Walsingham’s mission to France—His alarm of the consequences of the Queen’s fickleness—AlenÇon enters Flanders—Relief of Cambrai—AlenÇon entreats Elizabeth’s aid—Walsingham’s remonstrance to the Queen for her penuriousness—AlenÇon again visits England—Elizabeth’s severity to the Catholics during his stay—Leicester’s continued intrigues—The Queen’s solemn pledge to marry AlenÇon—Dismay of Leicester and his friends—The Queen’s recantation—Arrival of Secretary Pinart—Elizabeth’s plan to evade the marriage—Her correspondence with Simier—He arrives in England again—Elizabeth’s efforts to get rid of AlenÇon—He refuses to leave unless she marries him—Simier’s advice to the Queen.

When Walsingham landed at Boulogne he found a message from AlenÇon at Chateau-Thierry asking him to meet him and his mother at La FÈre before going to see the King. This he did, where he was met by the Duke with complaints and reproaches at the indefinite postponement of the marriage by the Queen until a national alliance had been effected. He told Walsingham that he could never get the King to consent to an alliance unless the marriage took place first, as the King feared that when they had pledged him too far for him to draw back the Queen would slip out of it and leave France alone face to face with Spain. The efforts of Catharine and her adviser, Turenne, were directed to obtaining at least a money subsidy to AlenÇon first, which would have pledged Elizabeth to some extent; but Walsingham was too discreet to be drawn, and tried to get an arrangement which should embark France in the business before England was compromised. Catharine said she was well aware of the need for concerted action, but she was afraid, as Elizabeth had apparently thrown over the marriage for fear of offending her subjects, she might afterwards throw over the alliance for the same reason.

It is easy to see that both sides were finessing with the same object, namely, to throw upon the other the burden and onus of curbing the power of Spain, which they both feared; and when Catharine saw she could make nothing of Walsingham or his mistress, she played her trump card, with which she had come to La FÈre fully prepared. She promised AlenÇon that if he would abandon his attempt, the Prince of Parma would retire from Cambrai, AlenÇon should marry the infanta, gain the support and friendship of Spain, obtain a larger dotation from his brother, and receive the investure of the sovereign states of Saluzzo and Provence. But AlenÇon could not trust Spain and the Guises, and refused the tempting bait. Cecil and Elizabeth mistrusted the presence of Catharine near her son, and fearing that he might at last cede to her influence, had sent a considerable sum of money by Walsingham, according to Mendoza, to help AlenÇon to make masked war upon Spain, without pledging England or drawing the Queen into war through the marriage. AlenÇon was angry at this suggestion, and said that he would take no such answer, which was quite at variance with the Queen’s own words. He threatened and stormed until Walsingham almost lost his temper, and Sir James Crofts told Mendoza that when the Queen received the news of this “she wept like a child, saying that she did not know what to do, or into what trouble Leicester had drawn her.” Walsingham also reported that the King of France was extremely offended that after so grand an embassy had been sent to England only Walsingham should be sent in return, “and that if he could manage to have him put out of the way he would attempt it.” Lord Henry Howard was at once sent off with a loving message to AlenÇon to mollify him, and urgent new instructions were despatched to Walsingham in Paris to bring the marriage forward again on any terms. But no sooner were Walsingham, Cobham, and the French ministers in conference to settle the terms of an alliance which was to accompany a marriage, than AlenÇon sent, by de Vray, peremptorily refusing to have anything to do with an alliance. It must, he said, be a marriage pure and simple first, and after that they could make what leagues they pleased, but he was sure that if the endless negotiations for an alliance had to be settled first he should never be married at all. All things were therefore again brought to a standstill, and Walsingham and Cobham wrote a most serious, almost vehement, memorandum to the Queen warning her of the danger of her fickle course.137 They entreated her to make up her mind one way or the other. The French will think they are being played with and will be greatly exasperated. France, Spain, and Scotland will all be against us, and then God alone can help us. Surely they say the only question is one of expense, and it is “very hard that treasure should be preferred before safety. I beseech your Majesty that without offence I may tell you that your loathness to spend even when it concerns your safety is publicly delivered out here.... For the love of God, madame, look into your own estate, and think that there can grow no peril so great unto you as to have a war break out in your own realm, considering what a number of evil subjects you have; and you cannot redeem this peril at too high a price.” In another letter to Cecil, Walsingham complains bitterly of the task that is set for him. I would rather, he says, be shut up in the Tower than be an English ambassador abroad. These constant variations discredit us and shock the King.

