dominions. To this she replied, "that her consenting to a like request, three years before, had proved most prejudicial to the Spanish affairs; for from thence that maritime power had arisen, against which the Spaniards now found it so difficult to contend." In proof that she had neither forgotten nor disregarded the ancient league with the house of Burgundy, she forbad the Netherlanders' ships of war, which were then in her havens, from leaving them; and would, by public proclamation, give orders that none who were in arms against the Spaniards should be admitted into them, specifying by name the prince of Orange, and some fifty of the most conspicuous persons of his party; but she would not expel the fugitives who had taken shelter upon her shores, 66 poor simple people, who had forsaken their country and their inheritance for peace; and whom it were inhuman, and against the laws of hospitality, to deliver into the hands of their enemies."*

On the other hand, she endeavoured to dissuade the prince of Orange from inviting France to protect the States; and when she was entreated by Holland and Zeeland to take them into her own possession, or at least under her protection, as the person to whom, in defeasance of the Spanish line, the right of inheritance reverted (that line deriving it from a sister of Philippa of Hainault, Edward III.'s queen), she answered, that she esteemed nothing more glorious than to act with faith and honour as beseemeth a prince: in this case, she could not be satisfied that she could, consistently with honour and conscience, take those provinces under her protection, much less into her possession; but that she would earnestly endeavour to procure for them a happy peace. When Requesens died, and there were movements which indicated a disposition in the other states to recover their ancient liberties, she exhorted them to bend their minds to peace, desiring nothing so much as the restoration of order in their provinces,

* Camden, 20.

and good government. This, indeed, her subjects had great reason to desire; for while many of those unquiet spirits, who followed war as a trade, engaged on either side, the English merchants, seeking their own gain by less exceptionable means, were plundered by both. They who were resident in Antwerp, when that city was sacked by the mutinous Spaniards, were not only spoiled of their goods, but compelled to pay a large ransom for their lives. And the Dutch and Zeeland ships of war, with the connivance, if not the sanction of the states, detained English ships, upon the plea that they imported provisions to their enemies the Dunkirkers, and that the trade from Flanders to Spain was now carried on in English bottoms, and boarded them, "smally to the profit of those to whom the ships and goods appertained," even when they were not boldly seized and carried away as prizes. A breach had nearly been made between the states and England, when the States blockaded the Scheldt, and prohibited the English from trading by that river with Antwerp: the merchants, finding themselves thus damnified, complained to their own government, reprisals took place, and the dispute was not adjusted till after much mutual injury and ill-will. The arrangement was facilitated by sending four vessels under the comptroller of the queen's ships, William Holstocke to scour the narrow seas from the North Foreland to Falmouth. In that course he recaptured fifteen mer. chantmen of sundry nations, took twenty ships and barks, "English, French, and Flemings, but all pirates, and in fashion of war;" and brought home 200 men prisoners for piracy, some thirty of whom were condemned to death.†

Such was the desire of Elizabeth, that the Low Countries should remain united to Spain, rather than be annexed to France, that when don John of Austria arrived as governor, she offered him her assistance, in case the states should call in the French. At the same

*Holinshed, 329-332. 321-323. Camden, 214.

*

time, when, upon the importunate entreaties of the States, she assisted them with 20,000l., it was upon condition that they should neither change their religion nor their prince, nor receive the French into the Netherlands, nor refuse a peace, if don John would condescend to reasonable conditions; and that, if such a peace were obtained, this money should go toward the payment of the Spanish soldiers, who were then in a state of mutiny because of their arrears. But it was with no amicable intentions toward the queen of England, that don John took upon himself the command in the Netherlands. He had been bred up in ignorance that Charles V. was his father, but in a manner which qualified him for any rank to which he might be advanced; and Philip, after acknowledging him as his brother, though illegitimate, had placed him in circumstances the most favourable to an ambitious mind, by appointing him to the command of that fleet with which he achieved at Lepanto a naval victory more important and more famous than any preceding one in modern history. Having taken possession of Tunis, he conceived the hope of becoming the founder of a Christian kingdom, which might one day vie in power and prosperity with ancient Carthaget: and when Philip refused his consent to a project the difficulties of which were well understood by Spanish statesmen, don John, with the approbation of the pope, fixed upon England as the seat of the kingdom to which he imagined himself born. A marriage with the queen of Scots was to provide him with a claim to it, and possession was to be taken by force of arms. The English emigrants encouraged him in this design; and he represented to Philip that England might be conquered more easily than Zeeland, and urged him to grant him some port in the north of Spain from whence he might invade it with a fleet. Meantime he had privately communicated with the Guises and this part of his negotiation was discovered and made known to Elizabeth by the prince of Orange, as * Camden, 208, 210. 215

+ Memorial de Ant. Perez. 298.

