It will be noted that these new proposals of the Scots Catholics had not been made through Tassis and Guise in Paris, as the previous approaches had been, but through Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in London, who had been very active in the matter of the religious propaganda, and who had entirely gained Mary’s confidence. So long as the negotiations were kept in their hands, all was conducted wisely and prudently, and doubtless some such arrangement as that suggested would have resulted. But the folly of Lennox and the political ineptitude of the Jesuit missionaries frustrated the whole design. In March 1582 the former wrote a foolish letter to Tassis, which he sent to Paris by Creighton, laying bare the whole plan and giving his adhesion to it, but making all manner of inflated demands. Creighton, he said, had promised him 15,000 foreign troops, of which he was to have the command; and he asked for a vast sum of money, and a personal guarantee against loss of fortune. Creighton also sent to Guise and brought him into the business, and Jesuit emissaries were appointed to go direct to Rome and Madrid to ask for aid. Mary and Mendoza were furious, particularly the former, that she should be endangered by her name being used as the head of the conspiracy. Creighton had no authority whatever to promise 15,000 men, nor would the Scottish nobles have accepted such a number, and the idea that Lennox should command them was absurd. Philip took fright at the large number of persons who were now privy to the affair, and gave orders that nothing further was to be done. Guise, ambitious and officious, as usual, also wanted to take a prominent share in the direction of the enterprise. He began to make large and vague proposals for a strong mixed force to be sent from Italy under the papal flag, whilst he and his Frenchmen made a descent upon the coast of Sussex, his evident object being to prevent a purely Spanish expedition being sent. Granvelle and Philip very soon saw whither the affair was drifting, and nipped it in the bud. They had only been induced to listen to it on the assumption that the Guises where to work exclusively for Spanish interests. The moment the contrary appeared, the proposal lost its attractions for them. It is true that at this time Philip had no intention of conquering England for himself, but Mary and James must owe their crown to him alone, and be forced to restore the close alliance between England and the House of Burgundy, or the change would be useless to him. Too much French or Italian aid or Guisan influence spoilt the business for his purpose. But there was still another reason. He had a large number of English Catholic refugees living on pensions from him in France, Flanders, and Spain; and they and Sir Francis Englefield, his English secretary, ceaselessly represented to him their national dislike and distrust of the French, their secular enemies, and their jealousy of any plan that should make the Frenchified Scots