Alva, in want of money, and dreading the immediate mutiny of his troops, to whom great arrears were due, imposed, by his arbitrary will, the most ruinous taxes on the people.

He not only required the hundredth penny, and the twentieth of all immovable goods; he also demanded the tenth of all movable goods on every sale; an absurd tyranny, which would not only have destroyed all arts and commerce, but even have restrained the common intercourse of life.

The people refused compliance; the duke had recourse to his usual expedient of the gibbet; and thus matters came still nearer the last, extremities between the Flemings and the Spaniards.[*] All the enemies of Elizabeth, in order to revenge themselves for her insults, had naturally recourse to one policy, the supporting of the cause and pretensions of the queen of Scots; and Alva, whose measures were ever violent, soon opened a secret intercourse with that princess.
There was one Rodolphi, a Florentine merchant, who had resided about fifteen years in London, and who, while he conducted his commerce in England, had managed all the correspondence of the court of Rome with the Catholic nobility and gentry.[**] * Bentivoglio, part.i.lib.v.Camden, p.

416.
** Lesley, p.123.State Trials, vol.i.p.

87.
He had been thrown into prison at the time when the duke of Norfolk's intrigues with Mary had been discovered; but either no proof, was found against him, or the part which he had acted was not very criminal; and he soon after recovered his liberty.