LEAGUE WITH THE STATES.

297

also that the intention was to occupy the Isle of Man, and that the aid of Mary's partisans in the south of Scotland was counted on, and assistance from Ireland, and an insurrection of the papists in the northern counties and in North Wales. When the truth of this information had been ascertained, Elizabeth entered A. D. into a league with the states.

*

That league she notified by an ambassador to the king of Spain, praying him and the governors of the Netherlands, to call to mind how often and how earnestly, and in how friendly an intent, she had long forewarned them of the evils impending over those countries; how carefully she had endeavoured to keep them within their duty to the king; how she had refused to take possession of the rich provinces which had been offered to her, and refused also to protect them; and how she had supplied them largely with money, when all things were in a most desperate and deplorable state, that they might not, for want thereof, be necessitated to call in another power, and break the design of peace which had lately been set on foot; whether these things were unbeseeming a Christian queen, who affected peace, and was most desirous to deserve well of her confederate the Spaniard, let the Spaniard himself and all Christian princes judge! And now that the wars might cease, and the Netherlanders again be at his devotion, she advised him to receive his afflicted people into former grace and favour, to restore their privileges, to observe the conditions of the last agreement, and to appoint them another governor of his own family for no peace could be concluded or observed unless don John of Austria were removed, whom the states distrusted and hated, and whom she certainly knew, by his secret practices with the queen of Scots, to be her most mortal enemy, insomuch that she could expect nothing from the Netherlands but assured danger, so long as he was governor there. It was because she knew what great forces don John had raised, and how

1577.

many auxiliary companies of French were ready to join him, that she, to preserve the Netherlands and Spain, and avert the danger from England, had now engaged to assist the states, they having promised on their part that they would continue in the king's obedience, and alter nothing in religion. If, however, the king would not listen to these representations, but was resolved to abrogate their rights and privileges, and reduce those miserable provinces into slavery, as if he had obtained possession of them by right of war, she in that case would not neglect to defend her neighbours, and provide for her own security.*

This was no palatable language to Philip; but that deep dissembler, feeling its force, and conscious of its truth, brooked it, and with simulated good-will besought her to continue her endeavours for bringing about a peace, and not hastily to credit false reports, nor believe that he attempted any thing unbecoming a prince in amity with her. How far he favoured the designs of don John, as conformable to his own catholic views, or discouraged them as tending more to the advantage of France than Spain, is uncertain. † But after the death

* Camden, 221.

Strada says that when the pope proposed a marriage between don John and the queen of Scots, "cum dotali Angliæ regno, ad cujus aggressionem honestior inde titulus armis Austriacis adderetur; " Philip did not refuse his consent: "neque rex abnuebat, immò licet expeditionem magis quam ducem probaret," are his cautious words. 1. viii. p. 445.

There is a mystery about the fate of don John. "Nam super natalium sortem Tunetense quondam regnum, tunc et Angliam sperasse manifestus, et cum Lotharingis in Gallicâ aulâ præpotentibus, clam Philippum, sociasse consilia, facile et res Belgicas in se versurus timebatur. Unde nec veneni suspicio abfuit, incertum tamen unde dati, quippe inventis sacerdotibus Romanæ professionis, qui suam in hoc operam patriæ imputarent. Anglos alii suspectabant, non ita dudum supplicio affectis, qui inde immissi in ipsum percussores dicebantur."-Grotius, p. 61.

The Englishmen here spoken of were Egremont Ratcliffe, and one Grey, the former son to the earl of Sussex by a second wife, a man of a turbulent spirit, and one of the chiefs of the northern rebellion. The English emigrants accused him of intending to assassinate don John, in whose army he was serving, and he and Grey were executed upon this."The Spaniards," says Camden, "give out that Ratcliffe at his death voluntarily confessed he had been released from the Tower purposely to commit this murder, and encouraged to it by Walsingham with great promises. The English that were there present deny that he made any such confession, though the emigrants did what they could to extort it from him." p. 227. They were put to the torture after don John's death, by the prince of Parma, and executed upon the confession thus extorted. Strada, 557. If don John were poisoned, the cause of their execution is evident enough.