distributed throughout England, on the arrival in that kingdom of the
Catholic troops. The well-known 'Admonition to the Nobility and People
of England and Ireland' accused the Queen of every crime and vice which
can pollute humanity; and was filled with foul details unfit for the
public eye in these more decent days.

So soon as the intelligence of these publications reached England, the
Queen ordered her commissioners at Bourbourg to take instant cognizance
of them, and to obtain a categorical explanation on the subject from
Alexander himself: as if an explanation were possible, as if the designs
of Sixtus, Philip, and Alexander, could any longer be doubted, and as if
the Duke were more likely now than before to make a succinct statement
of them for the benefit of her Majesty.

"Having discovered," wrote Elizabeth on the 9th July (N.S.), "that this
treaty of peace is entertained only to abuse us, and being many ways
given to understand that the preparations which have so long been making,
and which now are consummated, both in Spain and the Low Countries, are
purposely to be employed against us and our country; finding that, for
the furtherance of these exploits, there is ready to be published a vile,
slanderous, and blasphemous book, containing as many lies as lines,
entitled, 'An Admonition,' &c., and contrived by a lewd born-subject of
ours, now become an arrant traitor, named Dr. Allen, lately made, a
cardinal at Rome; as also a bull of the Pope, whereof we send you a copy,
both very lately brought into those Low Countries, the one whereof is
already printed at Antwerp, in a great multitude; in the English tongue,
and the other ordered to be printed, only to stir up our subjects,
contrary to the laws of God and their allegiance, to join with such
foreign purposes as are prepared against us and our realm, to come out of
those Low Countries and out of Spain; and as it appears by the said bull