red with a kind of emulation which has something
highly fantastic about it. Thinking that so great an enterprise ought
not to be confided to one man, he sought and found new confederates
for it; when the murder was effected, and the Spanish troops landed,
he was to be the man who with a hundred sturdy comrades would free his
Catholic Queen from prison and lead her to her throne. Mendoza at that
time (and indeed by Mary's recommendation, as she tells us) was
Spanish ambassador in France: he was in communication with Babington
and strengthened him in his purpose. Of all the distinguished men of
the age Mendoza is perhaps the one who took up most heartily the idea
of uniting the French and Spanish interests, and advocated it most
fervently. King Philip II was also informed of the design. He now, as
he had done fifteen years before, declared his intention, if it
succeeded, of making the invasion simultaneously from Spain and
Flanders. The Queen's murder, the rising of the Catholics, and at the
same moment a twofold invasion with trained troops would have
certainly been enough to produce a complete revolution. The League was
still victorious in France: Henry III would have been forced to join
it: the tendencies of the strictest Catholicism would have gained a
complete triumph.

If we enquire whether Mary Stuart knew of these schemes, and had a
full understanding with the conspirators, there can be no doubt at all
of it. She was in correspondence with Babington, whom she designates
as her greatest friend. The letter is still extant in which she
strengthens him in his purpose of calling forth a rising of the
Catholics in the different counties, and that an armed one, with
reasons for it true and false, and tells him how he may liberate
herself. She reckons on a fine army of horse and foot being able to
assemble, and making itself master of some harbours in which to
receive the help expected not merely from Flanders and Spain, but also
from France. In the letter we even come upon one passage which betrays
a knowledge of the plot against Elizabeth's life; there is not a word
against it, rather an approbation of it, though an indirect one.[258]

And we have yet another proof of her temper and views at this time
lying before us. As the zeal of the Catholics for her claim to the
succession might be weakened by the fact that her son in Scotland, on
whom it naturally devolved, after all the hopes cherished on his
behalf, still rema