The blood of the proud Mendozas, the noblest family in Spain, flared out at this: “To my King alone in the world belongs the right of correcting me, and to him alone under heaven am I responsible: so, say no more on that point, unless ye are prepared to fight.” As for the Queen of England punishing him, he laughed at the idea. He would be overjoyed to be gone as soon as a passport was sent to him. She was a lady, and, as such, the least grateful to those who served her best; but, as he had failed to satisfy her as a minister of peace she would in future force him to try whether he would succeed better as a minister of war. Thus Mendoza flung down the gage to England and the Reformation. He had been unpopular in London before, but now the rumour spread through England that he had plotted to kill the Queen, and his life was in the greatest danger from the popular indignation against him. He himself, seeing that the Government refused him the aid of English ships to get away, and the Dutch privateers still swarmed in the narrow seas, was convinced that mischief was meant to him. But he held his head high and boasted more than ever, as slight followed slight from Elizabeth’s ministers, of the overwhelming greatness and power of his master, King Philip, who would avenge with interest all the injuries inflicted upon him and Spain. “Don Bernardino de Mendoza was not born to disturb countries, but to conquer them,” he said in one of his messages to Elizabeth; whilst to Philip himself he passionately wrote with a back-handed reproach: “All their behaviour is on a par with this; and if God had not made you so clement and God-fearing a prince, surely no vassal of yours would consent to serve you in England, seeing the way in which the English treat us: for so powerful an empire as that which God has granted to your Majesty cannot endure such ill-treatment as this for any earthly reward.”[253] To add to his trouble, he was almost without money, for Philip was the worst paymaster in the world, and he had to bring away with him from England, not only his own great household but the English spies and intermediaries who had served him. “The insolence of these people [_i.e._, Elizabeth’s Government] has brought me to a state, in which my only desire to live is for the purpose of revenging myself upon them; and I pray that God may let it be soon, and will give me grace to be His instrument of wrath, even though I have to walk barefoot across the world to beg for it. I am sure his Majesty will give such an answer as their insolence merits.”[254]