A Declaration of the Causes, which mooved the chiefe Commanders of the Nauie of her most excellent | Page 2

and vpon the like occasion, woulde not haue failed to take the like course.
For it is a thing notorious & sufficiently knowen, not onely to the fewe Hanse townes, but also to all Christendome, that the king of Spaine is transported with a mortall hatred against the Queenes Maiestie of England: a witnes whereof is the intended but not performed inuasion of the kingdome, and Dominions of England by the saide king the yeere last past, furthered by him with all his force, but by the mercie of God vtterly disappointed.
Which exulcerate malice of the Kings minde, not lately sprong vp, but of long time lurking in the closet of his heart, yet foreseene and still preuented by the Queenes Maiestie, she often by her messengers sent to him for that purpose, as with most gentle medicines indeuoured to asswage, to reduce him to a newe minde meeter for a Prince, and so great a king as himselfe: to the ende that remouing out of both their mindes not onely the staine, but also the suspition of the staine of discontentments, they might dispose themselues to enter and conclude a firme peace and durable friendship, according to the ancient leagues betweene their progenitours and fathers, and their kingdomes, for the space of many yeeres happily continued.
The king as a man bewitched by the bishop of Rome, the very firebrand and bellowes of all the ciuill warres in Christendome, neglecteth the remedies and conditions of peace that haue bene offred, and perseuereth according to his beginning, in his hostile intendement against her Maiestie, not otherwise contentable or satisfiable then with her destruction, the slaughter and bloodshed of her people most obedient vnto her, and to bee short, with the conquest of the whole kingdome.
And for the better effecting hereof, hee hath oftentimes sent his messengers (you woulde rather say his fireflingers) into England, & of latest yeeres two speciall persons, of all the rest most eger and furious, Gyrald Despes, and Bernardine Mendoza, who ceased not to sound and perswade the mindes of all those whome they coulde growe in acquaintance with, and were men giuen ouer to al mischiefes and diabolical practises: promising them, and bestowing vpon them extraordinarie rewards, of purpose to stirre them vp to moue domestical conspiracies against her Maiestie.
And how much they preuailed in their attempts, it is not materiall in this place particularly to discusse, for so this worke would growe large. The 3. principall conspiracies, the one of the Earles of Northumberland and Westmerland, and of their partizans, the second of the Duke of Norfolke, the third of the two Pagets brethren, as also of the two Throckmortons and of their confederats, whereof some were condemned and executed, for their intended ouerthrow of the Queenes Maiestie, and of the state of the Commonwealth, and the rest that are fled, and wander vp and downe in vncertaine places, and are to this day mainteined at the charge and by the purse of the Spanish King, are in this matter very sufficient witnesses.
But the Patrons and complotters of these rebellious, being subtile and cautelous in their actions, howsoeuer apparant the factes of their seditious ministers seeme to bee, yet peraduenture the Spaniard himself wil denie them to be his precepts, and directions. Did he then chastise those his ministers being returned into Spaine, as transgressers of his pleasures? Did hee detaine from them all rewards and preferments, as hauing ill deserued them? hath he blamed the auctours of such facts, and excused himself to the Queene? I would to God it were so.
[Sidenote: The conspiracie of the King of Spaine against the kingdoms of England and Ireland 1570.]
But goe to, let these witnesses passe. May hee be taken for a man of a good spirit, & of no poysoned minde against her Maiestie? Let then Guilielmus Cataneus, the Popes Secretarie that now is be produced: let his worke of the life of Pius Quintus sometime bishop of Rome be read. The saide Cataneus in that booke of his reporteth, that Philip the king of Spaine complained bitterly and with great griefe to the Cardinall of Alexandria, sent vnto him into Spaine in the yeere 1572. because the conspired practise, as wel against England as Ireland, not long before entred vpon by his authoritie and aduise, had not that successe that he looked for.
[Sidenote: Ships and forces twise sent into Ireland by the King of Spaine.]
Adde hereunto the ships and forces sent twise out of Spaine into Ireland vnder the pretext of the Popes name. As for the late treatie of peace with the Duke of Parma in Flanders, entred into vpon the mediation, and request of the good prince the King of Denmarke, how smoothe & how slie a tuche was that? for her Maiestie, being