with marked consideration. He was directed by his mistress to say, that she declined to correspond with the Duke of Alva any longer on these subjects. She requested his Majesty to discuss them immediately with herself. If his Majesty would banish Sir Thomas Stukely from Spain,1 and if he would send orders to Flanders for the immediate dismissal of the refugees, the differences between the two countries could be satisfactorily adjusted, and the arrested property on both sides be restored. Elizabeth as the wife of the Duke of Anjou might have held this language with success. Resting as it did upon a mere threat of a marriage which no one out of England expected to see fulfilled, and coming simultaneously with an offer which promised to place Elizabeth and her throne at Philip's mercy, the insolence of it was too much for the already sorely tried Castilians. The sluggish blood of the King himself ran quicker in his veins when he was required to refuse even common hospitality to the Catholic exiles. The Council sat for a week to consider their reply. Their discussions were submitted day after day to the 1 Stukely's story will be told hereafter. He had come from Ire land to ask for help in an intended CHAP XXI King, and returned with his comments on the margin. Their resolution shaped itself at last into the following 1571 May 'The envoy had come to treat with the King in person. 'The King should decline to hear or speak with him ' on any public matter. The envoy should be informed 'privately that his complaints and demands were alike 'preposterous. The disputes had notoriously commenced ' in the seizure of the Spanish treasure; and while the 'English harbours were dens of pirates from which the King's revolted subjects preyed upon his commerce, 'while the crews were recruited from English subjects, ' and guns and powder supplied to them from English 'arsenals, to make a grievance of the residence of a few 'persecuted Catholics in the King's dominions was in'tolerably monstrous.' This, and this alone, ought, in the opinion of the Council, to be the answer of the Spanish Government, and Philip at first wished to dismiss the envoy from the Court without so much as admitting him to his presence. When he consented at last to grant him an interview, it was to make the permission more insulting than a refusal. He was at the Palace of Aranjuez, thirty miles from Madrid. Cobham went down there, and the King saw him for a few minutes only; the common forms of hospitality were not extended to him; he was left to dine at an inn, and returned to the capital the same evening. The Council thought that for the King's credit some small present might be given to him; there was no precedent for the reception of an ambassador and his departure empty-handed. But Philip, being once launched upon the bold course, was more bitter than his advisers. Presents,' wrote the King in a side-note, 'are given to envoys when they come on a mission of good 1571 Juno will, and they are given when they come to declare CHAP XXI war. But this man comes merely to threaten and terrify us. If we bestow a present on him he will boast of it, we shall dispirit the Catholics, and inflate the heretics with the belief that we are afraid."1 De Feria in the character of an acquaintance delivered the private message. Cobham tried to argue that Alva had been the aggressor; but De Feria cut him short with saying, that he was sorry to hear an English ambassador condescending to falsehoods. He asked for the answer in writing, but he could not have it, and he was then sent for by the Council. Spinosa, the Cardinal President, made a difficulty in addressing a heretic, and would have transferred the duty to a lay member of the Cabinet. The words, however, it was thought would come with more imposing effect from one who might be supposed to speak in the name of God as well as of man. The Cardinal therefore swallowed his scruples, and thus delivered the reply of Spain to the Queen of England :: 'If that Queen would fulfil the office of a good neighbour and friend, his Majesty had given proofs already that he would not on his part be found wanting towards her. It would please him much if the differences between the two countries could be compounded, and as a step towards it his Majesty trusted that the Queen of England would at once restore the Spanish treasure. The details of the negotiation however were committed to the management of the Duke of Alva, and to him she was referred.' 1 'Lo que parece sobre el negocio de Cobham.'-Aranjuez, Mayo 14 é 19. MSS. Simancas. 2 'Lo que parece se debe responder 2 á Enrique Cobham de palabra, y СНАР ХХІ 1571 June With this answer and without his present Sir Henry Cobham returned to England, sick at heart with the same fears which haunted Cecil, and little dreaming then how soon he would again be at Madrid with the same message, to find the note of defiance dying away in prostration and humility. เ The Spanish Ambassador chuckled over the dismay with which the news of his failure was received. My 'Lord Burghley's burlesques," he said, 'had gone off so 'well hitherto that he despised danger and thought that 'he had taken a bond of fortune. He with his friends 'had made a jest of our endurance. His conscience stings him now, but his malice is inveterate. He is 'given over to reprobate courses and cannot turn to any good. His Majesty is wise and will provide against their tricks, though to see through them he ' requires more eyes than Argus had. I will do my part to make him respected, as the great Prince which he is, both by friends and enemies: but we must dis'semble and be as Proteus, and hide our purposes, ' and they shall pay for their iniquities at last as they 'deserve. The audacity of Burghley in sending Cob. 'ham with such a message was indeed marvellous; 'but knowing them as I do, I am surprised at nothing. 'We must provide in time. If this French marriage or 'league, or both together, come about, they can do us 'harm in the Provinces, but as certainly we can make a ' revolution in England; and I have no fear, if we are only prompt enough and do not allow this French busi'ness to consolidate itself. It need seem no work of ours, 'but merely a rebellion in which we may be called in to 'assist; and before the summer is over we can transfer เ เ 1 The pun is Don Guerau's. 'Y como á Milord Burghley todas las burlas hasta aqui le han salido bien,' &c.-Don Guerau to Cayas, July 12: MSS. Simancas. |