o any terms and the greater advantage
there appeared in the conditions which he granted, the more certainly
might it be concluded that he had no serious intention of observing
them: that the usual fraud and ambition of that monarch might assure the
nation of such a conduct: and his son Philip, while he inherited these
vices from his father, added to them tyranny, sullenness, pride, and
barbarity, more dangerous vices of his own: that England would become a
province, and a province to a kingdom which usually exercised the
most violent authority over all her dependent dominions: that the
Netherlands, Milan, Sicily, Naples, groaned under the burden of Spanish
tyranny; and throughout all the new conquests in America there had been
displayed scenes of unrelenting cruelty, hitherto unknown in the
history of mankind: that the inquisition was a tribunal invented by that
tyrannical nation, and would infallibly, with all their other laws
and institutions, be introduced into England; and that the divided
sentiments of the people with regard to religion would subject
multitudes to this iniquitous tribunal, and would reduce the whole
nation to the most abject servitude.[***]

* Rymer, vol. xv. p. 377.

** Depeches de Noailles, vol. ii. p. 299.

*** Heylin p. 32. Burnet, vol. ii. p. 268. Godwin, p. 339.

These complaints being diffused every where, prepared the people for a
rebellion; and had any foreign power given them encouragement, or any
great man appeared to head them, the consequence might have proved fatal
to the queen's authority. But the king of France, though engaged in
hostilities with the emperor, refused to concur in any proposal for an
insurrection, lest he should afford Mary a pretence for declaring war
against him.[*] And the more prudent part of the nobility thought that,
as the evils of the Spanish alliance were only dreaded at a distance,
matters were not yet fully prepared for a general revolt. Some persons,
however, more turbulent than the rest, believed that it would be safer
to prevent than to redress grievances; and they formed a conspiracy to
rise in arms, and declare against the queen's marriage with Philip. Sir
Thomas Wiat purposed to raise Kent; Sir Peter Carew, Devonshire; and
they engaged the duke of Suffolk, by the hopes of recovering the crown
for the lady Jane, to attempt raising the midland counties.[**] Carew's
impatience or apprehensions engaged him to break the concert, and to