Note 204 — Chapter VII · 1570-1578
Reading edition
That Elizabeth intended the expulsion of de Spes, and her refusal to continue negotiations about the seizures, to be a political demonstration to show her power and impress her new friends the French, is seen by her conversation at this time (December, 1571) with Cavalcanti, Catharine de Medici’s confidential envoy. The King of Spain, she said, thought that he could separate her from the alliance with France at any time; but however accommodating he might show himself in the negotiations about the seizures, and however ready to agree to terms favourable to the English, she would never trust Spaniards again, seeing the trouble they had prepared for her in Ridolfi’s plots with the Pope. The King of France might see how little she cared for the King of Spain by the way she had ordered his ambassador to be gone without delay. She wished Cavalcanti could have seen him actually on the road, but with some pretext about wanting money he was here for a day or two longer. She could assure him, however, that he should not stay in her country, and she cared not whether another came or not.—Spanish Calendar, vol. ii.