[417] This was true. The treaty of Nerac was signed in February 1579 by Henry of Navarre, now the acknowledged leader.
[418] Cobham, Wilkes, and Smith had all been sent back with a short answer.
[419] Sir Thomas Cecil to Burghley, and Lord Lincoln to the same (Hatfield Papers).
[420] Hatton to Burghley, 28th September 1578 (Hatfield Papers).
[421] There are many hundreds of such letters as these at Hatfield and in the Lansdowne MSS.
[422] Hatfield State Papers, part ii.
[423] Mendoza, writing on 8th April, says, “Lord Burghley is not so much opposed to the match as formerly; but I cannot discover whether he and Sussex have changed their minds because they think that they may thus bring about the fall of Leicester, and avenge themselves upon him for old grievances, and for his having advanced to the office of Chancellor an enemy of theirs” (i.e. Bromley). On another occasion, when the Queen learned of the Papal-Spanish expedition to Ireland to aid the Desmonds in Munster, she was so much alarmed that she dropped the French negotiations for some days and refused to see Simier.
[424] It has not been noticed by Burghley’s biographers that, true to his cautious character, he found an excuse for going into Northamptonshire shortly before Alençon arrived in London. He writes an interesting letter to Hatton from Althorpe, dated 9th August (Nicholas’s “Life of Hatton”), in reply to the advices respecting the fortifying of the Papal force at Dingle, in Kerry. The ships must be sent against them, he says, double-manned, “as there is no good access by land.” He is very jealous of foreigners setting foot in Ireland, for fear any “discontentation grow betwixt France and us upon a breach of this interview (i.e. with Alençon), or if the King of Spain shall be free from his troubles in the Low Country.” He approves of the agreement of Cologne and the pacification of Ghent, whereby Holland and Zeeland were to remain Protestant, and Flanders Catholic, rather than the war should go on. “On Tuesday morning we will be at Northampton, where after noon we mean to hear the babbling matters of the town for the causes of religion, wishing that we may accord them all in mind and action; at least we will draw them to follow one line by the rule of the laws, or else make the contrariant feel the sharpness of the same law.” On the same day Burghley wrote a vigorous letter to Walsingham directing energetic action in Ireland.
[425] Burghley’s minutes of the deliberations are in Hatfield Papers, part ii.
[426] Hatfield Papers, part ii.