I  have  received  your  Majesty's  orders  to  communicate  to  the
prince  of  Parma  the  plots  that  are  being  hatched  here  against  the
Netherlands.  I  continue  to  do  so  with  all  possible  minuteness,  but
I  am  unable  to  maintain  these  people  in  the  humour  your  Majesty
desires,  as  they  are  obdurate  in  their  determination  that  I  shall  not
have  audience  of  the  Queen;  and  I  cannot  request  an  audience
after  having  received  the  reply  which  I  conveyed  to  your  Majesty
on  the  ]  5th  and  2l8t  May,  to  the  effect  that  until  you  had  given
her  satisfaction  about  Ireland  she  could  not  receive  me,  out  of
consideration  for  her  own  lionour,  since  I  was  your  Maje-.ty's
Minister.  I  iiave  tried  every  possible  means,  overt  and  covert,  to
get  into  relations  with  the  Queen's  Ministers,  but  they  fly  from  me
as  if  I  were  a  rebel  subject  of  hers,  and  things  have  reached  such  a
point  now  that  no  one  will  speak  to  me  or  even  to  my  servants,  as
Don  Juan  de  Idiaquez  will  have  informed  your  Majesty.  The  only
way,  therefore,  in  which  I  can  serve  your  Majesty  here  is  to
communicate  the  information  I  receive  from  my  second  confidant,!
as  I  have  not  heard  a  word  from  the  firstf  for  the  last  eight
months.  I  should  have  lost  the  second  if  I  had  not  cast  myself
at  his  feet  and  begged  him  not  to  leave  Court,  and  gave  him
500  crowns,  with  a  promise  of  1,000  crowns  a  year  pension,  which
he  accepted,  although  he  said  that  when  I  went  away  he  could  not
well  correspond  with  any  one  else,  and  must  relinquish  the  pension
when  he  could  do  nothing  for  it.  I  can  assure  your  Majesty
that  he  is  extremely  zealous  and  gives  me  twice  a  week  the  most
confidential  and  minute  account  of  all  that  happens.  He  may
therefore  be  dealt  with  in  the  manner  I  recommended,  and  your

*  See  letter  from  queen  Mary  to  Mendoza,  12th  October,  page  404.
