This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER X Letters of John Colville--James intrigues with the Catholic Powers--The " Wisbech Stirs'"--Recriminations against the Jesuit faction--The murder plot of Squire and Rolls--Father Walpole's connection with it--The desire of the Archduke for peace with England--Successes of the Irish rebels--Discontent of Essex--His government in Ireland--The march through Munster--His parley with Tyrone--His disobedience and return to England--His arrest. The jangling policies and factions in Elizabeth's court, and the threatening state of affairs in Ireland in the summer and autumn of 1598, brought additional hopes and energy to the two schools of Catholics, who, in their different ways, were striving to undo the work of the Reformation on the death of the Queen. John Colville1 was writing almost weekly alarming letters from his retreat in France to Essex, telling of the coming and going of Papist envoys to James. Robert Bruce, the ex-Spanish agent, was in Scotland, with George Ker, Father Gordon the Jesuit, and a number of French Catholics of the Guise faction, who, according to the reports furnished by Colville, were arranging for armed aid to be sent to James to establish him as Catholic King of England. There is no doubt that James was now, as ever, quite ready to coquet with the Catholic party, and that he was, as we have seen, in close sympathetic correspondence with Tyrone; but the movements of the Catholics towards him at this juncture--with the exception of the embassy from the Archduke, of which the real object is revealed in the consulta quoted in the last chapter--may be confidently traced to the French and Italian, or anti-Spanish, influence, which saw in his conversion and succession the only safeguard against the Spanish...