50 THE CECILS
artifice. He is a great heretic and such a clownish Englishman as to believe that all the Christian princes joined together are not able to injure the sovereign of his country, and he therefore treats their ministers with great arrogance. This man manages the bulk of the business, and by means of his vigilance and craftiness, together with his utter unscrupulousness of word and deed, thinks to outwit the ministers of other princes, which to some extent he has hitherto succeeded in doing." l
As the main plot failed, so did the attempt to procure the assassination of Burghley himself. The confession of Edmund Mather, one of the conspirators, who stated that he was instigated by the Spanish Ambassador, throws light on the methods adopted.
" Of late," he writes, " I have upon discontent entered into conspiracy with some others to slay your lordship. And the time appointed, a man with a perfect hand attended you three several times in your garden to have slain your lordship."
That failing, they now intended to slay him
" with a shot upon the terrace, or else in coming late from the Court with a pistolet. And being touched with some remorse of so bloody a deed, in discharge of my conscience and before God, I warn your lordship of these evil and desperate meanings."
He adds, naively, " For the thanks I deserve, I shall, I doubt not, but receive them hereafter at your hands at more convenient time, when these storms are past."
1 Quoted by Hume, p. 264.
z Halfield MSS., II., i, 2. January 4th, 1572.
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