Suddenly, towards the middle of August, 1581, AlenÇon crossed the frontier into Spanish Flanders with a fine army of 12,000 infantry and 5,000 Cavalry, in which were enrolled half the young nobility of France as volunteers, notwithstanding the King’s anathemas. Parma at once raised the siege of Cambrai and stood on the defensive, and the whole position was changed in a moment. The King of France felt, or at least expressed, the utmost alarm at his brother’s action, lest he should be drawn into the quarrel. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was no less apprehensive that the King, the Guises, and the Catholics might be after all behind the movement. She, however, was soon tranquillised on this score, and wrote a loving letter of congratulation.138 No sooner was AlenÇon in Cambrai than he found himself without money. If the States will not aid me, he wrote to the Prince of Orange, I can go no further. But the attempt had been made without the open patronage of the Queen of England, and the Protestant States would do nothing. De Bex was sent off post-haste by AlenÇon to take her the news, and to beg for 300,000 crowns, “as he had spent all his own money in the relief, and neither the States nor his brother would give him a penny. If she did not provide him with money he should be obliged to return with his army to France without going any further.”139

Marchaumont continued to urge his master’s need for money, and besides the £22,000 which had been taken by Walsingham a further sum of £20,000 in gold was secretly sent from Drake’s plunder to AlenÇon. But Elizabeth herself was somewhat short of money, and still not without suspicion, besides which she had no intention whatever of defraying the whole expense of AlenÇon’s army, and would send him no more money. Things went from bad to worse. The French troops deserted in bodies and fell to pillage; the young noblemen slipped back over the frontier by hundreds. By the first week in September AlenÇon had retired to Chatelet, leaving a garrison in Cambrai; only 3,000 of his men remained with him, and he sent again de Bex to the Queen to beg for more help before they were all gone. His victory at Cambrai he attributes all to the “belle jartiÈre,” which he says he will never surrender whilst he lives, nor the desire to see again “vostre belle MajestÉ a la quelle pour la hate de ce porteur je me contenterÉ de bayzer les belles mins et les belles greves qui ont portÉ la belle jartiÈre.” But the Queen was not to be wheedled out of her money by talk about the beautiful garter, and Marchaumont began to hint that his master’s only course would be to once more cross the Channel and press his own suit.

In the meanwhile Walsingham was making no progress in Paris, and the Queen as usual was reproaching in no measured terms. Walsingham, who knew his mistress well, gave her on this occasion at least as good as she sent.140 He told her bluntly that if she was sincere about the marriage she was losing time she could ill spare; whilst, if otherwise, it “is the worst remedy you can use.” “Sometimes when your Majesty doth behold in what doubtful terms you stand with foreign princes, then you do wish with great affection that opportunities offered had not been overslipped; but when they are offered to you, accompanied with charges, they are altogether neglected. The respect of charges hath lost Scotland, and I would to God I had no cause to think it might put your Highness in peril of the loss of England.” He reproaches her almost rudely for her niggardliness, which he compares with the wise liberality of her predecessors where expenditure was needful for the safety of the realm. “If this sparing and provident course be held on still, the mischiefs approaching being so apparent as they are, there is no one that serveth in place of councillor ... who would not wish himself rather in the farthest part of Ethiopia than enjoy the fairest palace in England.” On his way back to England Walsingham saw AlenÇon at Abbeville, in Picardy, and rather encouraged the Duke in his desire to come to England again. It is evident that, much as Walsingham was attached to Leicester, he was in grave alarm that the Protestant religion, to which he was devoted, might be overborne by the threatened union against England of the Catholic powers, and at this time would have gladly welcomed the marriage of the Queen and AlenÇon, which would have prevented France from joining the coalition and have banished the danger. When Walsingham arrived in London at the end of September, however, he found the Queen very strongly opposed to her suitor’s proposed visit, not wishing to have her hands forced in this way. She told Marchaumont that his master must not come on any account, or a rising of the people might be feared, so angry were they at the idea of the match. On the other hand, both Marchaumont and Castelnau, the ambassador, took care to spread broadcast the intelligence that the Duke would soon be here; and when no open discontent ensued they pointed out that the Queen’s fears were groundless. Leicester, as usual, tried to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, to retain French bribes and yet to stand in the way of French objects. Mendoza says that he took good care to turn the Queen against AlenÇon’s coming, but as soon as he was sure that his efforts were effectual he went out of town and hypocritically professed to the French that Hatton and Walsingham alone were to blame for the opposition. But by the end of October the Queen’s apprehensions seem to have been dissipated. Walsingham must have made it clear to her that unless the marriage were again taken up with some show of sincerity she had no chance of getting the close understanding with France which was necessary to her plans. She had, moreover, spent large sums of money in Flanders, which she could never get back unless the States could be enabled to hold their own, and she accordingly decided to make the best of AlenÇon’s coming in the assurance that, if the worst came to the worst, she could avoid a marriage by supplying funds for his maintenance in Flanders.

