The invariable excuse given by Elizabeth for her help to the States was, that it was to keep the French out of Flanders; Don Juan’s appeal to the Guises being especially distasteful to her. “The present support desired of her,” she declared, “is only in consideration of the extreme necessity of the States by reason of the great preparations in France and elsewhere to overrun them, and bring utter ruin upon them; and it not disagreeing with the ancient treaties between the crown of England and the House of Burgundy … the purpose of the States being no other than by these succours to keep themselves in due obedience to the King their sovereign, her Majesty is content to grant the aid desired.”[405] The plausible reasons advanced, however, made no difference to Philip. It was only evident to him that the Queen of England was subsidising rebellion against him, and that her subjects held fortresses in his dominions as a pledge for the money she had advanced. He could not afford to declare war with England at the time, but he did what he could. The Irish malcontents were encouraged with the aid of Papal money; and Catholic plots, with Spanish and Guisan aid, for the rescue of Mary Stuart, the assassination of Elizabeth, and the like, kept the English court in alarm,[406] and pointed the moral for ever on the lips of Philip’s many paid agents and friends in Elizabeth’s counsels.
During most of the period when the arrangements with the States were being concluded in 1577, Burghley was absent from court, and it may be fairly assumed that the less cautious attitude adopted towards Spain was owing to the unchecked influence of Leicester; but with Burghley’s return late in the autumn the astute balancing diplomacy of the master-hand becomes once more apparent, both in the declaration quoted above, and the letter drafted by the Treasurer taken by Wilkes, Clerk of the Council, to Madrid. In it Elizabeth prays Philip to have compassion upon his Flemish subjects and to grant their just demands, and again explains her support of them. Moderate and deferential, however, as the tone of the letter was, it did not alter prior facts, and Philip was indignant and wrathful at what he called an attempt of Elizabeth to lay down the law for him. “Send this man off,” he says, “before his fortnight is up, and before he commits some impertinence which will oblige us to burn him.” Philip might well be angry, for he was impotent: he had to reconquer his own Flemings, Catholics and Protestants too, thanks to the aid they had obtained from Elizabeth. To make matters more galling, Antonio de Guaras had suddenly been arrested at dead of night, all his papers captured, his property sequestrated, and the poor man himself accused of consorting and plotting with the Queen’s enemies.[407] Lord Burghley, his former friend, was daily threatening him with the rack in the Tower; and for eighteen months he was treated with calculating contumely and harshness, only at last to be released, old, broken, and penniless, and sent to Spain scornfully to die.