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Allen to flourish. Allen continued to govern the college till the summer of 1585. He was then obliged, by illness, to go to Spa, and on getting better he journeyed, for the fourth time, to Rome, from which city he was destined never to return. He took up his abode in the English hospital.

Allen, who had for some years been deeply involved in political intrigues, has been severely censured on account of a letter which he published in 1587, defending the surrender of Deventer, a Dutch fort, to the Spaniards, by Sir William Stanley, the English governor, and of another fort near Zutphen, by another Englishman, Rowland York. He insisted that all persons, especially those of the English nation, who detained any towns in the Low Countries from his catholic majesty, were bound, under pain of damnation, to follow the example given by the treacherous Stanley. The catholic soldier was assured that if he died ‘in any known evil cause, and namely in this fight against God and defence of heretics, he is damned for ever' (Defence of Sir W. Stanley, 1851, p. 20). Allen declared void all 'acts of justice within the realm done by the queen's authority, ever since she was by public sentence of the church and see apostolic declared an heretic and an enemy of God's church;' declared that 'no war can be lawfully denounced or waged by her, though otherwise in itself it were most just;' and further asserted that the pope's 'sovereign authority and wisdom, derived from Christ himself, may best instruct and warrant a christian soldier how far, when, and where, either at home or abroad, in civil or foreign wars made against the enemies or rebels of God's church, he may, and must, break with his temporal sovereign, and obey God and his spiritual superior.'

On 7 Aug. 1587 the pope, Sixtus V, summoned the members of the Sacred College to a consistory, and in it he created Allen cardinal priest of the Holy Roman Church, with the title of St. Martin in Montibus. This promotion caused very general surprise, because it was in derogation of a recent constitution made by Sixtus V himself, according to which no creation of cardinals was to take place except in Advent. The rumour that Allen was about to receive a cardinal's hat was believed to be unfounded, and the merchants of Rome made, and of course lost, bets to a large amount that he would not be promoted. The real reason for the action taken by the pope requires some explanation.

Allen's constant desire was to restore England to the unity of catholic faith. Up to his fiftieth year his life had been entirely devoted to ‘scholastical attempts,' as he expresses it, 'for the conversion of our country and reconcilement of our brethren to the catholic church, which we everlastingly profess, and will endeavour until death.’ At first he hoped to succeed in inducing his countrymen, by the persuasion of his seminary priests, who were sent in large numbers from the colleges of Douay and Rheims, to abjure protestantism and return to the ancient religion. But when he found that his hopes could not be realised by this means he did not hesitate to resort to political intrigue and armed force in order to attain the object he had so deeply at heart. It is a very remarkable fact that he kept the work of the seminaries unmingled with his political life. The priests who were trained for the mission did not concern themselves with politics, and accordingly all questions relating to the pope's power of excommunicating and deposing princes were wholly omitted from the college course. Allen's political career appears to have begun in the spring of 1582. From that time he was in frequent communication with the Duke of Guise and Mary Queen of Scots, and he was conversant with all the schemes of Father Parsons for depriving Queen Elizabeth of the English crown. At the time of the proposed expedition under the Duke of Guise, for the purpose of placing King James, son of the captive Queen of Scots, on the throne of England, it was suggested that Allen, who was universally admitted to be the most influential person among the English catholics, should be secretly made bishop of Durham. Finally Allen gave up all idea of promoting King James's accession after that monarch's adhesion to the protestant religion, and thenceforward he and Parsons became the leaders of what was termed the ‘Spanish party' among the English catholics, and warmly maintained that Philip II of Spain had a better title than any one else to the crown of England. In a joint memorandum which they drew up they insisted that ‘his catholic majesty, besides the cause of the catholic religion and the injuries which he has received from England, has in the vengeance due for the blood of the queen of Scotland, which she herself commended to him, a most just ground and necessary cause for going to war, and, therefore, if he seizes upon the kingdom in so just and praiseworthy a war, the title of conquest will be legitimate.' King Philip, when his preparations for the invasion of this country were in a forward state, entreated the pope to make an English cardinal, who, in the event of success, might reconcile the realm to the church and reorganise ecclesiastical affairs in England as Cardinal Pole had done thirty-three years before.