to her service; these relaxations
would make the enterprise much easier, and Chapuys was disposed to let it
be tried. The Emperor's consent, however, was of course a preliminary
condition, and his latest instructions had been unfavourable. The
Ambassador, therefore, referred the matter once more to Charles's
judgment, adding only, with a view to his own safety, that, should the
escape be carried out, his own share in it would immediately be suspected;
and the King, who had no fear of anyone in the world, would undoubtedly
kill him. He could be of no use in the execution of the plot, and would,
therefore, make an excuse to cross to Flanders before the attempt was
made.[379]

Chapuys's precipitancy had been disappointed before, and was to be
disappointed again; he had worked hard to persuade Charles that Catherine
had been murdered; Charles, by the manner in which he received the
intelligence, showed that his Minister's representations had not convinced
him. In sending word to the Empress that the Queen was dead, the Emperor
said that accounts differed as to her last illness: some saying that it
was caused by an affection of the stomach, which had lasted for some days;
others that she had drunk something suspected to have contained poison. He
did not himself say that he believed her to have been poisoned, nor did he
wish it to be repeated as coming from him. The Princess, he heard, was
inconsolable; he hoped God would have pity on her. He had gone into
mourning, and had ordered the Spanish Court to do the same.[380]

In Spain there was an obvious consciousness that nothing had been done of
which notice could be taken. Had there been a belief that a Spanish
princess had been made away with in England, as the consummation of a
protracted persecution, so proud a people would indisputably have demanded
satisfaction. The effect was exactly the opposite. Articles had been drawn
by the Spanish Council for a treaty with France as a settlement of the
dispute about Milan. One of the conditions was the stipulation to which
Cromwell had referred in a conversation with Chapuys, that France was to
undertake the execution of the Papal sentence and the reduction of England
to the Church. The Queen being dead, the Emperor's Council recommended
that this article should now be withdrawn, and the recovery of the King be
left to negotiation.[381] Instead of seeing in Catherine's death an
occasion for violence, they found in it a fresh motive