Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/64

 50 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 52. del, and Lord Lumley, another of the same set. They pretended that they were without money for so great an enterprise. They desired Alva, to supply them before they began, and they offered to give him bonds for re- payment. Don Guerau said that they must earn their wages before they received them ; his master could not throw away his money without an equivalent. As they would not move without it, and seemed to catch at the excuse, he so far yielded at last that he procured 50001?. for them ; but time was wasted in the interval, and be- fore it arrived, Cecil, with extreme address, had dis- covered and disconcerted the plot. He was perhaps ignorant that Norfolk had meditated anything beyond an alteration in the public policy of the country. He sup- posed that the Duke was not wholly insincere in pro- fessing to be a Protestant. He frankly went to him, and declared that he himself had no end in view in the course which he had pursued, except what he believed to be the interest of his country ; if the Duke and Arundel disapproved of the attitude which had been as- sumed towards Spain, he said that they might go, both of them, to Madrid, and take powers with them to ar- range the dispute as they might think best with Philip. For himself he wished for nothing but some general settlement, by which Catholic and Protestant could be assured their natural liberty, and in which Scotland, France, and Flanders could be all included. These proposals alone might not have been effectual. The mission to Spain in no way met the Duke of Norfolk's wishes ; indeed, after the recent