Note 236 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
The instructions which Mary and Norfolk gave their Italian agent for the Roman See are preserved in the Vatican archives and printed in Labanoff iii. 221. From Leslie's expression (Negociations, in Anderson iii. 152) that the duke negociated with Ridolfi through a Mr. Backer, 'because he had the Italian tongue,' and that then all the plans were communicated to him ('the whole devises'), we might conclude that Norfolk was in general very much in foreign hands.