394 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 55. It need not be supposed that all the party had been consulted severally, or could have been admitted safely to a dangerous secret. They were men however no- toriously opposed to the Reformation policy of Eliza- beth's Government, and among them were Clinton, the admiral of the fleet, and Shrewsbury, under whose charge the central person of the conspiracy was residing. So supported, or so believing himself to be supported, the Duke of Norfolk took the fatal plunge, and gave power to Ridolfi, in his own and his brother nobles' names, to bring a Spanish army into England. Parlia- ment was to open on the ist of April. The arrangements of the conspirators were completed by the middle of March. Hidolfi, after a circuit to Brussels, Rome, and Madrid, expected to be again in London before the close of the summer, while the Peers would still be assembled and in a position to act. 1 Cumberland, Southampton, Viscount Montague, Lords Howard, Aber- gavenny, Audley, Moiiey, Cobham, Clinton, Grey de Wilton, Dudley, Ogle, Latimer, Scrope, Monteagle, Sandys, Vaux, Windsor, St John, Burgh, Mordaunt, Paget, Wbarton, Rich, Stafford, Dacrcs, Darcy, Hast- ings, Berkeley, Cromwell, Lumley. Fifteen at most, according to Ri- dolfi, could be depended upon as true to Elizabeth, and of these, Sus- sex, Rutland, Huntingdon, and Here- ford alone belonged to the old Eng- lish aristocracy. The rest, Russell, Seymour, Sackville, Carey, were the new men who had grown out of the revolution, and so far as the Peers were concerned, rather aggravated the danger from the bitterness with which they were hated and despised ' List of the English Nobility, Avith a note of the part which each noble- man was prepared to take ' : MSS. Simancas, 1 Norfolk himself, with many of the rest, gave letters of credit in their own hands to Ridolfi. The originals were left as a precaution in the hands of Don Guerau, and transcripts in Don Guerau's cipher were forwarded to Rome and to Spain.
