and the Marquis of Winchester discussed the feasibility of seizing them; but Lord Howard and the Channel fleet were thought to present too formidable an obstacle. With the Queen's sanction, however, they armed in secret. It was agreed that, on one pretence or another, Derby, Shrewsbury, Sussex, and Huntingdon should be sent out of London to their counties. Elizabeth, if it could be managed, should be sent to Pomfret, as Gardiner had before proposed; Lord Howard should be kept at sea; and, if opportunity offered, Arundel and Paget might, at least, be secured.[1]
But Pomfret was impossible, and vexation thickened on vexation. Lord Howard was becoming a bugbear at the Court. Report now said that two of the Staffords, whom he had named to command in the fleet, had joined the exiles in France; and for Lord Howard himself the Queen could feel no security, if he was provoked too far. She was haunted by a misgiving that, while the Prince was under his convoy, he might declare against her, and carry him prisoner to France; or if Howard could himself be trusted, his fleet could not. On the eve of sailing for the coast of Spain, a mutiny broke out at Plymouth. The sailors swore that if they were forced on a service which they detested, both the admiral and the Prince should rue it. Lord Howard, in reporting to the Queen the men's misconduct, said that his own life was at her Majesty's disposal, but he advised her to reconsider the prudence of placing the
- ↑ Renard to Charles V., May 13: Tytler, vol. ii.
