Portugal, where this great king, who had so long exercised so strong an influence on the destinies of Europe, shrunk into the condition of a private gentleman, retaining only a few servants and a single horse for his own use, and employing his now abundant leisure in religious exercises, in gardening, and clock-making.
During Philip's absence, a series of insurrections took place which disturbed the quiet of the queen, and in which the King of France seems to have borne no inconsiderable part. His assiduous minister, Noailles, disseminated reports that Mary, hopeless of issue, had resolved to settle the crown on her husband. This having produced its effect, a conspiracy was set on foot to put Elizabeth on the throne, and depose Mary. Henry Dudley, a relative of the late Duke of Northumberland, was to head it, and the French king, to secure his interest, had settled a handsome pension upon him. The worthless Courtenay, who was at this moment on his way to Italy, whence he never returned, was still to play the part of husband to Elizabeth, though the management of the plot was to be consigned to Dudley. Elizabeth had again, it is said, fully consented to this plot, though the health of Mary was such as must have promised her the throne at no distant day. Dudley was already on the coast of Normandy with some of his fellow conspirators, making preparations, when the King of Franco unexpectedly concluded a truce for five years with Philip. He therefore advised Dudley and his accomplices to lie quiet for a more favourable opportunity. This was a paralysing blow to the scheme of insurrection, and the coadjutors in England had gone so far that they did not think it safe to stop. Kingston, Udal, Throckmorton, Staunton, and others of the league determined to seize the treasure in the Tower, and once in possession of that, to raise forces and drive the queen from the throne. But one of them revealed the design, several of them were seized and executed, and others escaped to France. Mary applied by her ambassador. Lord Clinton, to Henry II. to have them delivered up, and received a polite promise of endeavour to secure them, which there was in reality no intention to fulfil. Amongst the conspirators arrested were two officers of the household of Elizabeth, Peckham and Werne, who made very awkward confessions; but again the princess escaped, it is said at the intercession of Philip, who was apprehensive, if Elizabeth was removed from the succession, of the claims of the French king on behalf of his daughter-in-law, the Queen of Scots. Elizabeth at all events escaped, protesting her innocence as stoutly as ever, but receiving from the Council in place of those two officers executed, two other trusty ones, Sir Thomas Pope and Robert Cage.
Very awkwardly, however, for Elizabeth, another eruption took place. The refugees in France pitched upon a young man of the name of Cleobury, who resembled the Earl of Devon, and persuaded him to personate him. He was landed on the coast of Sussex, and gave out that he was Courtenay, come to marry Elizabeth with her consent, and had himself and the princess proclaimed king and queen. The people, however, were too well acquainted with the worthlessness of Courtenay; they seized Cleobury, and he was executed at Bury.
Elizabeth, justly alarmed at this pretence of her cognisance of this miserable attempt immediately on the heels of the other, wrote to Mary declaring her detestation of all such treasons, and wishing that "there were good surgeons for making anatomies of hearts," that the queen might see the clearness of hers from all such hateful designs. The queen and Council expressed their perfect assurance of Elizabeth's non-concern with these transactions, but Elizabeth was still so apprehensive of danger that she applied privately to the French ambassador to find means to convey her safely to France. The intriguing Noailles was now, however, gone, and his successor, the Bishop of Acqs, gave her honest advice, telling her to remain where she was, and on no account to quit the kingdom; for if her sister, the present queen, had, on the insurrection of Lady Jane Grey, gone over to Flanders, as some of her friends advised her, she might have been there still.
But if Elizabeth was uneasy, Mary was still more so. The disquiets which surrounded her, and the wretched state of her health, made her very anxious for the return of her husband. She had lost her able minister, Gardiner, and his successor, Heath, Archbishop of York, by no means supplied his place. Mary, therefore, wrote long and repeated letters to urge the return of Philip, and, finding them unavailing, she dispatched Lord Paget to represent the urgent need of his presence in the kingdom. But Philip, besides his indifference, or rather repugnance, to his valetudinarian wife, was now occupied with causes of deep apprehension on the side of Italy. Cardinal Caraffa, a Neapolitan, was, from the rigour of the Spanish Government in his native country, a decided enemy of Spain. He was now elevated to the Popedom as Paul IV., and determined to exert all the influence of his position to liberate Naples from the yoke of Philip. For this purpose he fomented a spirit of disaffection in that country against the Spaniards, and prepared to assist the movement by an alliance with France, which should menace all Italy with a French invasion. But he had a subtle and daring enemy to contend with in the Duke of Alva, who soon after made himself so dreadfully famous by his relentless massacres of the Protestants in the Netherlands. About midsummer of 1556, the Pope discovered a private correspondence betwixt Garcilasso de la Vega, the ambassador of Philip at Rome, and the Duke of Alva, Viceroy of Naples, in which Garcilasso represented to Alva the defenceless state of the Roman territories, and how easily they might be seized by a Spanish army. Paul arrested Garcilasso; imprisoned and put to the torture de Tassis, the Postmaster General of Rome, for transmitting these letters; and ordered his officers to proceed against Philip for this breach of the feudal tenure by which he held Naples. But Alva was not a man to wait to be attacked, he marched across the Papal frontiers, and carried terror and confusion through the ecclesiastical states. He advanced as far as Tivoli before the Pope would listen to any terms of accommodation. Paul then solicited an armistice, and the Spaniards would soon have dictated
