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

Meantime Gardiner was following the track which Courtenay had opened. He knew generally the leaders of the conspiracy, yet uncertain, in the universal perplexity, how any one would act, he knew not whom to trust. To send Courtenay out of the way, he allowed a project to be set on foot for despatching him on an embassy to Brussels (January 23); and anxious, perhaps, not to alarm Mary too much, he simply told her what she and Renard knew already, that treasonable designs were on foot to make Elizabeth queen. In a conversation about Elizabeth the chancellor agreed with Renard that it would be well to arrest her without delay. "Were but the emperor in England," Gardiner said, "she would be disposed of with little difficulty."[213] Unfortunately, the spies had as yet detected no cause for suspicion on which the government could act legitimately.