Shortly before the Duke’s arrival the “monk” (Marchaumont) wrote to de Bex saying that every one, from the Queen downwards, was expecting his Highness’s arrival with pleasure, but he hints that he had better make haste as the Spanish ambassador was making certain proposals to the Queen; which we now know to be true.141 He says that even Leicester had now been won over, his only fear being that if the marriage took place his bitter enemy, Simier, might come, who, he was sure, would plot his ruin. This state of things had not been brought about without a good deal of friction. Several sums of money had been sent by the Queen with the hope of staving off the visit, but with no effect. The Queen had a great row with Walsingham in consequence of mischief-making of Sussex, who had shown Marchaumont a letter written by Walsingham from France, containing some slighting expressions towards AlenÇon which had been repeated to the Queen; “although,” says Mendoza, “some people think that it is all put on, and that she herself ordered Walsingham to write this so as to hinder the marriage, as she is a woman very fond of adopting such tricks. At all events Walsingham takes very little notice of her anger, and AlenÇon turns a deaf ear to everything, and only asks for money, whilst Marchaumont keeps the negotiation alive by pressing for a decision with regard to the marriage.”

The Queen had lent Marchaumont a small house attached to her own palace at Richmond, to which entrance could be gained through it by means of a connecting gallery. Two chambers were refurnished and warmed in this house for the Prince’s use, the Earl of Arundel (son of the attainted and executed Duke of Norfolk) and his uncle, Lord Harry Howard, were charged by the Queen to make all arrangements for his comfort; and her Majesty herself superintended the installation in one of the rooms of a crimson bed, which she told Marchaumont archly that his master would recognise. A day or so before the Duke was expected Marchaumont wrote to de Bex, who was with his master on his journey hither, that he learnt by a message the Queen had sent him “that every hour seemed a month to her so anxious was she to see her lover, for whose reception great preparations had been made, although the Queen will pretend that nothing special had been done.”142

When Walsingham had seen the Prince in France the latter had expressed a desire to rest a day and a night in Walsingham’s house in London before going to see the Queen at Richmond, but when the time approached for the visit Walsingham managed to avoid the trouble of entertaining the guest by saying that the plague was raging round the house, and it was settled that he should be lodged for the night in the house of Sir Edward Stafford, the son of Elizabeth’s friend and Mistress of the Robes. “But I need not tell you,” says Marchaumont to de Bex, “to keep strict secrecy as to the Prince’s movements, for if Lady Stafford knows anything it will be easier to stem a torrent than to stop the woman’s tongue.”

