be at our service and cannot be kept from us.  Everywhere there are safe and roomy harbours, almost all undefended.  An invading force can be landed with ease, and there will be no lack of local pilots.  Fifteen thousand trained soldiers will be sufficient, aided by the Catholic English, though, of course, the larger the force, particularly if it includes cavalry, the quicker the work will be done and the less the expense.  Practically there will be nothing to overcome save an unwarlike and undisciplined mob.

’Sixteen times England has been invaded.  Twice only the native race have repelled the attacking force.  They have been defeated on every other occasion, and with a cause so holy and just as ours we need not fear to fail.  The expenses shall be repaid to his Holiness and the Catholic King out of the property of the heretics and the Protestant clergy.  There will be ample in these resources to compensate all who give us their hand.  But the work must be done promptly.  Delay will be infinitely dangerous.  If we put off, as we have done hitherto, the Catholics will be tired out and reduced in numbers and strength.  The nobles and priests now in exile, and able to be of such service, will break down in poverty.  The Queen of Scots may be executed or die a natural death, or something may happen to the Catholic King or his Holiness.  The Queen of England may herself die, a heretic Government may be reconstructed under a heretic successor, the young Scotch king or some other, and our case will then be desperate; whereas if we can prevent this and save the Queen of Scots there will be good hope of converting her son and reducing the whole island to the obedience of the faith.  Now is the moment.  The French Government cannot interfere.  The Duke of Guise will help us for the sake of the faith and for his kinswoman.  The Turks are quiet.  The Church was never stronger or more united.  Part of Italy is under the Catholic King; the rest is in league with his Holiness.  The revolt in the Low Countries is all but crushed.  The sea provinces are on the point of surrendering.  If they give up the contest their harbours will be at our service for the invasion.  If not, the way to conquer them is to conquer England.

’I need not urge how much it imports his Holiness to undertake this glorious work.  He, supremely wise as he is, knows that from this Jezebel and her supporters come all the perils which disturb the Christian world.  He knows that heretical depravity and all other miseries can only end when this woman is chastised.  Reverence for his Holiness and love for my afflicted country force me to speak.  I submit to his most holy judgment myself and my advice.’