ly, by poison or
otherwise. The envoy, Mondoucet, in apprizing the French monarch of this
scheme, added that the Duke was so ulcerated and annoyed by the discovery
of the previous enterprise, that nothing could exceed his rage. These
ruffians were not destined to success, but the attempts of the Duke upon
the Queen's life were renewed from time to time. Eighteen months later
(August, 1573), two Scotchmen, pensioners of Philip, came from Spain,
with secret orders to consult with Alva. They had accordingly much
negotiation with the Duke and his secretary, Albornoz. They boasted that
they could easily capture Elizabeth, but said that the King's purpose was
to kill her. The plan, wrote Mondoucet, was the same as it had been
before, namely, to murder the Queen of England, and to give her crown to
Mary of Scotland, who would thus be in their power, and whose son was to
be seized, and bestowed in marriage in such a way as to make them
perpetual masters of both kingdoms.

It does not belong to this history to discuss the merits, nor to narrate
the fortunes, of that bickering and fruitless alliance which had been
entered into at this period by Philip with Venice and the Holy See
against the Turk. The revolt of Granada had at last, after a two years'
struggle, been subdued, and the remnants of the romantic race which had
once swayed the Peninsula been swept into slavery. The Moors had
sustained the unequal conflict with a constancy not to have been expected
of so gentle a people. "If a nation meek as lambs could resist so
bravely," said the Prince of Orange, "what ought not to be expected of a
hardy people like the Netherlanders?" Don John of Austria having
concluded a series of somewhat inglorious forays against women, children,
and bed-ridden old men in Andalusia and Granada; had arrived, in August
of this year, at Naples, to take command of the combined fleet in the
Levant. The battle of Lepanto had been fought, but the quarrelsome and
contradictory conduct of the allies had rendered the splendid victory as
barren as the waves: upon which it had been won. It was no less true,
however, that the blunders of the infidels had previously enabled Philip
to extricate himself with better success from the dangers of the Moorish
revolt than might have been his fortune. Had the rebels succeeded in
holding Granada and the mountains of Andalusia, and had they been
supported, as they had a right to expect, by the forces of the Sultan, a
dif