of men, coming partly from Spain, and partly from the Netherlands, might
be successfully managed, and he had even noted down the necessary number
of ships and men, with various other details. Some of the conspirators
had fled, she observed, and were now consorting with Mendoza, who, after
his expulsion from England, had been appointed ambassador in Paris; while
some had been arrested, and had confessed the plot. So soon as this
envoy had been discovered to be the chief of a rebellion and projected
invasion, the Queen had requested him, she said, to leave the kingdom
within a reasonable time, as one who was the object of deadly hatred to
the English people. She had then sent an agent to Spain, in order to
explain the whole transaction. That agent had not been allowed even to
deliver despatches to the King.

When the French had sought, at a previous period, to establish their
authority in Scotland, even as the Spaniards had attempted to do in the
Netherlands, and through the enormous ambition of the House of Guise, to
undertake the invasion of her kingdom, she had frustrated their plots,
even as she meant to suppress these Spanish conspiracies. She spoke of
the Prince of Parma as more disposed by nature to mercy and humanity,
than preceding governors had been, but as unable to restrain the blood-
thirstiness of Spaniards, increased by long indulgence. She avowed, in
assuming the protection of the Netherlands, and in sending her troops to
those countries, but three objects: peace, founded upon the recognition
of religious freedom in the Provinces, restoration of their ancient
political liberties, and security for England. Never could there be
tranquillity, for her own realm until these neighbouring countries were
tranquil. These were her ends and aims, despite all that slanderous
tongues might invent. The world, she observed, was overflowing with
blasphemous libels, calumnies, scandalous pamphlets; for never had the
Devil been so busy in supplying evil tongues with venom against the