He had been praying for his recall for some time, for he was nearly blind with cataract, and his soul rebelled against the humiliations he had to suffer; but Philip had pressed him to stay on, for nobody could manage the great conspiracy against Elizabeth so wisely and stealthily as he. He would not abandon his post, moreover, until Mary Stuart had consented to deal with a fresh ambassador, and he urged Philip to send a special envoy, on the pretext of claiming the restoration of Drake’s plunder, but really to succeed him if Mary would show confidence in the new man. “If it be profitable that I should remain here I will willingly sacrifice myself for a matter so closely touching the service of God and the increase of His Church, as well as serving your Majesty, since two hundred priests are risking their lives in the same cause, in face of great hardships, hunger and poverty.” His stay in England, indeed, was a true martyrdom, only endured because of his hope that in union with Mary of Scotland he might be instrumental in overthrowing Elizabeth and her Protestant ministers. They, for their part, repaid his hatred with enmity as bitter. Leicester, Hatton, and Walsingham left no stone unturned to make his post in England untenable. There was no English ambassador in Spain, they said, and should be no Spanish ambassador in England: the man was only a spy and a conspirator. It was he, said his detractors, who had planned the assassination of the Prince of Orange, and was the abettor and provider of the flock of black Jesuit crows who were infesting England with their presence. Even the street boys in London pelted and hooted him as he passed,[244] and he was practically excluded from Elizabeth’s Court. But for every fresh slight offered to him he became more ardent in his determination to make Mary Stuart Queen of Catholic Britain. The correspondence between them was close, for Mary refused to trust any other intermediary, and until the raid of Ruthven and the flight and death of Lennox finally upset the Catholic _régime_ in Scotland, the hope of bringing back again into workable shape the plot that the priests and Lennox had embroiled was never abandoned by them.[245]