AlenÇon embarked from Calais at the end of October, 1581, having met the Portuguese pretender, Don Antonio, before going on board, and promised him to plead his cause with the English Queen. The heavy weather necessitated his anchoring in the Downs instead of entering Dover, and it was only at the cost of some risk and trouble that he landed. Leaving the Prince Dauphin and most of his suite of gentlemen to follow him, he pressed on in disguise with de Bex to London, where he arrived and slept at Stafford’s house on the night of the 1st of November. The next morning he started off to see the Queen privately at Richmond, the first public reception being fixed for the 3rd of November, when the Prince Dauphin and the rest of the suite were fetched from London in the Queen’s state coaches. It was, in truth, high time the Prince came, for the Queen was very much out of temper with him and every one else. She complained to Castelnau that the Prince had acted in Flanders without her permission, that the King of France was intriguing with Spain for her ruin, that the States were a lot of drunkards, who only thought of borrowing money and not paying it back. She was too old, she said, to be played with, and would let them all see it. But when her young lover came she was full of smiles and blandishments. Fortunately he had plenty of money with him—money, however, brought to him by St. Aldegonde, at Calais, collected by the sorely pressed Flemings for the support of his army, and not to be squandered in England; but he bribed the ladies and the councillors liberally with it. At first all went as merrily as a marriage-bell. The Queen again took to calling AlenÇon her little Moor, her little Italian, her little frog, and so on; whilst she, as before, was to him all the orbs of the firmament. Leicester was radiant, however, which was a bad sign, and Sussex was in the sulks, which was equally so; but the French, and AlenÇon himself, grew more and more confident of success. The Queen was playing her usual game, and Leicester understood it perfectly, but she could not help having her fling at Walsingham when he tried clumsily to humour her. He was praising the good parts and understanding of AlenÇon one day to the Queen, and said that the only thing against him was his ugly face. “Why, you knave,” she replied, “you were for ever speaking ill of him before: you veer round like a weathercock.”143 At the same time all sorts of scandalous tittle-tattle began to arise. Every morning little love-letters signed “your prince frog,” were sent from AlenÇon to the Queen, and Lippomano, the Venetian ambassador, assures the Doge and Senate that the Queen entered his chamber every morning before he was out of bed, and brought him a cup of broth. He was with her, says Mendoza, all day and every day, no one being present but Sussex and Stafford, and even they were not allowed to hear their conversation. In order to allay the fears of her Protestant subjects, some of whom were grumbling because AlenÇon heard mass daily, unwonted severity was used towards the Catholics during AlenÇon’s visit, and the Jesuit priests Campion, Sherwin, and Briant, were executed at Tyburn under circumstances of the most heartrending cruelty. The Spanish ambassador at last got somewhat anxious, and by Philip’s orders began to approach Cecil with suggestions of the falsity of Frenchmen and the advisability of a close union between England and Spain, all injuries on each side being forgiven and forgotten. He went to the length, indeed, of hinting that the French were intriguing with Mary of Scotland under cover of the marriage negotiations, although he himself at the time was plotting with and for her. But Cecil was a match for him, and let him understand that the friendship proposed was more necessary for Spain than it was for England. The position at the time of AlenÇon’s visit is well summarised by Mendoza in a letter to King Philip144 as follows: “As soon as the Queen learnt that AlenÇon had arrived, she said to certain of the councillors separately that they must consider what would have to be done with him; to which they replied that they could hardly do that unless she made her own intentions upon the subject clear. To this she answered that she was quite satisfied with the person of AlenÇon. When he arrived here he told those who he knew were in his favour that he would not go out in public nor undertake any other affairs until he had settled with the Queen the subject about which he came. If this be so, present indications prove that he has got an affirmative answer, as he now shows himself almost publicly, and appears to be in high spirits, all the principal people at Court being allowed to see him at dinner and supper. Leicester leaves nothing undone, and in the absence of the Prince Dauphin, always hands AlenÇon the napkin, publicly declaring that there seems to be no other way for the Queen to secure the tranquillity of England but for her to marry AlenÇon; and Walsingham says the same. The Frenchmen who came with him, and the ambassadors who were here before, look upon the marriage as an accomplished fact, but the English in general scoff at it, saying that he is only after money, and that he has already begged the Queen to give him £100,000 and 4,000 men to aid your Majesty’s rebels. The principal Englishmen indeed are saying that if he wanted a regular pension they would grant him £20,000 a year, so there are more indications of money being given him than anything else. It is certain that the Queen will do her best to avoid offending him, and to pledge him in the affairs of the Netherlands, in order to drive his brother into a rupture with your Majesty, which is her great object, whilst she keeps her hands free, and can stand by looking on at the war.” Few men were better informed than Mendoza; part of the Privy Council was in his pay, and the most secret information was conveyed to him at once by his spies, who were everywhere. He was, moreover, one of the most keen-sighted statesmen of his time, and we may accept his opinion therefore, confirmed as it is by much other evidence, that up to this time (November 11th) Elizabeth was once more playing her old trick, and befooling AlenÇon and the French.

