Towards the close of the same year, however (December, 1571); Alva sent two other Italian assassins to England, bribed by the promise of vast rewards, to attempt the life of Elizabeth, quietly, by poison or otherwise.  The envoy, Mondoucet, in apprizing the French monarch of this scheme, added that the Duke was so ulcerated and annoyed by the discovery of the previous enterprise, that nothing could exceed his rage.  These ruffians were not destined to success, but the attempts of the Duke upon the Queen’s life were renewed from time to time.  Eighteen months later (August, 1573), two Scotchmen, pensioners of Philip, came from Spain, with secret orders to consult with Alva.  They had accordingly much negotiation with the Duke and his secretary, Albornoz.  They boasted that they could easily capture Elizabeth, but said that the King’s purpose was to kill her.  The plan, wrote Mondoucet, was the same as it had been before, namely, to murder the Queen of England, and to give her crown to Mary of Scotland, who would thus be in their power, and whose son was to be seized, and bestowed in marriage in such a way as to make them perpetual masters of both kingdoms.

It does not belong to this history to discuss the merits, nor to narrate the fortunes, of that bickering and fruitless alliance which had been entered into at this period by Philip with Venice and the Holy See against the Turk.  The revolt of Granada had at last, after a two years’ struggle, been subdued, and the remnants of the romantic race which had once swayed the Peninsula been swept into slavery.  The Moors had sustained the unequal conflict with a constancy not to have been expected of so gentle a people.  “If a nation meek as lambs could resist so bravely,” said the Prince of Orange, “what ought not to be expected of a hardy people like the Netherlanders?” Don John of Austria having concluded a series of somewhat inglorious forays against women, children, and bed-ridden old men in Andalusia and Granada; had arrived, in August of this year, at Naples, to take command of the combined fleet in the Levant.  The battle of Lepanto had been fought, but the quarrelsome and contradictory conduct of the allies had rendered the splendid victory as barren as the waves:  upon which it had been won.  It was no less true, however, that the blunders of the infidels had previously enabled Philip to extricate himself with better success from the dangers of the Moorish revolt than might have been his fortune.  Had the rebels succeeded in holding Granada and the mountains of Andalusia, and had they been supported, as they had a right to expect, by the forces of the Sultan, a different aspect might have been given to the conflict, and one far less triumphant for Spain.  Had a prince of vigorous ambition and comprehensive policy governed at that moment the Turkish empire; it would have cost Philip a serious struggle to maintain himself in his hereditary dominions.  While he was plotting against the life and throne of Elizabeth,