By this time matters had so far advanced that a large sum of money (6000 crowns) was sent by Alba to the Catholic nobles, through Lumley and Arundel, as well as 10,000 to Mary, and the rising in the north was in principle decided upon; but Alba, whilst ready to supply money secretly, strictly enjoined De Spes to turn a deaf ear to any suggestions for overt aid against the Queen’s Government.[303] His great care for the moment was to repair the effects of his mistake, and obtain some sort of restitution of the Spanish property seized in England. Agents were sent backwards and forwards, supple cosmopolitan Florentines mostly. Ridolfi, Fiesco, the Cavalcantis, and several others tried by bribery and other means to induce Cecil to consent to an arrangement. It suited him to pretend a willingness to do so. Ridolfi dined and conferred with him more than once on the subject at Cecil House. De Spes was released from his captivity in Paget House (on the site of the present Essex Street, Strand), and allowed to take the Bishop of Winchester’s house instead; but on various pretexts, invented, as he says, by Cecil, the interminable negotiations about the restitution dragged on without much result, as Cecil evidently intended them to do. “We must have patience,” De Spes writes to Alba, “but the affair is greatly injured by Cecil’s having again got the upper hand in the government, without fear now that the other members may overthrow him, for he knows that they could not agree together for the purpose.”[304]
Whilst Cecil was temporising about the restitution, and dallying with the Spanish agents, he kept his hand on the pulse of the Catholic Lords. Arundel and his party had arranged that De Spes should once more be admitted to the Queen’s presence at Guildford, and then go to a meeting of the conspirators at Nonsuch; but Cecil raised difficulties, and himself came to town specially to tell De Spes that the Queen could not receive him until he obtained fresh credentials direct from Spain. Cecil had apparently by this time (August 1569) won over the Earl of Pembroke; and Leicester himself had taken fright at the probable result of his plotting. His accomplices had gone beyond him. The rise of Norfolk and Mary under a Catholic regime would of course have meant extinction for Leicester, and though he was ready enough to ruin Cecil, he had no wish to be dragged down in his fall. “The Duke’s party,” writes De Spes, “and those who favour the Queen of Scotland, are incomparably the greater number.… I believe there will be some great event soon, as the people are much dissatisfied and distressed by want of trade, and these gentlemen of Nonsuch have some new imaginations in their heads.”