Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/21

CHAPTER LVIL THE DUKE OF NORFOLK. AS the summer of 1571 passed away, each week had brought fresh information on the intended invasion of England. The confessions which had been forced out of Baily in the Marshalsea and the Tower had re- vealed the general fact that a treasonable correspondence was going forward between the Netherlands, the Bishop of Ross, and other parties whose names were concealed behind a cipher. Sir John Hawkins had penetrated into the confidence of Philip himself, and had linked the conspiracy with the person of the Queen of Scots ; and details of Ridolfi's commission, with the formidable but still vague intimation that he had declared himself the representative of three-quarters of the English nobility, had been collected by the Florentine ambas- sador at Antwerp, and communicated to Elizabeth. 1 1 ' In Flanders, by the ambas- sador of a foreign prince, the whole plot of this treason was discovered, and by a servant of his brought to her Majesty's intelligence.' Speech VOL. X. of the Solicitor- General (Sir Thomas Bromley). Trial of the Duke of Norfolk. The Spanish account identifies the ambassador and inti- mates that the communication was