At the same time, still further to divert Elizabeth from interfering with his Portuguese plans, Philip allowed himself to be persuaded to help James Fitzmaurice and the Pope’s Nuncio, Dr. Sanders, to land a small Spanish and Italian force in Ireland in the summer of 1579. The expedition was routed and pursued, Dr. Sanders dying miserably of want and exposure; but when heartrending appeals from the Irish were sent to Philip for further aid, he dared not make open war upon England for their sake—that was no part of his plan yet. All he could consent to do was to join with the Pope in defraying the expenses of a formidable expedition, not under the Spanish but the Papal flag, sailing from a Spanish port, with eight thousand soldiers to invade Ireland, and hold the Catholic West for the Desmonds. The affair was mismanaged, and all the invaders were slaughtered at Smerwick, Dingle Bay (November, 1580); but Mendoza never heard the last of it from Elizabeth, who in future excused all her interference in Flanders by pointing to this kind act of her “good brother.” It was a hint to Elizabeth that she was vulnerable, not only in Scotland by French intrigue, but in Ireland also, and that it behoved her to look to her own safety before attacking others. Mendoza had much cold water to throw upon the suggestion of Beton and the Spanish ambassador in Paris (with whom he was at feud) as to the subsidising of a rising of Catholics in favour of Mary Stuart. He, true Spaniard as he was, looked askance at any plan of the sort in which a Frenchman had a part. But early in 1580 the matter entered a new phase. Elizabeth, for the first time in her reign, found herself unpopular, in consequence of the general belief that she really intended to marry the young French Prince; the great Jesuit propaganda was busily making ready to spread through England the young missionaries, who in the true spirit of martyrdom had pledged their lives to bring back England and Scotland to the Faith; the power of Morton in Scotland was waning fast, and Lennox was in the ascendant. Everywhere the Catholic cause had taken new hope, thanks in great measure to the encouragement of Philip, in order that when the time came he might have a free hand in Portugal.