Note 7 — THE YEAR AFTER THE ARMADA

Mendoza, writing to Philip from London, August 8, 1582, gives one instance of this amongst several. He says: "The Queen lent Dom Antonio £3,000 when he was here, and I understand she peremptorily demands payment of the sum, taking possession of the diamond which was pledged here for a sum of £5,000 lent by merchants, who offer to relinquish their claim to the Queen, if she will lend them £30,000 free of interest for six years out of the bars brought by Drake, which they will repay in five yearly instalments of £6,000 each. So far as I can learn, this talk of the loan is a mere fiction and a cloak under which the Queen may keep the diamond for the £8,000 on the ground that the merchants advanced the £5,000 by her express order, without which they would not have done so. This plan was invented by Cecil in order to prevent Dom Antonio from getting his diamond back again."

This diamond is probably identical with the celebrated stone given by Charles I. when Prince of Wales to the Count-Duke of Olivares, favourite of Philip IV., when Charles and Buckingham went on their foolish visit to Madrid. A contemporary account (Soto's MS. in the Academy of History, Madrid) describes the diamond as being of the purest water, weighing eight carats and called "the Portuguese," from its having been one of the crown jewels of Portugal. It had a great pearl pendent from it.