To all these suggestions of his intemperate ambassador Philip had still no answer but to enjoin prudence and secrecy. Information, pledges, assurances without end were requested, whilst Philip pondered and considered. Everything was referred to the Duke of Alba for decision, and Alba would not move without specific orders; whilst in this deadlock the Spanish commerce was swept from the seas and the legendary power of the Catholic King was made a mock and derision of the heretics. Once Philip’s hands were nearly forced by the impatience of Mary’s friends. The more extreme school of English and Scottish Catholics had been urging for some time that a Papal Bull of Deprivation against Elizabeth should be obtained, in order that Mary’s immediate claim to the Crown of England might be regularised. Philip had gently put aside all such requests or left them unanswered. He was not yet ready for Elizabeth’s forcible deposition; for, as we have seen, his cumbrous methods forbade prompt action, and he had no intention of ousting Elizabeth until he had made himself quite certain that he, and he alone, would be master of England under her successor. But the action of the Scottish and Guisan Catholics in Rome, greatly to Philip’s annoyance, procured the Bull from the Pope over Philip’s head; and de Spes’s chaplain, Father Berga, doubtless with the full connivance of the ambassador, who was apparently incapable of understanding high politics, persuaded John Felton to court martyrdom by fixing the Pope’s Bull on the Bishop of London’s door on Corpus Christi Day late in May, 1570. De Spes, in the innocence of his heart, wrote off in jubilant strain to Philip, recording the event and foretelling all sorts of great consequences from it. But the King had nothing but condemnation and annoyance that his plans should thus be interfered with by the meddling of priests, and de Spes had to read some very plain talk from his master, whilst the share of his fugitive chaplain in the outrage still further brought the ambassador and his master into the black books of Elizabeth.