There were many difficulties to overcome before the material preparations could even be commenced. First there was Sixtus to persuade, which was not an easy task. Olivares and Allen worked hard in Rome to convince him that Philip was moved solely by religious zeal, and not by a desire for revenge or aggrandisement, in projecting the expedition. “I have plied him,” wrote Olivares, “with every argument ... but in addition to his natural tenacity and his buckler of precedents, I have been much hampered with the news of your Majesty’s preparations which pour in from all quarters.” The Guisan and Italian Cardinals, too, were for ever undoing one day what Olivares and Allen with Caraffa had effected the day before. The Scottish and Welsh Catholic clergy in Rome, too, especially Dr. Owen Lewis, Bishop of Cassano, and even many of the English secular clergy, were strongly opposed to what they feared would mean a Spanish domination of the island; and between the opposing factions and his disinclination to part with the vast sum of money demanded of him, Sixtus was not easy to bend to Philip’s will. At length, after much friction and many quarrels, Olivares was obliged to be content with the Pope’s promise of a million ducats towards the subjection of England; but no persuasion or pressure could move Sixtus to provide any part of this sum until after the Spanish army had secured a footing on the island. A more delicate matter even than this was the question of the sovereignty of England after the death of Mary Stuart. Sixtus now usually agreed—though he often wavered on the point—that James Stuart was not to be trusted; and in compliance with Philip’s argument that a successor to Mary should be chosen before she was placed upon the English throne, in order to prevent her from forcing her son as her heir afterwards, the Pope was at length brought to agree to leave the choice of the future Sovereign of England to the King of Spain, though he pleaded hard that the person chosen should be an Englishman.[267] Whilst Olivares in Rome, with imperious boldness, was managing the Pope, Mendoza in Paris, with equal skill, was keeping Guise in hand, pointing out the great destiny that awaited him in France, and the shame of allowing a heretic King to succeed to the “most Christian” Crown. At the same time he maintained a close correspondence with Mary Stuart and the disaffected section of English Catholics who were represented as yearning for the coming of King Philip’s liberating fleet. Mary was sore and angry at what she thought an unjustifiable delay on the part of Philip, and was incessant in her prayers, through Mendoza, that she should be liberated before it was too late. Most of her intermediaries were false, and her secret correspondence was known to Walsingham and Elizabeth, but with Mary’s unhappy trustfulness she never failed to seize upon any chance, however dangerous, by which her great ambition might, perhaps, be served.