Simancas: May 1583 | British History Online

Calendar of State Papers, Spain (Simancas), Volume 3, 1580-1586. Originally published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1896.

Citation:

'Simancas: May 1583', in Calendar of State Papers, Spain (Simancas), Volume 3, 1580-1586, ed. Martin A S Hume( London, 1896), British History Online https://prod.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/simancas/vol3/pp463-472 [accessed 27 November 2024].

May 1583



4 May. Paris Archives, K. 1561.	332. Juan Bautista de Tassis to the King. It appears to me that Hercules, seeing matters in Scotland altered, and with but small probability of promptly assuming a position favourable for the plans that had been formed, has now turned his eyes towards the English Catholics, to see whether the affair might not be commenced there. He has already carried the matter so far that he expects to have it put into execution very shortly, and intends to be present in person. As he is entering into the business with the assurance of the support of His Holiness and your Majesty, and in any case it is necessary, if the matter is to be attempted, that it should proceed on solid bases, and with a probability of success, he requests that His Holiness and your Majesty should provide 100,000 crowns, to be available here instantly when it may be required, as when the hour arrives it will be too late to obtain it, and the whole design will risk failure, and especially because he, however good an opportunity might present itself, would not undertake to effect anything without being certain of the wherewithal to make a commencement. He has told the nuncio this, and sent the same message to me by the Scots' ambassador, with a request that I will convey it to your Majesty, and humbly beg for your support. I understand that he has the matter in such train as may ensure his success, and in such case it would be very necessary that he should have at hand the funds for immediate wants, and particularly for one object which I dare not venture to mention here, but which if it be effected will make a noise in the world, (fn. 1) and if not, may be safely mentioned another time. I beg your Majesty to instruct me on the point, as Hercules is very confident that your Majesty will not fail him, and this doubtless is the principal reason which impels him to take the matter up. The nuncio is writing to the same effect to His Holiness. Your Majesty should bear in mind that you will have to provide the greater part of the amount requested, as I am not sanguine that any large sum can be got from Rome, having just learnt that His Holiness has only sent 4,000 crowns, whereas your Majesty has supplied 20,000. I have still in hand a matter of 11,000 crowns, but apart from this, I have not a real for extraordinary expenses, and I have been obliged to trench somewhat upon this money for them.—Paris, 4th May 1583.
5 May. Paris Archives, K. 1447. 192.	333. The King to Bernardino de Mendoza. Your letters of 17th and 28th March and 4th April bring us copies of the proposals made by M. de Fénélon in Scotland and the result of his embassy, and it was very desirable to send us this in such full detail. I thank you much for your reports and the sagacious way in which you are dealing with such fickle people as those. I thank you also for the consolation and communications you sent to the queen of Scotland, encouraging her to promote the plans she has in view, although the departure of the duke of Lennox and the imprisonment of the King will make success difficult and doubtful. God grant some means by which the King may be released, and that those who are in connection with Lennox may take up a better position, otherwise there will be trouble. With regard to Flemish affairs which are being so artfully supported by the Queen, who keeps both the rebels and Alençon in hand, there is nothing to say except to beg you to report to the prince of Parma all you think necessary, so that he may be the better able to act effectively. I can well believe the evil offices the Queen is exercising with the Turk to prevent the Sheriff from delivering Larache, and to induce him to send a fleet into these waters ; but that other plan you mention, of establishing a trade between England and the Levant, and carrying lead and tin to Alexandria and Tripoli in exchange for drugs and spices, is a threatening danger to everyone, and particularly to the Venetians. I am so friendly with the Republic that you may write to Cristobal Salazar all that is necessary upon the subject, so that he may inform the Governors. Send also full particulars to me in order that I may adopt measures to obviate the evil. I grieve for the imprisonment of William Holt. The man who came hither will shortly be with you. (fn. 2) One day soon I will give audience to the queen of Scotland's secretary, (fn. 3) and will have you informed of what passes.—Aranjuez, 5th May 1583.
