The result of Burghley’s negotiations through De Guaras, and the aiding of Orange, was that in the summer of 1573 the Flemish and Spanish ports were once more opened to English trade, on terms immensely favourable to England,[365] since she obtained a free market for her cloth, whilst she kept the great bulk of the enormous amount of Spanish property which Elizabeth had seized five years previously. This was a greater exemplification of the impotence of Philip, even than the expulsion of De Spes. All the world could see now that, much as his Inquisition might harry individual Englishmen, the King could neither defend nor avenge the injuries done to himself; and was obliged to overlook the presence of armed English regiments on the side of his rebellious subjects, for the sake of retaining the profit brought to his dominions by English commerce. Burghley had at all events established one fact, namely, that, for the present, Philip alone could do no harm. The struggles between the Protestants and Catholics in Scotland had continued almost without interruption since the death of Murray. Mary’s friends were still numerous and strong amongst the aristocratic and landed classes, and were supported, as we have seen, by Spanish and papal money, as well as by Guisan intrigue. The Regent Lennox had been murdered by the Hamiltons (September 1571), and his successor (Mar) had died of poison or a broken heart (November 1572); but with the advent of Morton, a man of stronger fibre, the Protestant cause became more aggressive, and the English influence over Scotland more decided. Shortly before this happened, when the effects of St. Bartholomew were still weighing on the English court, and it was known that Catharine de Medici and her son were as busy with the Archbishop of Glasgow in supporting the Hamiltons and Gordons as was Cardinal Lorraine himself, secret instructions were given to Killigrew, the English Ambassador in Scotland, to take a step which under any other circumstances would have been inexcusable. The secret instructions are drafted in Burghley’s hand, and more obloquy has been piled upon his memory in consequence of them than for any other action in his career; even his thick-and-thin apologist, Dr. Nares, confessing that he could only look upon Killigrew’s orders “with feelings of disgust and horror.” Killigrew’s open mission was to reconcile the King’s party with those who championed the cause of his mother, and especially with Kirkaldy of Grange and Lethington, who still held Edinburgh Castle; but his secret instructions were to a different effect. He was to warn the Protestants that a second St. Bartholomew might be intended in Scotland—not by any means an improbable suggestion, considering who were the promoters of the original massacre. “But you are also chosen to deal in a third matter of far greater moment.” The continuance of the Queen of Scots in England, he is told, is considered dangerous, and it is deemed