When Leicester thought that matters were going a little too far he persuaded the Queen to urge her lover to start at once for Flanders, for which purpose she would give him three ships and £30,000, in order to receive the oath of allegiance which the States were offering him, and then to return and marry her; but Sussex saw through the device, and privately warned AlenÇon that whatever pledges might be made to him now, he might be convinced that if once he went away without being married the marriage would never take place. He entreated him on no account to be driven out of England, and as AlenÇon well knew that Sussex at least was honest in his desire to see the Queen married and freed from the baleful influence of Leicester, he put his back to the wall and plainly told the Queen that not only would he refuse to leave England, but he would not ever vacate the rooms in her palace until she had given him a definite answer as to whether she would marry him or not. Crofts, the privy councillor in Philip’s pay, told Mendoza that “when the Queen and AlenÇon were alone together she pledges herself to him to his heart’s content, and as much as any woman could to a man, but she will not have anything said publicly.”

Things were thus getting to a deadlock again. The King of France wrote to the Queen saying that under no circumstances, whether his brother married or not, would he help him against Spain in the Netherlands, and the Queen-mother began pressing her son with all sorts of promises, to return and abandon his hopeless quest before he became the laughing-stock of the world. This of course made the Queen warmer in her protestations, and by the third week in November she had contrived to convince AlenÇon again of her sincerity. He at once wrote off to his brother, requesting that commissioners might be sent to settle the conditions of the treaty which had been discussed with Walsingham when he was in France. The Queen encouraged him to do this, knowing full well that Henry III. would refuse to take his brother’s unsupported word as to her bona fides, and send another embassy, whilst his refusal to do so would furnish her if necessary with an excuse for proceeding no further in the matter.

On November 21, 1581, the Queen and Court moved to Whitehall, where AlenÇon was lodged in the garden-house, and on the following morning—coronation day—he and the Queen were walking in the gallery, Walsingham and Leicester being present, when Castelnau, the French ambassador, entered, and said that he had been commanded by his master to learn from her own lips what her intentions were with regard to her marrying the King’s brother. Either because she was driven into a corner from which there was no other escape, or because once more her passions overcame her, she unhesitatingly replied to Castelnau, “You may write this to the King: that the Duke of AlenÇon shall be my husband, and at the same moment she turned to AlenÇon and kissed him on the mouth, drawing a ring from her own hand and giving it to him as a pledge. AlenÇon gave her a ring of his in return, and shortly afterwards the Queen summoned the ladies and gentlemen from the presence-chamber to the gallery, repeating to them in a loud voice in AlenÇon’s presence what she had previously said.”145