6 May.	334. Bernardino de Mendoza to the King. I wrote on the 22nd that the Queen was sending Secretary Beal to the queen of Scotland respecting the message sent by the latter through the French ambassador. It is clear to me, from what the Queen (of Scotland?) says, that the affair is a feint on the part of the ambassador. I am confirmed in this belief, as I know that he addressed the Queen (of England?) on the subject, and used the exact words I wrote to your Majesty, as I learnt from a confidant of his to whom he repeated them, with the Queen's reply to the queen of Scotland. The latter wrote me hurriedly in English what had passed between her and Beal, further particulars of which would be given to me by the gentleman who brought her letter. (fn. 4) She asks me to give her my opinion on two points with all possible speed, this being the principal object of her sending. She said she would on no account treat with Beal until she had my reply. I enclose ad verbum copy of the English letter and my reply thereto. It appears to me that nothing can be more injurious to your Majesty's interests, and to the hopes of converting this Island, than that the French should get their fingers into the matter through the queen of Scotland, and turn it to their own ends. The most certain method of keeping the conversion well alive is for the queen of Scotland to remain in the country, as her firm support is upon the English Catholic party, who in their turn are upheld by the arm of your Majesty, so that, being mutually interdependent, they cannot afford to lose the shelter of your Majesty. I have used all possible artifice in letting the Queen (of Scotland) know that the best course she can adopt, in every respect, is to decline to absent herself from the country and abandon the cause. I mention the various places where she might find herself at liberty, and point out the inconvenience of each of them in order that she may consider the arguments, and convince herself that my opinion is founded on reason rather than with an eye solely to your Majesty's interests. There is no desire that she should live for ever in prison, but it would be a pity to risk, by leaving it, the consummation for which I am so earnestly striving with great hope of success. I enclose to your Majesty her letter of 9th April, and will add here, on my own account, how unadvisable it will be for your Majesty and the Pope to appoint Lennox to command the troops, in defect of the duke of Guise, as he is so ostentatiously Protestant in appearance. The priest from Scotland, in letters dated Rouen, 25th April, advises me that there is little hope that Lennox will recover his health. Davison has returned from Scotland, and assures this Queen that affairs there were going on excellently. She continues to beguile the King with the hope of his being appointed her successor, and he writes to her privately letters full of endearments. I hear that a letter of this sort arrived the other day ; and, in order to keep him in suspense, and to avoid his being offended at the non-fulfilment of the promises she has made to him before the end of this session of Parliament, she has suddenly dissolved Parliament, and the King's hopes must now stand over until the next House meets. Every means is adopted to avoid a final decision, and as soon as Parliament met the Treasurer spread the rumour abroad that this throne would now be consolidated, as the Queen intended to marry the king of Scotland and appoint him her successor, which news was believed by those who failed to penetrate the real reason for publishing it. Orders have been sent to all gentlemen who are bound to serve on the Border to make ready with their horses, and await further instructions. The French ambassador has written to Alençon, assuring him, in the names of the majority of these Councillors, that when he chooses to make an attempt on Gravelines they will help him with munitions and victuals. I have reported this to the prince of Parma and M. de la Motte. (fn. 5) Somers has returned from Dunkirk with letters from Alençon, written in his own hand, for the Queen, who replies in the same way. He still continues to entreat her for money. The Queen told Alençon's gentleman, Bex, after he took leave of her not to speak with Leicester and Walsingham, which makes them suspect that she may have sent asking him to come back. She has appointed a gentleman named Arber (Arthur Sendye?) to go to Denmark with the offer I mentioned. Diego Botello arrived at Antwerp and the people wanted to kill him, on the ground that he had come on French plots. I have not heard that he negotiated anything. I enclose letters from Manuel de Silva in Terceira to Don Antonio and others. They were in the ship which was lost near the Sluys, and were bought of a sailor by one of my men who was in those parts.—London, 6th May 1583.
