When, therefore, Father Creighton returned, in October, 1581, from his mission to Scotland, Mendoza was ripe for any plan which promised injury to Elizabeth. The Jesuit told him how he had been secretly conveyed across the Scottish border, and had conferred with Lennox, Eglinton, Huntly, Caithness, and Seton, who had warmly consented to Catholic missioners being sent—“on condition that they brought money for their own maintenance.” They would have King James approached, too, and told that his one hope of obtaining the English succession would be for him to embrace Catholicism and make friends with Spain. Neither Lennox nor the King was to be frightened with the suggestion that the French were to be thrown over: but Seton, who appears to have known James’s character well, proposed that his greed and ambition might be worked upon by his being shown how much more effectual a friend Spain would be to him than France. Father Parsons was in London when Creighton arrived, and he and his colleague Heywood were long closeted with Mendoza to discuss who should be the pioneer missioners to Scotland. Creighton thought that Father Parsons, himself, and Heywood should go, “as they would need to be very learned and virtuous men.” Parsons, still in his captain’s garb, ran over to Rheims to consult the Principal of the English Seminary, Dr. Allen; and at Mendoza’s instance it was agreed that Parsons could not well be spared from England, and that Dr. Allen should appoint fresh men for the Scottish mission. The six English Catholic lords who had first arranged the matter with Mendoza were now in prison: Catholics were being savagely persecuted everywhere, and it was evident that the scheme for upsetting Elizabeth by means of a Catholic movement in Scotland must be managed by Spanish agents in France and Dr. Allen, “as the Queen and her heretics are served here by such a multitude of spies that the Queen of Scots herself is in great alarm.” But above all, says Mendoza, though the affair must be managed in France, “the French must have no suspicion that your Majesty has anything to do with it.” As may be supposed, Mary Stuart was a keen participant in the scheme. In April, 1581, six months previously, she had sent a message through Archbishop Beton to the new Spanish ambassador in Paris, Tassis. “Things,” she said, “were never in better form in Scotland than now for a return to ancient conditions, so that English affairs could be dealt with afterwards from there. Her son was determined to be a Catholic, and inclined to break with Elizabeth as soon as he could be sure of substantial help.” This help Mary earnestly begged of Philip through Tassis, and asked that it should be landed first in Ireland, ready to cross to Scotland as soon as the treaty was signed.