Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/407

 THE RIDOLFI CONSPIRACY. 393 the thought of palpable and positive treason. He al- lowed Ridolfi to visit him at his own house. He talked over a plan of invasion which would give Alva, as he conceived, a certainty of success. He even empowered Ridolfi to assure Alva that he would come forward im- mediately on the landing of a Spanish army, but he shrunk from setting his name to any document of which Ridolfi was to be the bearer. The papers might fall into wrong hands, and the scaffold had terrors for him. But Norfolk's signature was the one security which Ridolfi knew to be indispensable. He insisted, and the Duke yielded. 1 He was assured that by consenting he would heal the divisions by which the Catholics were prevented from acting together. The threatened mar- riage between Elizabeth and A njou screwed his courage to the sticking point. Being still under surveillance at his own house, he was unable to consult freely with his friends, but he gathered heart from a list of Peers who Ridolfi told him would sign if he would sign. No less than forty noblemen professed to be waiting only for an opportunity to declare in arms against Elizabeth, and of the rest a third were neutral. 2 1 Norfolk swore afterwards that he had signed nothing. The Bishop of Ross, though he admitted that Ridolfi had received every encourage- ment short of absolute signature ; that a letter written in the Duke's name had been read over to him, and had been approved by him ; and that in essentials he was thoroughly implicated, yet in that one point supported his denial. "But a letter from the Duke to Philip survives at Simancas to make his formal guilt as indisputable as his substantial complicity. 2 The forty were, the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquis of "Win- chester, the Earls of Arundel, Ox- ford, Northumberland, Westmore- land, Shrewsbury, Derby. Worcester,.