(6?) May.	335. Bernardino de Mendoza to the Queen of Scotland. — has given me an account of what your Majesty ordered him, respecting Beal's mission, and the reply thereto, which was worthy of your Majesty. I am greatly favoured by your Majesty's commands that I should give you my opinion on the two points, and if my understanding and penetration could be made to equal my goodwill and desire to serve your Majesty, I am sure I should not err in my judgment ; but as unfortunately my dullness is only too undoubted, I state my opinion, more out of obedience to your Majesty than because I think it will be of any service. With regard to the first point, of your Majesty's release, this may take one of two forms, either complete freedom to go whithersoever you choose, or the obligation to remain in the country, as was the case with Queen Mary in the time of King Edward. Release under any other conditions, and, without free access being allowed to your Majesty, would only be another sort of imprisonment. The second consideration, as to the conditions of release which it would be wise for you to accept, in your own interests and those of the Prince, depends entirely upon the first. In order to judge as to which form of release would be best to choose, it will be necessary to know how some of these Councillors are disposed towards you, who they are, and which of the principal Catholics are devoted to you, upon what ports and forces they can depend, and what following they are counting upon. These points can hardly be elucidated, except by your Majesty yourself, and the same may be said as to similar information with regard to Scotland, which is as important in this respect as England. I can therefore only speak so far as my own knowledge of these points will permit me, without going into details. I know that there are many Catholic gentlemen devoted to you, as are all the schismatics and some Protestants, but only to the extent of being sure unanimously to acclaim your Majesty in the case of the death of the Queen, which the Catholics would do if they saw a strong fleet with foreign troops arrive on the coast, able to undertake the conquest of the country unaided. I have been diligent in sounding their intentions, and I must confess that I find no particularly strong spirit or effort to forward the matter themselves, nor do I perceive any close association or league amongst them, each acting and thinking separately, doubtless in consequence of the close watch kept upon them by the Councillors having completely cowed them, so that they not only distrust one another but avoid expressing their opinions. In accordance with the information given to me by the priest who have been in Scotland, I am forced to a similar conclusion with regard to that country, and I gather, also, from the duke of Lennox's communications that he is not so ardent, as in the interests of your Majesty's release he ought to be, in concluding the association of your Majesty with your son, and in forwarding energetically the conversion of that country and this. If your Majesty be allowed to leave the country you might live either in Spain or France, but there are inconveniences in your staying in them or other neutral country, as none are adjacent to England ; and your Majesty would thus be abandoning the business altogether, and putting it out of your power to render so inestimable a service to God as the conversion of these islands to the holy Catholic Church, and the securing of them to it for the future by means of your line. Even apart from your natural maternal love, which would urge you to this task, your Majesty desires the consummation of it so earnestly. There remains, therefore, the choice of remaining at liberty in this country or in Scotland, and the conclusion and confirmation of the association by the Prince and nobles would be of the highest importance in connection with this, if the Queen (of England) will allow it ; because as your Majesty, of course, must be permitted the exercise of the Catholic religion, others would naturally exercise it as well in Scotland, and, by this means, through your Majesty's influence, ground could continue to be gained by the preaching of learned and saintly men to the Prince, who might thus be won by the easiest way, and one fully consistent with your Majesty's honour and dignity. At the same time, your Majesty would establish law and order in the country, now so unhinged, and would prevent the heretics and badly intentioned people from holding the person of the Prince in durance, and the ministers from misleading him spiritually with their diabolical fictions. With your Majesty in Scotland, and the person of the Prince safe, very many good results will follow, as will be evident to anyone, and much more so to your Majesty. If this Queen agrees to such an arrangement, equivalent conditions to those proposed by Beal may be offered for her security and the quietude of England ; not forgetting, however, the important point of the repeal by the English Parliament of the statute passed some years ago, authorising the Queen to appoint her own successor, adding also such conditions as your Majesty may consider desirable for the purpose of pledging, as far as possible, the nobles of England in union with those of Scotland. If the Queen will not agree to the association, which for many reasons may be feared, particularly as she has protested against it, and the conspirators are aware that it will be to their detriment, their hold upon the government depending on the pretext that your Majesty has abdicated, and the King been