Alba of De Spes’ communications with the rebels. “His object,” wrote the Ambassador, “is to expel me, now that they think I understand the affairs of this country; and Cecil thinks that I, with others, might make such representations to the Queen as would diminish his great authority.… Cecil is a crafty fox, a mortal enemy of the Catholics and to our King, and it is necessary to watch his designs very closely, because he proceeds with the greatest caution and dissimulation. There is nothing in his power he does not attempt to injure us. The Queen’s own opinion is of little importance, and that of Leicester less; so that Cecil unrestrainedly and arrogantly governs all.… Your worship may be certain that if Cecil is allowed to have his way he will disturb the Netherlands.”[321] De Spes’ information was correct on the latter point, as well it might be, for in addition to Cecil’s own secretary, Allington, he had in his pay Sir James Crofts, a member of the Council, and the Secretary of the Council, Bernard Hampton, who between them brought him news of everything that passed in the Council or in Cecil House. The Secretary’s efforts to get rid of so troublesome a guest as De Spes, and to offer an object-lesson to the English Catholics at the same time, were persistent, and in the end successful. De Spes was refused the treatment of an ambassador, threatened with the Tower, flouted, slighted, and insulted at every turn; but he could only futilely storm and fret, for neither his King nor Alba was pleased with the difficult position which his violence had created for them in England. It was all the fault of Cecil personally, insisted De Spes. He wished to afflict the Catholic cause without witnesses, and would stick at nothing, even poison, to get rid of the Spaniard.