Whilst Elizabeth was striving against terrible odds with all her subtle statecraft to lay the foundation of a united nation on the broken elements of civil and religious discord, her task was hourly rendered more difficult by the plots hatched in her own house at Durham Place. All the disaffected and discontented found a welcome there; emissaries from Shan O'Neil flitted backwards and forwards at night by the river gate. Stukeley whispered here his willingness to desert with the Queen's ships to the King of Spain, and here Hawkins himself humbly begged to be bought. Lady Sidney, Robert Dudley's sister, Dudley himself, Arundel, Lumley, Montague, and Winchester found in the secret rooms at Durham Place open but discreet ears to listen to their plans for preventing the establishment of Protestantism in England, and for bringing the country again under the sway of the Pope. Madcap Arthur Pole appealed first to Durham Place when he wanted aid for his silly plot in favour of Mary Stuart, and long-headed Lethington came at dead of night by the silent river on a similar but far more serious errand. The publication of the correspondence of the Spanish ambassadors in England during the reign of Elizabeth (Rolls Series) adds many interesting pages to the history of Durham Place, and renders the memories of the house more important than ever to the students of the Reformation period in England. Feria arrived in London and took up his residence at Durham Place on the 26th of January, 1558, having, as he says, lingered on the way in order not to bring the unwelcome news of the surrender of Guines by the English, which news {270} had crossed the Channel with him. In addition to Durham Place, where he and his household were lodged, he had the same privileges as to an apartment in the Queen's palace as those which appertained to an English Privy Councillor--privileges which he tried hard to have confirmed to him by the new Queen when Mary died, in order, as he says, that he might keep his foot in the place and spy out what was going on. But Elizabeth and Cecil knew full well what his object was, and were quite shocked at the idea of the representative of a possible suitor for her hand sleeping under the same roof as the maiden Queen, so Feria had to depend upon his paid agents in the palace, and even in the Council itself, to bring him news to Durham Place of what was going on.