not a little perplexed by these remarkable instructions.
None but lunatics could continue to conspire, after the conspiracy had
been exposed and the conspirators arrested. Yet this was what his
Catholic Majesty expected of his Governor-General. Alva complained, not
unreasonably, of the contradictory demands to which he was subjected.

He was to cause no rupture with England, yet he was to send succor to an
imprisoned traitor; he was to keep all his operations secret from his
council, yet he was to send all his army out of the country, and to
organize an expensive campaign. He sneered: at the flippancy of Ridolfi,
who imagined that it was the work of a moment to seize the Queen of
England, to liberate the Queen of Scotland, to take possession of the
Tower of London, and to burn the fleet in the Thames. "Were your Majesty
and the Queen of England acting together," he observed, "it would be
impossible to execute the plan proposed by Ridolfi." The chief danger to
be apprehended was from France and Germany. Were those countries not to
interfere, he would undertake to make Philip sovereign of England before
the winter. Their opposition, however, was sufficient to make the
enterprise not only difficult, but impossible. He begged his, master not
to be precipitate in the most important affair which had been negotiated
by man since Christ came upon earth. Nothing less, he said, than the
existence of the Christian faith was at stake, for, should his Majesty
fail in this undertaking, not one stone of the ancient religion would be
left upon another. He again warned the King of the contemptible
character, of Ridolfi, who had spoken of the affair so freely that it was
a common subject of discussion on the Bourse, at Antwerp, and he
reiterated, in all his letters his distrust of the parties prominently
engaged in the transaction.

Such was the general, tenor of the long despatches exchanged between the
King and the Duke of Alva upon this iniquitous scheme. The Duke showed
himself reluctant throughout the whole affair, although he certainly
never opposed his master's project by any arguments founded upon good
faith, Christian charity, or the sense of honor. To kill the Queen of
England, subvert the laws of her realm, burn her fleets, and butcher her
subjects, while the mask of amity and entire consideration was sedulously
preserved--all these projects were admitted to be strictly meritorious in
themselves, although objections were take