The queen was not to be killed; at least, not immediately. "They will not kill her," the man said, "but deprive her of her estate, and then might she chance to be used as she used Queen Jane;" and he added, "that they who went about the matter would not agree that any foreign prince should have any meddling in it; neither Dudley nor any of the English gentlemen in France were privy to the matter."[577]
That any such combination as this letter described ever really menaced Mary's throne cannot be affirmed with certainty. The last two sentences, however, point to the difficulty which had embarrassed all attempts which had been hitherto ventured. The vice of the previous conspiracies had been the intrigues with France. The better order of English statesmen refused to connect themselves with movements which would give the court of Paris a dangerous influence in England, and would entitle the French king to press the claims of the Queen of Scots upon the English crown. If there was truth in the refugee's story, if there really was a conspiracy of "the best of England," clear of all such mischievous elements, it must have consisted of the body of the nobility, whom Lord William Howard described to Noailles as equally dissatisfied with himself. The heresy acts had been restored by the help of the bishops against the sustained opposition of the majority of the lay peers. For the hundred and fifty years during which those acts had been upon the Statute Book, they had expressed the general feeling of the country, yet during all that time, fewer persons had suffered under them than had been sacrificed during the last twelve months. Having failed to destroy her sister, having been unable to alter the succession, the queen was desperate; the Spaniards were watching their opportunity to interfere by force, and would want no encouragement which she could give them; and every honest English statesman must have watched her with the most jealous distrust. Yet, on the other hand, she was childless; her life must necessarily soon close by the course of nature, and with her life the tyranny would end. If force was attempted, she would not fall without a struggle; the clergy would stand by her, and all whom the clergy could influence. Philip would have the pretext, for which he was longing, for sending Spanish troops; and though liberty might and would prevail in the end, thousands of lives might be sacrificed, and Elizabeth's succession would be stained. The appeal to strength was, and is, the last to which good men will allow themselves to be driven. The lords understood one another: they would not be the first to commence; but if an attempt were made to carry off Elizabeth, or to throw on land a single Spanish battalion, they would know how to act.
Meantime, Dudley, Ashton, Horsey, the brothers Tremayne, and "divers others," were safe in France, and were hospitably entertained there. In England they were proclaimed traitors. At Paris they were received openly at court. The queen wrote to Wotton with her own hand, commanding him to demand their surrender.[578] She sent for Noailles, and required that "those wretches, those heretics, those traitorous execrable villains," who had conspired against her throne should be placed in her hands.[579] Henry, with unembarrassed coolness, promised Wotton that they should be apprehended, while he furnished them with ships, which they openly fitted for sea at the mouth of the Seine; and one of their number, Henry Killegrew, went to Italy to look for Courtenay, who was in honourable exile there, to entreat him to put himself at their head. Courtenay promised to come, so Killegrew reported on his return;[580] his name would have given them strength, his presence weakness; but if he really thought again of mixing himself in conspiracies his intentions were frustrated. The last direct heir of the noblest family in England died at the end of the summer, of an ague caught among the lagoons at Venice.[581]
The refugees, however, could do their work without Courtenay. The Killegrews, the Tremaynes, young Stafford, and many more, put to sea with three or four vessels, and treated all Spaniards with whom they could fall in as their natural enemies. Before the summer was out, they had "taken divers good prizes," and "did trust they should take more." "In case the worst fell, the gain thereof would find them all;" and on the 4th of August it was reported that they had taken a fort "on one of her majesty's islands," probably in Scilly, where the dangerous and intricate navigation placed them beyond risk of capture. Making war on their own account, half as pirates, half as crusaders, these youthful adventurers seized the Spanish caracks on their way to Flanders, sailed openly with their prizes into Rochelle or La Hogue, sold them, and bought arms and ammunition. Their finances were soon prosperous. Wild spirits of all nations—Scots, English, French, whoever chose to offer—found service under their flag. They were the first specimens of the buccaneering chivalry of the next generation—the germ out of which rose the Drakes, the Raleighs, the Hawkinses, who harried the conquerors of the New World.
In vain Wotton protested. The French king affected to be sorry. The Constable said that France was large; things happened which ought not to happen, yet could not be helped; the adventurers should be put down, if possible.
"These men brought nothing with them out of England," Wotton doggedly replied, "and were in such good credit with the people in France that nobody would lend them a shilling, and yet had they found ships which they had armed, and manned with good numbers of soldiers. What would the queen's highness think?"
The French court, in affected deference to such complaints, armed vessels, which they pretended were to pursue the privateers to their nest; but, as Wotton ascertained, they were intended really to act as their consorts.[582]
It was plain that the French king did not anticipate any long continuance to the truce of Vaucelles. In fact, Paul IV., whose schemes in Italy that truce had arrested, had succeeded in inducing him to break it. Lest his oath should make a difficulty, the pope had an ever-ready dispensation; and Paul's nephew, Cardinal Caraffa, came to Paris in July to make arrangements for the expulsion of the Spaniards from Naples.[583]
To insure Henry the continued support of the papacy, Paul undertook to create French cardinals on so large a scale as would give him the command of the next election. Henry, in spite of the entreaties of Montmorency, promised, on his side, to send an army to Paul's support; and the pope, without waiting for the arrival of the French troops, seized the Duchy of Paleano, and excommunicated the Colonnas, as the friends of the enemies of the Holy See. Scarcely caring to look for a pretext, he declared the Spanish prince deprived of the kingdom of Naples; and himself attempted to put in force his sentence against the Duke of Alva, who was acting there as Philip's viceroy.
The event had thus actually arrived, of which the expectation the year before had appeared so alarming. The most orthodox sovereign in Europe found himself forced into war with his spiritual father. The parent was become insane; the faithful child was obliged, in consequence, to place him under restraint, with as much tenderness and respect as the circumstances permitted. To the English council Philip explained the hard necessity under which he was placed.[584]