[427] The original draft of the protocol in Simier’s handwriting is in the Hatfield Papers. A most valuable digest or “time-table,” in Burghley’s handwriting, of the whole of the negotiations for the Queen’s marriage up to the period of Simier’s departure, will be found in the Hatfield Papers, part ii.
[428] Allen’s famous English seminary had been transferred to Rheims under the patronage of the Guises, and a great number of young priests were continually sent into England, especially after 1579, the first members of the Jesuit mission, Persons and Campion, arriving in 1580.
[429] Mendoza at this period writes to the King of the enormous number of ships being built. “This,” he says, “makes the English almost masters of the commerce … as they have a monopoly of shipping, whereby they profit by all the freights.” Burghley was an untiring promoter of extension of legitimate trade, as he was a constant enemy to piracy. He was at this time promoting Humphrey Gilbert’s colonisation schemes in North America, the enterprises of Frobisher and his friends in Hudson’s Bay, the trade of the Muscovy Company, the overland route to the Caspian by the White Sea and the Volga, and other similar adventures; but, as we shall have occasion to see later, he disapproved entirely of Drake’s proceedings in the Pacific, and other expeditions of a wantonly aggressive character.
[430] Hatfield Papers, part ii.
[431] Sadler State Papers.
[432] The intention, however, was not carried out. In the summer Lord Shrewsbury wrote to Lady Burghley asking her to prevail upon her husband to obtain the Queen’s permission for Mary Stuart to go to Buxton and Chatsworth. Lady Burghley in her reply suggests that the Queen was angry and refused. Mary, however, did go to Buxton later, but not to Chatsworth.
[433] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth. Burghley’s interest in naval affairs was great. He had, when danger threatened from Alba, in the summer of 1578, elaborated a scheme for the mobilisation of the navy, and had put fourteen ships into commission. The Council appear to have addressed to him most of their minutes respecting naval organisation, instead of to the Lord Admiral.
[434] The Duke Hans Casimir was in England at the time (January 1580), and took a large sum of money back with him for the purpose in question.
[435] This was actually the case at the time so far as Scotland itself as apart from Mary was concerned. There is in the Hatfield Papers of this date (1580) a fervent appeal from James VI. to the King of France, begging for assistance in force to release his mother, and support him against his heretic subjects. Mendoza also reports (4th September 1580) that Guise had just recognised James’s title of King for the first time, and that intimate relations were being formed between the courts of Scotland and France. This probably arose from the long delay of the reply from Spain to Mary, Guise, and the Archbishop of Glasgow, relative to their offer of complete submission to Philip. The whole matter, however, was changed in the following year, and thenceforward Mary and her friends depended upon Spain alone.
[436] In Strype’s “Annals,” in extenso.