Mendoza was strongly in favour of immediately closing with the Scottish offer. He pointed out that to attack England by sea was to strike her in her strongest place, whilst a disaster to the Armada, in which all the national resources had been pledged, would bring irretrievable ruin. But Philip and Farnese were slow, and wanted all sorts of guarantees and assurances, which kept Bruce in Flanders and France for months, whilst his principals, sick of vague half-promises, lost heart, and talked of going over to the Protestant side, on a pledge that their religion should be tolerated. Then Bruce was sent back with 10,000 crowns to freight a number of small boats at Leith and send them to Dunkirk for Parma’s troops; and the 150,000 crowns demanded by the Scottish lords were promised when they rose. This was kept from Guise, but he knew all about it from his spies in Scotland, and was intensely wroth. Catharine de Medici also learnt of the matter, and thought it a good opportunity of ridding herself of Guise and checkmating Philip at the same time. She therefore offered Guise a large subsidy if he would go and help his kinsman James to the crown. He thought wiser, however, to divulge the Spanish plot to James himself. Elizabeth also informed James, so that when Bruce arrived in Scotland the artful young king was forewarned, and was only vaguely courteous in his reception of the hints that the Spaniard would help him to avenge his mother. He was indeed now surrounded by Protestant ministers, and fully understood that he had more to hope for from Elizabeth than from Philip, a view indeed which Elizabeth and her party lost no opportunity of impressing upon him.