Note (Back to Main Text) — Chapter III · RECONCILIATION WITH ROME.

Nor did the irritation of the people abate. The Spaniards, being without special occupation, were seen much in the streets; and a vague fear so magnified their numbers that four of them, it was thought, were to be met in London for one Englishman.[366] The halls of the city companies were given up for their use; a fresh provocation to people who desired to be provoked. A Spanish friar was lodged at Lambeth, and it was said at once he was to be Archbishop of Canterbury; at the beginning of September twelve thousand Spanish troops were reported to be coming to "fetch the crown." Rumour and reality inflated each other. The peers, who had collected for the marriage, dispersed to their counties; and on the 10th of September, Pembroke, Shrewsbury, and Westmoreland were believed to have raised a standard of revolt at York. Frays were continually breaking out in the streets, and there was a scandalous brawl in the cloisters at Westminster. Brief entries in diaries and council books tell continually of Englishmen killed, and Spaniards hanged, hanged at Tyburn, or hanged more conspicuously at Charing Cross; and on the 12th, Noailles reported that the feeling in all classes, high and low, was as bad as possible.