As early as April 1581, Mary Stuart had renewed her approaches to Spain through the Archbishop of Glasgow in Paris. “Things were now,” she said, “better disposed than ever in Scotland for a return to its former condition … and English affairs could be dealt with subsequently. The King, her son, was quite determined to return to the Catholic religion, and much inclined to an open rupture with the Queen of England.” She begged for armed aid from Philip, to be landed first in Ireland, and to enter Scotland at a given signal after the alliance between Scotland and Spain had been signed. Nothing came of this at the time; and after several other attempts on the part of Mary to get into touch with the Spaniards, she became distrustful of her Ambassador (Archbishop Beton) and other intermediaries, and contrived in November to communicate with Mendoza direct. She had heard that all the priests who flocked into Scotland and England looked to him for guidance, and that through them he had sent a message to the Scottish Catholics, saying that everything now depended upon Scotland’s reverting to the old faith. The English Catholic nobles then at liberty had, at Mendoza’s instance, formed a society with this object, and secretly sent two priests to sound James and D’Aubigny, and to promise that they would raise the north of England, release Mary, and secure the English succession to James. They brought back a favourable reply, which the ambassador at once conveyed to Allen and Persons on the continent. This was late in the autumn of 1581, and Mendoza looked coldly upon Burghley’s new advances, for he was now the centre of the plot to overthrow Elizabeth by means of the Scottish Catholics, a plot in which, against his will, he was obliged to make use of the Jesuit missionaries, who themselves at first had no idea of the Spanish political aims that underlay the conversion of Scotland to Catholicism.