If the thing was to be done, the Pope, it was clear, ought to pay part of the cost, and this was what the Pope did not intend to do if he could help it. The Pope was flattering himself that Drake's performance would compel Spain to go to war with England whether he assisted or did not. In this matter Philip attempted to undeceive his Holiness. He instructed Olivarez, his ambassador at Rome, to tell the Pope that nothing had been yet done to him by the English which he could not overlook, and unless the Pope would come down with a handsome contribution peace he would make. The Pope stormed and raged; he said he doubted whether Philip was a true son of the Church at all; he flung plates and dishes at the servants' heads at dinner. He said that if he gave Philip money Philip would put it in his pocket and laugh at him. Not one maravedi would he give till a Spanish army was actually landed on English shores, and from this resolution he was not to be moved.
To Philip it was painfully certain that if he invaded and conquered England the English Catholics would insist that he must make Mary Stuart queen. He did not like Mary Stuart. He disapproved of her character. He distrusted her promises. Spite of Jesuits and seminary priests, he believed that she was still a Frenchwoman at heart, and a bad woman besides. Yet something he must do for the outraged honour of Castile. He concluded, in his slow way, that he would collect a fleet, the largest and best-appointed that had ever floated on the sea. He would send or lead it in person to the English Channel. He would command the situation with an overwhelming force; and then would choose some course which would be more convenient to himself than to his Holiness at Rome. On the whole he was inclined to let Elizabeth continue queen, and forget and forgive if she would put away her Walsinghams and her Drakes, and would promise to be good for the future. If she remained obstinate his great fleet would cover the passage of the Prince of Parma's army, and he would then dictate his own terms in London.
I recollect being told when a boy, on sending in a bad translation of Horace, that I ought to remember that Horace was a man of intelligence and did not write nonsense. The same caution should be borne in mind by students of history. They see certain things done by kings and statesmen which they believe they can interpret by assuming such persons to have been knaves or idiots. Once an explanation given from the baser side of human nature, they assume that it is necessarily the right one, and they make their Horace into a fool without a misgiving that the folly may lie elsewhere. Remarkable men and women have usually had some rational motive for their conduct, which may be discovered, if we look for it with our eyes open.