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

He expected the movement in the spring. It is singular that, precisely as in the preceding winter, the deliberate intentions of moderate and competent persons were anticipated and defeated by a partial and premature conspiracy. At the end of February a confederate revealed a project for an insurrection, partly religious and partly agrarian. Placards were to be issued simultaneously in all parts of the country, declaring that the queen's pregnancy was a delusion, and that she intended to pass upon the nation a supposititious child; the people were, therefore, invited to rise in arms, drive out the Spaniards, revolutionise religion, tear down the enclosures of the commons, and proclaim Courtenay king under the title of Edward VII.[451] In such a scheme the lords and country gentlemen could bear no part. They could not risk a repetition of the popular rebellions of the late reign, and they resolved to wait the issue of the queen's pregnancy, while they watched over the safety of Elizabeth. The project of the court was now to send her to Flanders, where she was to remain under charge of the emperor; if possible, she was to be persuaded to go thither of her own accord; if she could not be persuaded, she would be otherwise removed. Lord William Howard, her constant guardian, requested permission to see and speak with her, and learn her own feelings. He was refused; but he went to her notwithstanding, and had a long private interview with her; and the court could only talk bitterly of his treason among themselves, make propositions to send him to the Tower which they durst not execute, and devise some other method of dealing with their difficulty.[452]