The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre confirmed to William Cecil that there was a vast Catholic international conspiracy to murder Elizabeth and replace her with Mary Queen of Scots.

76:01this is the manifestation of Satan's workings. And he all along, right the way from when he first became Elizabeth's first minister when she ascended the throne, he has been convinced that there is a Catholic international conspiracy to overthrow the cause of Protestantism in England and that foreign Catholics like the Pope, like the Duke of Geese, like Philip II, all of whom, as he sees it, are implicated in either perpetrating or

76:31celebrating the St. Bartholomew's day massacre that they want to see the same thing happen in England and that they have a very dark and sinister plan namely to murder Queen Elizabeth who is a virgin queen has no heir no Protestant heir no heir at all and to replace her on the English throne with her Catholic cousin Mary Stewart the queen of Scots who is a prisoner in England and that

76:57the pope in particular has made his ambitions for this plot very clear by two years before in 1570 excommunicating Elizabeth and telling Catholics with the full force of you know a papal bull that they have to work actively for her overthrow essentially kind of try to eliminate her maybe by assassination or whatever but doesn't the uh massacre in Paris suggest that actually the Catholic plotter's ambitions might go further that it's not

77:30just about assassinating ing one person, the queen, but they might, you know, if they got the chance, they would carry out a similar bloodbath, you know, in the streets of London or something. Yeah, absolutely. And he's bolstered in this view by um the man who had been appointed by Elizabeth to serve as her ambassador in France. And this is none other than Francis Walssingham. Like Cecile, Lord Burley, um he's a very