accepted by Parliament, the stay of your Majesty in Scotland, without the conclusion of the association, would be useless. The Prince, in such case, would still be in the hands of the conspirators, and the only result would be that you would be very unhappy, and unable to attain any of the objects above mentioned. In defect, therefore, of the first means, another course might be adopted, after your Majesty had, by the aid of this Queen, liberated the Prince from the hands of the conspirators, which is for your Majesty to reside in some convenient place in England with complete liberty, on the pretext that if the Prince do not approve of the association you can hardly get him to renounce during this Queen's lifetime the claim he may have to the English throne, although your Majesty may do so, as you only desire to enjoy in peace what you now possess. Your stay in this country would thus amount almost to a tacit admission of your claim to the succession. If the Queen refuse this arrangement, which is also not improbable, considering her behaviour in keeping up the marriage fiction, approaching one prince after the other, as the interests of her own quietude demand, without allowing a successor to be appointed, which she has often told me herself she would take care she did not permit, as men were naturally more inclined to worship the rising than the setting sun, another course is open to us. It is true this would involve your Majesty's remaining under guard, but without the strictness hitherto used, or the prohibition of the recreations and pleasures necessary to make life enjoyable, whilst you would be allowed free access to despatches and letters from all quarters. Your Majesty would be assured of the person in charge of the guard, in case of disturbance here, not undertaking anything in your Majesty's interests, and the Prince would be out of the hands of the conspirators. This, of course, would mean your continued imprisonment, and as such, irksome ; but it would have the result of ensuring and confirming the adhesion of the Catholics here, as well as of other people who, in case of your absence, would doubtless fall away and follow the greater crowd, whilst you would be able to live in a place from whence you might guide the Prince in the government, and keep up the spirits of your friends in Scotland. I have thus laid before your Majesty the courses open to you, upon all of which much may be said, but notwithstanding this, I should be thoughtless indeed if I did not urge you, with all my heart, to get your liberty at any cost, liberty being the thing most to be prized in the world after life itself, for those who are deprived of it are said to suffer civil death. If you were free and in good health, there is no doubt that, in time, all the evil could be remedied ; and I therefore say that the conditions of your release need not be too closely looked at, if the Queen seems inclined to grant it. This, however, is very difficult to believe, seeing how things are going in France, as the Queen fears that the moment your Majesty is free you would unsettle her. It may safely be predicted that, unless circumstances lead her subjects to compel her to appoint your Majesty as her successor, some prompted by their desire that right should be done, and some by the conviction that, little as they may love you, they are most likely to enjoy peace and quietness under you, the Queen will never willingly agree to it, nor release your Majesty. The sending of Beal to you at this time was certainly only with the object of sounding you, in the fear that, with the Prince at his present age, it is impossible for Scotch affairs to continue in their actual state, but that these must sooner or later break out, to their (the English) detriment, as England would catch the flame at once, seeing the multitude of Catholics daily being discovered, to their great dismay. This makes them fear an outbreak in Scotland ; and in order to see how the land lay, they seized months ago the letters sent by your Majesty ; and the French ambassador, I have reason to believe, has been stirring in the matter, and talking for the purpose of giving him an excuse for staying here, now that the Alençon match has failed them. I am led to this belief by the fact that your Majesty says nothing about having instructed him to take any steps which could result in Beal being sent, (fn. 6) but yet the ambassador told two gentlemen, as soon as Beal left, that your Majesty had complained through him of your treatment, and had proposed to send your secretary hither, with some safe offers to the Queen, which should be also honourable to her country. He said that if the Queen would agree to your suggestions, he doubted not that as soon as Beal arrived your Majesty would renounce all claims you might have to the crown of England during the life of this Queen, which will enable you to judge whether I am right in my suspicion. As the aim of this Queen and her Councillors is simply to entertain you with words whilst she gains time to work her will in Scotch affairs, your Majesty should use great circumspection and consideration in agreeing with them, and pay them back in their own coin, whilst at the same time taking care so to arrange matters as to be able to embrace the opportunities that God may send for the conversion of the island, which, as it will tend so greatly to His service, it may be hoped He will soon dispose by His divine action, whilst all human efforts are being made towards the same end by the negotiation of his Holiness and the King, my master.—London, May 1583.
