Note 213 — Chapter VII · 1570-1578

This was not the first time that the suggestion of a marriage between Mary and Don Juan had been made. A letter written by Lord Burghley to the Earl of Shrewsbury, Keeper of the Queen of Scots, written soon after the discovery of the Ridolfi plot, says that Elizabeth does not complain of Mary’s attempts to escape to Spain or elsewhere, nor is she offended by the proposal to marry young James to the Infanta. “Nether that she sought to make the King of Spayne beleve that she wold geve ear to the offer of Don Jon of Austria.” The real cause of Elizabeth’s anger, says Lord Burghley, is Mary’s conspiracy to raise a revolution in England.—Talbot Papers (Lodge).