he would undertake to poison the queen.

It now became necessary to handle the matter with great delicacy, and
Fuentes and Ybarra entered accordingly into a correspondence, not with
Lopez, but with a certain Ferrara de Gama. These letters were entrusted
to one Emanuel Lewis de Tinoco, secretly informed of the plot, for
delivery to Ferrara. Fuentes charged Tinoco to cause Ferrara to
encourage Lopez to poison her Majesty of England, that they might all
have "a merry Easter." Lopez was likewise requested to inform the King
of Spain when he thought he could accomplish the task. The doctor
ultimately agreed to do the deed for fifty thousand crowns, but as he had
daughters and was an affectionate parent, he stipulated for a handsome
provision in marriage for those young ladies. The terms were accepted,
but Lopez wished to be assured of the money first.

"Having once undertaken the work," said Lord Burghley, if he it were, "he
was so greedy to perform it that he would ask Ferrara every day, 'When
will the money come? I am ready to do the service if the answer were
come out of Spain.'"

But Philip, as has been often seen, was on principle averse to paying
for work before it had been done. Some delay occurring, and the secret,
thus confided to so many, having floated as it were imperceptibly into
the air, Tinoco was arrested on suspicion before he had been able to
deliver the letters of Fuentes and Ybarra to Ferrara, for Ferrara, too,
had been imprisoned before the arrival of Tinoco. The whole
correspondence was discovered, and both Ferrara and Tinoco confessed the
plot. Lopez, when first arrested, denied his guilt very stoutly, but
being confronted with Ferrara, who told the whole story to his face in
presence of the judges, he at last avowed the crime.