6 May.	336. Bernardino de Mendoza to the King. At the killing of the two martyrs I mentioned, in the county of York lately, I am informed by trustworthy persons that an occurrence happened for which we should be thankful to God. After one of the martyrs had been sacrificed, one of the three thieves who were brought with them for execution cried out, on seeing him die, that he would die in the same faith as that martyr, which he protested was the true one (although the man had previously been a heretic) and that in which alone could men hope for salvation. He said that the law had killed an innocent man, and would soon be called to account, and then, with an appearance of great horror and fervent belief, he gave up his life willingly. The Queen maintains such a multitude of spies in France to dog the footsteps of the English Catholics there, that it is not possible for their friends to send them a penny without her hearing of it. They therefore constantly have recourse to me, and I send the money as if it were my own. I have now 10,000 crowns which they have asked me to send to Rouen and Paris. The Council have suggested to the Catholics to contribute a sum of money to carry on the enterprise in Florida, upon which Humphrey Gilbert has sailed with the ships I described to your Majesty, in which case they promise to release the prisoners and will allow them to live without persecution. As they have been warned that the expedition is an illicit one, and fear that the offer is only a trap to discover them, they are keeping in the background, although some few Catholics, out of indifference and penury, have gone with Gilbert, selling what little property was left to them for the purpose.—London, 6th May 1583.
20 May.	337. Bernardino de Mendoza to the King. Since I wrote on the 6th, Beal has returned hither from the queen of Scotland, and has given an account of his errand to the Queen, who says, with regard to the queen of Scotland's request that she shall be released, that although it may be so unsafe and perilous a business for her, yet as soon as the matter of the association with her son has been finally concluded by the Scots nobles, she (Elizabeth) will be happy to discuss the question of her liberation. The truth is that she herself would stand in the way of the "association" if the Scots wanted it, and what she says is simply compliment and empty words to waste time and entertain the French. With this end Walsingham sent Beal himself to the French ambassador, to say that in his opinion and that of other councillors nothing would be more conducive to the welfare of this country and Scotland than the "association" between the mother and son, and he therefore begged him to discuss the matter with the Queen, who, he would find, was now well disposed towards it. In consequence of the countess of Shrewsbury having quarrelled with her husband and accused him of giving the queen of Scotland more liberty than was fitting, the Councillors were trying to get her (the Queen) out of his custody. He (the Earl) thereupon wrote to this Queen, saying that he had kept his prisoner for more than 14 years, and through the time of the rising in the north in her favour, and he could not help feeling grieved that he should be relieved of the charge when he had done nothing to forfeit confidence in him. The Queen, therefore, made no change. On the 14th there arrived here an embassy from Scotland, Colonel Stuart, John Cockburn, of the King's chamber, David Lindsay a minister, George (Buchanan?), and a second secretary. The two first mentioned came as ambassadors, and the rest as councillors, without whose consent they cannot act. All of them are terrible heretics and accomplices in the conspiracy. In addition to the points of Stuart's instructions which I detailed in my letter of 15th ultimo, he is to request this Queen to give a firm assignment for 12,000l., to pay the pensions and the guard that holds the King, and to lend him a sum of money to repair the fortresses, some of which are in ruins. It is even said that he will ask for 60,000l. for this purpose, but I am not sure that he will request so much as that. He is to say that if she will not agree to it they will be obliged to renew the alliance with France, and accept the subsidy and pensions from that country, which are again being offered by the French. The King and they also wish to ask her what method she intends to adopt to preserve her religion in this country in case of her death, this being a feeler to see whether she will announce her intention of appointing the king of Scotland as her heir. The Queen received them on the 16th, but nothing passed but ceremonies of welcome. I will report what I can learn of their proceedings, which I am watching with the utmost vigilance, especially with regard to the queen of Scotland, whose life is of such vital importance for the conversion of this island and the service of God and your Majesty here. The only news from Alençon is that he is continuing in his former position, and was daily expecting the arrival of the rebel Commissioners. Cobham writes to the Queen that his most trustworthy informants there (in France) affirm that Alençon would certainly make terms with your Majesty. Sends particulars of Don Antonio's armaments at Havre de Grace and elsewhere.—London, 20th May 1583.