Though there is no reason to suppose that any treachery was intended, Tyrone can hardly be blamed for mistrusting the English Government and avoiding London. He told Sir Anthony Standen at Rome that it was 'better to be poor there than rich in a prison in England.' And yet this may have only been a pretext, for his eldest son Henry told Edmondes that he believed the principal grievances to be religion, the denial of his jurisdiction over minor chiefs in Ulster, and the supposed intention of erecting a presidency in that province. Many obscure rumours preceded his flight. In February 1607 George St. Lawrence or Howth gave evidence of a plot to surprise Dublin Castle and to seek aid from Spain; but he incriminated no one except Art MacRory MacMahon and Shane MacPhilip O'Reilly. He was probably a relation of Sir Christopher St. Lawrence, who became twenty-second Baron of Howth in the following May, but it does not appear how far they acted in unison. The new Lord was a brave soldier, who had fought for Queen Elizabeth at Kinsale and elsewhere, but was both unscrupulous and indiscreet. In 1599, according to Camden, he had offered, should Essex desire it, to murder Lord Grey de Wilton and Sir Robert Cecil. Under Mountjoy he had done good service in command of a company, but the gradual reduction of the forces after Tyrone's submission left him unemployed, and he was very needy. Chichester wished to continue him in pay, or at least to give him a small pension, so that he might be saved from the necessity of seeking mercenary service abroad. Nothing was done, and he went to Brussels in the autumn of 1606, but had little success there. Chichester suggested that the Archduke's mind should be poisoned against him, so that he might come home discontented and thus dissuade other Irish gentlemen from seeking their bread in the Spanish service. That Howth was known to be a Protestant, even though he might occasionally hear a mass, was probably quite enough to prevent the Archduke from employing him. Among the Irish residents there was his uncle the historian, Richard Stanihurst, and another priest named Cusack, also related to him, and from them he heard enough to make him return to London and to give information to Salisbury. By the latter's advice probably he returned to the Netherlands, where he met Florence Conry, the head of the Irish Franciscans, who told him that it was decided to make a descent on Ireland 'within twenty days after the peace betwixt the King our master and the King of Spain should be broken.' Spinola or some other great captain was to command the expedition, Waterford and Galway to be the places of disembarkation. Conry himself was to go to Ireland to sound the chief people, and it appears from the evidence of a Franciscan that he was actually expected to arrive in the summer of 1607, but that he did not go there. Howth advised a descent near Dublin, and according to his own account he made this suggestion so as to ensure failure.