The Viceroy was not a little perplexed by these remarkable instructions.  None but lunatics could continue to conspire, after the conspiracy had been exposed and the conspirators arrested.  Yet this was what his Catholic Majesty expected of his Governor-General.  Alva complained, not unreasonably, of the contradictory demands to which he was subjected.

He was to cause no rupture with England, yet he was to send succor to an imprisoned traitor; he was to keep all his operations secret from his council, yet he was to send all his army out of the country, and to organize an expensive campaign.  He sneered:  at the flippancy of Ridolfi, who imagined that it was the work of a moment to seize the Queen of England, to liberate the Queen of Scotland, to take possession of the Tower of London, and to burn the fleet in the Thames.  “Were your Majesty and the Queen of England acting together,” he observed, “it would be impossible to execute the plan proposed by Ridolfi.”  The chief danger to be apprehended was from France and Germany.  Were those countries not to interfere, he would undertake to make Philip sovereign of England before the winter.  Their opposition, however, was sufficient to make the enterprise not only difficult, but impossible.  He begged his, master not to be precipitate in the; most important affair which had been negotiated by man since Christ came upon earth.  Nothing less, he said, than the existence of the Christian faith was at stake, for, should his Majesty fail in this undertaking, not one stone of the ancient religion would be left upon another.  He again warned the King of the contemptible character, of Ridolfi, who had spoken of the affair so freely that it was a common subject of discussion on the Bourse, at Antwerp, and he reiterated, in all his letters his distrust of the parties prominently engaged in the transaction.

Such was the general, tenor of the long despatches exchanged between the King and the Duke of Alva upon this iniquitous scheme.  The Duke showed himself reluctant throughout the whole affair, although he certainly never opposed his master’s project by any arguments founded upon good faith, Christian charity, or the sense of honor.  To kill the Queen of England, subvert the laws of her realm, burn her fleets, and butcher her subjects, while the mask of amity and entire consideration was sedulously preserved—­all these projects were admitted to be strictly meritorious in themselves, although objections were taken as to the time and mode of execution.

Alva never positively refused to accept his share in the enterprise, but he took care not to lift his finger till the catastrophe in England had made all attempts futile.  Philip, on the other hand, never positively withdrew from the conspiracy, but, after an infinite deal of writing and intriguing, concluded by leaving the whole affair in the hands of Alva.  The only sufferer for Philip’s participation in the plot was the Spanish envoy at London, Don Gueran de Espes.  This gentleman was formally dismissed by Queen Elizabeth, for having given treacherous and hostile advice to the Duke of Alva and to Philip; but her Majesty at the same time expressed the most profound consideration for her brother of Spain.