The English branch of the Jesuit attack was, for political purposes, a dead failure. A few persons of rank, who at heart were Catholics before, were formally reconciled to the Pope. Mendoza claims that among them were six peers whose names he conceals. These peers, if he is to be believed, were treasonable enough in their designs. But, even by his account, they were determined not to stir unless a foreign army should have first entered England. How far Mendoza’s master was from seeing his way to attack England at this time was strikingly shown by his behaviour under the most audacious outrage that Elizabeth had yet inflicted on him. Some twelve months before (October 1580), Drake had returned from his famous voyage round the world. That voyage was nothing else than a piratical expedition, for which it was notorious that the funds had been mainly furnished by Elizabeth and Leicester. On sea and land Drake had robbed Philip of gold, silver, and precious stones to the value of at least £750,000. In vain did Mendoza clamour for restitution and talk about war. Elizabeth kept the booty, knighted Drake, and openly showed him every mark of confidence and favour. When Mendoza told her that as she would not hear words, they must come to cannon and see if she would hear them, she replied (“quietly in her most natural voice”) that, if he used threats of that kind, she would throw him into prison. The correspondence between the Spanish ambassador and his master shows that, however big they might talk about cannon, they felt themselves paralysed by Elizabeth’s intimate relations with France. She had managed to keep free from any offensive alliance with Henry III. But at the first sound of the Spanish cannon she could have it. She was, therefore, secure. Probably the whole history of diplomacy does not show another instance of such a complicated balance of forces so dexterously manipulated. The Irish branch of the Papal attack, the landing of the legate Sanders, the insurrection of Desmond (1579-1583), the massacre of the Pope’s Italian soldiers at Smerwick (1580), must be passed over here. It is enough to say that, in Ireland, too, the Catholics were beaten. We turn now to their attempt to get hold of Scotland (1579-1582).