do so. It was
not her object to bring about the independence of the Provinces: but
she insisted on the departure of the Spanish troops, the observance of
the provincial constitutions, and above all assured liberty for the
Protestant faith. In 1575 she offered the King her mediation, not
however without including one special English matter, namely the
mitigation of the severe religious laws in reference to English
merchants in the Spanish countries: the King took the opinion of the
Grand Inquisitor on it. As if he could ever have been in its favour
himself! The Pacification of Ghent in 1576 was quite in accordance
with the Queen's views, since it established the supremacy of the
Estates, and freedom of religion for the chief Northern provinces. To
maintain this, she had no hesitation in concluding an alliance with
the States, and in consequence despatching a body of English troops to
the Netherlands. She informed the King himself of this, and requested
him to recall the Stadtholder Don John, his half-brother (who was
trying to break the peace), and to receive the Estates into his
favour: she did not by this think to come to a breach with him.

The idea of entrusting Don John of Austria, the victor of Lepanto,
with the restoration of Catholicism in West Europe had been at that
time adopted in Rome. His was a fiery nature pervaded by Catholic
principles, and seized with the most vivid ambition to be something in
the world and to effect something. The Irish wished him to be their
king; he was to free Mary Stuart from prison, vindicate her rights
alike in Scotland and in England, and at her side ascend the throne of
the British kingdoms now united in Catholicism. Mary gladly acceded to
this, as she had already long wished for a marriage with the Spanish
house. It was probably to give this combination a firmer basis that
she proposed, in case her son did not prove to be a Catholic, to
transfer her claims on the throne of England to the King of Spain, or
to any of his relatives whom he should name in conjunction with the
Pope.[241] But whom could she mean by these last words but Don John
himself, who then stood in close connexion with the Guises, whom she
also recommended most pressingly to the King. But she had at the same
time directed her aim towards Scotland. There her enemies Murray and
Lennox had perished by assassination; under the following regents, Mar
and Morton, Mary had still nevertheless so many partisans, that th