The incessant rumours of Spanish invasion led to nothing, but these foreign intrigues are worth following for the light which they throw upon Elizabeth's policy. Stukeley, finding that the Archbishop of Cashel's party would not accept him as the champion of Irish Catholicism, went to Rome, where he walked barelegged and barefooted about the churches and streets. Fitzwilliam derisively reported that the man who had given up the kingdom of Florida and the dukedom of Ireland only for holiness' sake was about to have a red hat, and that the superstitious people of Waterford really believed in his sanctity. Constant communication was kept up between Ireland, Spain, and the Low Countries, and there was scarcely a southern chief or lord who was not supposed to be in correspondence with Stukeley or with some other of the exiles. Many probably sympathised with the idea of a Spanish invasion, though not to such an extent as the sanguine Fitzgibbon had represented, and others may have thought it prudent to make friends with the mammon of unrighteousness. The adventurer, after his return from Rome, was attracted by the somewhat kindred spirit of Don John of Austria, and served under him either at Lepanto or in some smaller encounter with the Turks, after which he retired to Madrid, and 'for his many deeds' became more of a favourite than ever. A pension of 1,000 ducats per week was thought a suitable entertainment for the Duke of Ireland, and one Cahir O'Rourke obtained the command of forty men. The Bishop of Cadiz received orders from Philip to punish those who refused passages to the Irish refugees, friars, and others, and one Cormac, calling himself provincial of the Irish Dominicans, busied himself in seeing that the order was carried out. The French captains under one pretence or other refused to carry these emissaries; but the Portuguese were more subservient, and many Irishmen sailed from Lisbon as well as from the Spanish ports. Meanwhile loyal Englishmen were subjected to every inconvenience. Five ships were stopped at San Lucar and three at Seville, and many of Elizabeth's subjects were closely imprisoned. The Inquisition worked harder than ever. Rumours of a fleet to be commanded by Stukeley were again rife, and some talked of as many as fifty ships. Philip II.'s slow mind was quite unequal to the task of coping with such statesmen as Cecil and Walsingham, and they were able to watch every move. English merchants and sea-captains, even Compostella pilgrims, took a pride in thwarting the despot, who seldom travelled further than Aranjuez, and imagined that he could rule all mankind by making silly marginal notes on despatches. Waterford having been recommended in 1569 as the best point for attacking Ireland, Philip, who apparently heard of the place for the first time, could only wonder in manuscript 'whether the Duke of Feria knew anything of that port.' Considering that Philip had been King of England, this is