Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/465

 15 7 1-] THE RIDOLFI CONSPIRACY. 451 ing of the Parliament ; the occasion was not lost so long as the session lasted, and Ridolfi thought it desirable to let his friends know before he left the Low Countries what the Duke had said to him. There happened to be at Brussels at this time a certain half Scot half Fleming, named Charles Baily, one of those many young men who were carried away by enthusiasm for the Queen of Scots ; who speaking English .and French perfectly well, was em- ployed by the Bishop of Ross to conduct the commu- nications between the refugees and their friends at home. When Ridolfi took leave of Alva, Baily was on the point of leaving for England with letters from Sir Francis Englefield, Lady Northumberland, and the Earl of Westmoreland, and with a number of copies of the Bishop of Ross's book in defence of Mary Stuart's title, which the Bishop wished to distribute while Parlia- ment was sitting. A safe messenger being thus ready to his hand, Ridolfi wrote to the Bishop of Ross, and with singular imprudence, when one letter would have answered his purpose, he enclosed others containing the same dangerous secret to the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Lumley. Each of the three was in cipher, but either >y accident or further carelessness he sent the key with them on a separate sheet, and the only precaution which he observed was to cipher the addresses of the two noble- men, in figures which had been arranged with the Bishop while he was in England. 1 The letters to Lumley and Norfolk were addressed to 30 and 40.