[4] It was Francesci who obtained money to bribe O'Collun to kill Elizabeth and promised him a pension from the King of Spain as a reward for the assassination.
Holt's plotting attracted so much notoriety that he was eventually ordered by his superiors to show more discretion, though they did not suggest that he should cease his activities.
[4] O'Collun, with his accomplices John Annias and William Polwhele (who were both soldiers in Stanley's regiment), returned to England in November 1593, where his behaviour soon attracted suspicion- in particular, he was found to possess a copy of the Jesuit pamphlet Philopater, which justified tyrannicide.
The principal witness against him was his accomplice William Polwhele, who testified that Stanley and Jacques Fraunces had hired O'Collun, Annias and himself to kill the Queen.
Richard Williams and Edmund York, arrested at the same time on suspicion of a separate plot to kill Elizabeth, were executed the following year.
So in a brief period around 1594, there was an unusual concentration of investigations into continental conspiracies to this end - a "panic over Irishmen in London" - and the suggestion is that Lord Burghley and the Earl of Essex manipulated their information and intelligence to convince the Queen of an immediate and credible threat to her life, as they vied for her favour.
[15] There is however no evidence of a link between the two men, although Lopez probably knew, at least in general terms, of a plot to kill Antonio Pérez.