Note (Back to Main Text) — Chapter II · THE SPANISH MARRIAGE.

Noailles spoke generally of lords and gentlemen; but those with whom d'Oysel and himself had communicated were a party of ten or twelve of the pardoned friends of the Duke of Northumberland, or of men otherwise notorious among the ultra-Protestants; the Duke of Suffolk and his three brothers, Lord Thomas, Lord John, and Lord Leonard Grey; the Marquis of Northampton; Sir Thomas Wyatt, son of the poet; Sir Nicholas Throgmorton; Sir Peter Carew; Sir Edmund Warner; Lord Cobham's brother-in-law; and Sir James Crofts, the late deputy of Ireland.[200] Courtenay, who had affected orthodoxy as long as he had hopes of the queen, was admitted into the confederacy. Cornwall and Devonshire were to be the first counties to rise, where Courtenay would be all-powerful by his name. Wyatt undertook to raise Kent, Sir James Crofts the Severn border, Suffolk and his brothers the midland counties. Forces from these four points were to converge on London, which would then stir for itself. The French Admiral Villegaignon promised to keep a fleet on the seas, and to move from place to place among the western English harbours, wherever his presence would be most useful. Plymouth had been tampered with, and the mayor and aldermen, either really, or as a ruse to gain information, affected a desire to receive a French garrison.[201] For the sake of their cause the Protestant party were prepared to give to France an influence in England as objectionable in itself, and as offensive to the majority of the people, as the influence of Spain; and the management of the opposition to the queen was snatched from the hands of those who might have brought it to some tolerable issue, by a set of men to whom the Spanish marriage was but the stalking-horse for the reimposition of their late tyranny. If the Duke of Northumberland, instead of setting up a rival to Mary, had loyally admitted her to the throne which was her right, he might have tied her hands, and secured the progress of moderate reform. Had the great patriotic anti-papal party been now able to combine, with no disintegrating element, they could have prevented the marriage or made it harmless. But the ultra-party plunged again into treason, in which they would succeed only to restore the dominion of a narrow and blighting sectarianism.[202]