[310] 2nd November (Scrinia Ceciliana).
[311] Full details of the operations against the rebels will be found in the Sadler Papers; Sir Ralph Sadler being the Warden of the East and Middle Marches, and Paymaster-general of the army.
[312] The Earl of Westmoreland succeeded in escaping to Flanders, and thence to Spain. He remained a pensioner of Philip’s for years afterwards, plotting against England, and beseeching payment of the grudging dole which the Spanish King had assigned to him. Northumberland was captured by Murray and imprisoned in Lochleven; and at the time of the Regent’s assassination, Elizabeth’s special envoys from the Border were negotiating for Northumberland’s surrender. He was delivered to the English Government in 1572 by the Regent Morton, and beheaded at York.
[313] On the pretext of negotiating once more for the return of the Spanish property seized, Alba sent to England, in October, the famous Italian general, Ciapino Vitello, and in his letters to Sadler, Cecil expresses great anxiety as to the probability of an attack being made by Alba on Hartlepool at the time. English writers have always assumed that Ciapino came to England in order to take command of a force to be sent by Alba to England, but there is no trace of such a project in Alba’s or Guzman’s letters. Ciapino was forced, however, to leave his large retinue at Dover, and considerable delay took place before even he was received. Alba states to Philip that Cecil and Leicester had been, or were to be, bribed by the bankers Spinola and Fiesco, to allow Ciapino to come to England (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth), but Leicester sent word to Ciapino, as soon as the rising in the north was known, that his stay in England was considered very suspicious. He was then hurried away as soon as possible. There was really, however, not the slightest ground at the time to fear an armed invasion by Alba in favour of Mary. He wrote to Philip, 11th December, that he expected the rising “would all end in smoke,” and he would not move a step without Philip’s precise instructions.
[314] See inter alia the Bishop of Ross’s letter to Philip, 4th November 1569 (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth). His mistress, he says, had ordered him to remonstrate with Elizabeth against her imprisonment at Tutbury, and to demand either her restoration to her throne, or that she should be allowed to go over to France or Spanish Flanders. He can get no answer from Elizabeth, he says, and therefore in Mary’s name fervently begs for Philip’s aid.
[315] Very large sums were granted by Elizabeth for this purpose. To Count Mansfield alone she promised 100,000 crowns payable in three months, and a like sum in two years. In February the Prince of Orange sent an envoy to England to beg for similar aid, which was to be largely supplemented by the Flemings in England. The envoy was secretly lodged in Cecil House.
[316] There is an interesting memorandum of this period in Cecil’s hand (Hatfield Papers, part i., Nos. 1452 and 1455), entitled, “Extract of ye booke of ye state of ye realme,” in which the various dangers set forth in this page and the remedies therefor are described. The dangers are—the conspiracy of the Pope and the Kings of France and Spain against England; that of Mary Queen of Scots; the decay of civil obedience and of martial power in the country; the interruption of trade with Flanders, and the shortcomings in England’s treaties with foreign princes.
[317] Hatfield Papers, part i.
[318] Ibid.
[319] See her letters in Labanoff, iii., and also Banister’s Confessions (Hatfield).