Such examples--and many more might be given--sufficiently indicate the
nature of the man on whom such enormous responsibilities rested, and who
had been, by the adulation of his fellow-creatures, elevated into a god.
And we may cast a glance upon him as he sits in his cabinet-buried among
those piles of despatches--and receiving methodically, at stated hours,
Idiaquez, or Moura, or Chincon, to settle the affairs of so many millions
of the human race; and we may watch exactly the progress of that scheme,
concerning which so many contradictory rumours were circulating in
Europe. In the month of April a Walsingham could doubt, even in August
an ingenuous comptroller could disbelieve, the reality of the great
project, and the Pope himself, even while pledging himself to assistance,
had been systematically deceived. He had supposed the whole scheme
rendered futile by the exploit of Drake at Cadiz, and had declared that
"the Queen of England's distaff was worth more than Philip's sword, that
the King was a poor creature, that he would never be able to come to a
resolution, and that even if he should do so, it would be too late;" and
he had subsequently been doing his best, through his nuncio in France, to
persuade the Queen to embrace the Catholic religion, and thus save
herself from the impending danger. Henry III. had even been urged by the
Pope to send a special ambassador to her for this purpose--as if the
persuasions of the wretched Valois were likely to be effective with
Elizabeth Tudor--and Burghley had, by means of spies in Rome, who
pretended to be Catholics, given out intimations that the Queen was
seriously contemplating such a step. Thus the Pope, notwithstanding
Cardinal Allan, the famous million, and the bull, was thought by Mendoza
to be growing lukewarm in the Spanish cause, and to be urging upon the
"Englishwoman" the propriety of converting herself, even at the late hour
of May, 1588.