There was no limit to the credulity of de Spes. The great sum of money passed from him to Hawkins, but though the fourteen ships that the latter had promised to the King of Spain came not, for the discovery of the Ridolfi treason upset for the time the whole plan of murder and invasion, the ambassador never lost faith in Hawkins and Fitzwilliam. Norfolk was condemned to death, Mary Stuart, herself in closer confinement than ever, was in dire danger of the block, de Spes threatened and insulted hourly, and his henchman, Luis de Paz, haled to prison, and Antonio de Guaras, his close friend, not daring to leave his house for many months together, and yet de Spes firmly believed that John Hawkins, an Englishman if ever there was one, was only waiting the signal from the King of Spain to desert with the English fleet and join his country’s enemies. At length, on the 14th December, Elizabeth determined she would have no more of de Spes. His complicity in the Ridolfi plot had been made absolutely clear; his pernicious activity had been watched for three years, and every effort had been made to drive him out of England without avail. So, on the 14th December, 1571, the Lords of the Council summoned him to Westminster. Lord Burghley spoke and told him that repeated requests had been made to the King of Spain to withdraw him, and now the Queen wished to know when he was going, as she did not want him in England. De Spes replied defiantly that he knew nothing about her wants. When he received proper instructions from his own Sovereign to go he would go, and not before. A long statement of all his misdeeds in England was then read to him in Spanish, to which he replied that much of it was false, and he desired to send an answer to it. “Oh no!” quoth Cecil, “your King would have no reply from Dr. Man, and our Queen will have none from you.” Then, after a few more heated words, the ambassador was told roughly that he would have to leave England in three days, and in the meanwhile he would be in charge of Henry Knollys. Could he send a courier to his King? he asked. No; that would take too long, he was told. To the Duke of Alba, then? Certainly not; they cared nothing for the Duke of Alba, replied Burghley. “It was impossible to leave,” objected de Spes, “until I send and get money from Antwerp to pay my debts.” “We will lend you the money you need,” replied Cecil; and at last de Spes had to make the best of it. Lagging on the road as long as he could upon all sorts of pretexts, his servants imprisoned and he himself threatened and insulted at every step, the ambassador of Spain was at last hustled out of England, fuming with rage and full of hare-brained projects by which, with the help of Hawkins, the King of Spain might be avenged on the heretic Queen and become the master of England.