'
A few more words will conclude this curious episode. With the clue
obtained by Fitzwilliam, and confessions twisted out of Story and other
unwilling witnesses, the Ridolfi conspiracy was unravelled before it
broke into act. Norfolk lost his head. The inferior miscreants were
hanged. The Queen of Scots had a narrow escape, and the Parliament
accentuated the Protestant character of the Church of England by
embodying the Thirty-nine Articles in a statute. Alva, who distrusted
Ridolfi from the first and disliked encouraging rebellion, refused to
interest himself further in Anglo-Catholic plots. Elizabeth and Cecil
could now breathe more freely, and read Philip a lesson on the danger
of plotting against the lives of sovereigns.
So long as England and Spain were nominally at peace, the presence of De
la Mark and his privateers in the Downs was at least indecent. A
committee of merchants at Bruges represented that their losses by it
amounted (as I said) to three million ducats. Elizabeth, being now in
comparative safety, affected to listen to remonstrances, and orders were
sent down to De la Mark that he must prepare to leave. It is likely that
both the Queen and he understood each other, and that De la Mark quite
well knew where he was to go, and what he was to do.
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