Not many weeks elapsed before this vague plot of Guise to murder Elizabeth simultaneously with an invasion of Sussex had fallen through. On the 30th May, 1583, the Nuncio in Paris wrote to the Cardinal of Como, “I believe that the design upon the person of the Queen of England will come to nothing”; and three weeks later Tassis wrote to Philip that the murder plot “is, I see, for the present, quite at an end, and nothing more is being said about it, so the funds referred to will therefore not be required.”[249] The English Catholic exiles, led by Dr. Allen and Father Parsons, soon tired of such an unbusinesslike conspirator as Guise, and they came to Tassis, in Paris, with a scheme of their own. They were already jealous of French and Scottish intervention in English affairs. “They have received so much favour from your Majesty, that they would rather have the help of Spaniards.” Dr. Allen and his followers therefore stood aloof somewhat now from the Guise proposals, and “convinced that they must look for a remedy only to the feeling of England, they have made up their minds that they are simply wasting time in depending upon what is arranged here in France, and they have decided to lay the real condition of England before your Majesty, and beg you to extend your pity to the poor, afflicted, distressed Catholics there.” Tassis was much impressed by Dr. Allen’s earnestness. Scotland was in no condition, he said, to co-operate at present, even if it were advisable for her to do so, which the English thought it was not. The King was a mere boy, notably unstable and in the hands of heretics, though he pretended to be secretly favourable to Guise’s plans; and the Catholics of the North of England were ready to rise on their own account if Philip would aid them with money and a few troops to be landed in Yorkshire or Lancashire. “They are so confident of success, with the blessing of God, in whose service the attempt will be made, that it is impossible for any one to hear them without being convinced.” In this scheme the exiled Earl of Westmorland and Lord Dacre were to join, and Dr. Allen was to accompany the expedition as Bishop of Durham. The time fixed by Allen and his friends for the attempt was in September or October of that year, 1583, in the hope that Philip’s fleet would by that time have defeated Don Antonio’s expedition off the Azores, and be free to co-operate with an English Catholic rising. Even an extreme Catholic party in Scotland were desirous of working independently of France and the Guises, and sent Lord Seton’s brother to Spain to appeal to Philip, avoiding all communication with Guise and Beton.