So late as the beginning of May, even the far-seeing and anxious Walsingham could say, that in England “they were doing nothing but honouring St. George, of whom the Spanish Armada seemed to be afraid.  We hear,” he added, “that they will not be ready to set forward before the midst of May, but I trust that it will be May come twelve months.  The King of Spain is too old and too sickly to fall to conquer kingdoms.  If he be well counselled, his best course will be to settle his own kingdoms in his own hands.”

And even much later, in the middle of July—­when the mask was hardly, maintained—­even then there was no certainty as to the movements of the Armada; and Walsingham believed, just ten days before the famous fleet was to appear off Plymouth, that it had dispersed and returned to Spain, never to re-appear.  As to Parma’s intentions, they were thought to lie rather in the direction:  of Ostend than of England; and Elizabeth; on the 20th July, was more anxious for that city than for her own kingdom.  “Mr. Ned, I am persuaded,” she wrote to Morris, “that if a Spanish fleet break, the Prince of Parma’s enterprise for England will fall to the ground, and then are you to look to Ostend.  Haste your works.”

All through the spring and early summer, Stafford, in Paris, was kept in a state of much perplexity as to the designs of Spain—­so contradictory were the stories circulated—­and so bewildering the actions of men known to be hostile to England.  In, the last days of April he intimated it as a common opinion in Paris, that these naval preparations of Philip were an elaborate farce; “that the great elephant would bring forth but a mouse—­that the great processions, prayers, and pardons, at Rome, for the prosperous success of the Armada against England; would be of no effect; that the King of Spain was laughing in his sleeve at the Pope, that he could make such a fool of him; and that such an enterprise was a thing the King never durst think of in deed, but only in show to feed the world.”

Thus, although furnished with minute details as to these, armaments, and as to the exact designs of Spain against his country, by the ostentatious statements of the; Spanish ambassador in Paris himself, the English, envoy was still inclined to believe that these statements were a figment, expressly intended to deceive.  Yet he was aware that Lord Westmoreland, Lord Paget, Sir Charles Paget, Morgan, and other English refugees, were constantly meeting with Mendoza, that they were told to get themselves in readiness, and to go down—­as well appointed as might be—­to the Duke of Parma; that they had been “sending for their tailor to make them apparel, and to put themselves in equipage;” that, in particular, Westmoreland had been assured of being restored by Philip to his native country in better condition than before.  The Catholic and Spanish party in Paris were however much dissatisfied with the news from Scotland, and were getting more and more afraid that King James would object to the Spaniards getting a foot-hold in his country, and that “the Scots would soon be playing them a Scottish trick.”