the Queen has never seen in her life.' Against his advice the descent on Ireland was abandoned, and he sank into obscurity; it was even reported that he had gone mad. An Italian named Giacomo de Francesqui, and sometimes called Captain Jacques, who had been his lieutenant in Ireland, was arrested by Burghley's orders. This officer was on friendly terms with Florence MacCarthy, and was known to have been acquainted with Ballard; and it was thought that he might be utilised by the Spaniards in Munster. Most of Stanley's Irish levies doubtless left their bones in the Low Countries, but a few returned to Ireland, and eleven of these poor men were pardoned by Elizabeth nearly seven years after the treason at Deventer. 'They were,' she said, 'innocently forced to disobey us.' For many years there were reports that Stanley was coming to Ireland, but he never came. In Cheshire old Sir Rowland Stanley 'grievously lamented his son William the traitor, maintaining his son in Cambridge, and also relieving his wife and children, having no other maintenance.'[155] [Sidenote: The Irish in Spain.] [Sidenote: Drake is the terror of Spain.] [Sidenote: Irish merchants partisans of Spain.] If Stanley's advice had been taken, Elizabeth might have been reduced to serious straits, for it was impossible to prevent a Spanish descent, and there were but scant preparations to meet an enemy on shore. Early in 1586 it was rumoured that there would be an invasion on May Day, and Perrott asked for a small cruiser to gather news on the Biscay coast. Merchants from Spain and Portugal reported that Irishmen were free from the embargo laid on English shipping, and that the many Irish residents in the peninsula made no secret of what was going on. Forty thousand men had been collected; eighty-five ships were ready, all but the rigging; Irish refugees from Rome and elsewhere flocked to Spain. Irish sailors were often detained by the Spanish Government, and occasionally told their adventures to Perrott, who also employed a secret agent, one Davy Duke, who knew Italian and Spanish, passed as a Jesuit, and had letters of introduction from a papal bishop imprisoned in Dublin Castle. Miles Brewett, mariner of Dublin, told how he had been taken before Santa Cruz, and how the Marquis had said that he knew Perrott very well, regretting that he was such a Lutheran, and wishing for one of his best horses and for one of his best hawks. The Admiral asked Brewett much about Ireland, and he answered that he had never known it so quiet. One of James Fitzmaurice's sons boasted to him that 5,000 men were going to Ireland, that Feagh MacHugh was ready to welcome them, and that all Ireland would do the same, except Dublin, Waterford, and Drogheda. But Brewett heard from others that Philip was weary of the Irish, and that his subjects called them beggars. Their priests cried out against Duke, who, after learning all he could, went over