The French were naturally elated at this, and AlenÇon at once sent off the great news to his brother, but the feeling amongst the courtiers was very different. Leicester and Hatton were in dismay; they had felt certain hitherto that the Queen was only play-acting, but surely matters were getting serious, and tears, lamentations, and reproaches, were the order of the day. But the Queen was playing her own game, and sage old Cecil was perhaps the only one of her advisers who really understood her move. He was ill in bed with the gout at the time, and was chatting with a couple of gossips when the message reached him. Instead of dismay he expressed great satisfaction, and placed the matter at once in its true light. “Thank God,” he said, “the Queen, for her part, has done all that she can; it is for the country now to take the matter in hand.” This meant that the Queen, ever evasive of responsibility, had shifted the onus upon Parliament, which had been summoned for the 6th of December. There was not the slightest need for Parliament to be consulted at all, but Elizabeth had been driven into a corner by AlenÇon’s presence and persistence and the immovable determination of his brother to stand aloof until the marriage had taken place. By taking the course she did, she artfully attained three objects which could have been compassed by no other way short of marriage: she secured further delay without offence to the King, she personally bound AlenÇon to her, come what might, and, most important of all, she sowed the germ of discord between him and his brother, who now appeared the principal obstacle to the marriage, as he refused the terms demanded by the English (which Parliament would be asked to insist upon) before the marriage could take place. Having the most secret correspondence before our eyes now, we are able to see clearly that this was the clever plan of the Queen herself; but her most intimate contemporaries were puzzled and disturbed at her apparent instability. The balance of opinion was that the Queen had been caught at last, and had pledged herself too deeply to draw back, although Leicester, after his first dismay was over, went about industriously spreading a contrary view. He and Hatton, however, were not so reassured as they would have had it appear. Hatton went to the Queen, and with many tears and sighs boldly told her that even if she wanted herself to marry, she ought to consider the grief she was bringing upon the country by doing so, not to mention what might happen to her personally if she married against the will of her people, upon whose affection the security of her throne depended. This almost seditious speech at another time would have aroused Elizabeth to fury, and consigned her “sheep” Hatton, to the Tower, but the Queen was quite confident in her game and only smiled and petted her future Lord Chancellor. Leicester, by right of his greater intimacy with his mistress, was blunter in his reproaches. He asked her point blank whether she was a maid or a married woman, to which she replied that she was a maid, as the conditions upon which she gave the marriage pledge would never be fulfilled. He told her that she had acted very unwisely in carrying the matter so far and so ostentatiously, and they put their heads together there and then to devise some scheme by which the Queen’s words might be minimised, probably solely at Leicester’s instance, and contrary to her own better judgment, as her plans were well laid. A message was therefore sent to AlenÇon, saying that the Queen had been pondering about the ring she had given him, and she felt sure that if she married him she would not have long to live. He might, she said, see that for himself, as he was a witness of the dissatisfaction of the English people at her attachment to him, which attachment she hoped he did not wish to be fatal to her. She prayed him therefore to let the matter rest for the present, and there was nothing in her country she would refuse him. She would be more attached to him as a friend, even than if he were her husband. Walsingham took this message, and whilst he was with the Prince the latter remained calm. All he had said and done, he protested, was solely to please the Queen, whose death, very far from desiring, he would imperil his own life to avert and to give her pleasure, as, indeed, he was doing now to save her from annoyance by refraining from pressing his suit with less ardour at her request.146 But as soon as Walsingham was gone the young Prince lost all control over himself. He saw now how he had been tricked; it was too late to prevent the coming of the commissioners whom his brother had despatched to England to finally settle the conditions, and in his rage he cursed the inconstancy of woman, tore the ring from his finger and cast it upon the ground.147 He told Elizabeth he would leave at once, hinted at revenge for his and his country’s slighted honour, and again brought matters to a crisis. Then Elizabeth saw that her complaisancy to Leicester had led her into a false position, and once more resumed her original plan. She mollified and lulled the Duke into a fool’s paradise again with: “nouvelles dÉmonstrations accompagnÉes de baisers, privautÉs, caresses, et mignardises ordinaries aux amants.” She received the King’s envoy, Secretary Pinart, with new protestations of her desire to marry, and appointed a committee of the Council, consisting of the Lord Chancellor, Cecil, Sussex, and Leicester to discuss the pourparlers with him. She asked them first to report their opinion to her, as, desirous as she was of the marriage, she would not entertain it if she was not satisfied that it was for the benefit of her country; but they knew she was playing her own game, of which most of them did not see the drift, and were determined to avoid giving any opinion which might offend and hamper her. In the meanwhile Leicester, through his agents, was stirring up the Protestants to distrust and hatred of the match, whilst the host of Catholic sympathisers in the interests of Spain were equally working against it on the ground that AlenÇon had not raised a finger to save the lives of his co-religionists who had been martyred whilst he had been in England. Matters therefore did not look particularly promising when the Council met Pinart early in December, although AlenÇon himself had been petted into hopefulness. The English began by advancing claims for all sorts of impossible conditions and assurances, and after succeeding in making the marriage appear impracticable they proposed that in lieu of marriage they should give AlenÇon a regular subsidy for his Netherlands projects if the King of France would also support his brother. This had been proposed and refused in different forms time after time, and Pinart, who was an old diplomatist, at once retorted that he had come to settle the marriage and nothing else; if the marriage was not to take place all negotiations must cease, and he must go back. Catharine was equally disillusioned, and told Priuli, the Venetian ambassador in France, that although AlenÇon had given the Queen’s ring back again, she attached no importance to it, as the gift of a ring did not constitute a binding engagement. “Queen Elizabeth, she said, is very artful, and my son is very young. He has allowed himself to be drawn by her into this adventure, in spite of all our arguments and advice; he is being overwhelmed with entertainments, and he has just written to me that he still has hope.”148

The next day there was a meeting of the Council, where it was proposed to settle matters by granting to AlenÇon a pension of 10,000 marks a year, the King of France a subsidy of £100,000, and the States £80,000 on condition of a similar amount being contributed by the King for the purpose of making war upon Spain in the Netherlands under the leadership of AlenÇon. If the King of France refused this it was proposed to make an immediate grant of £200,000 to AlenÇon, in consideration of the relief of Cambrai, and that the marriage negotiations be dropped. This was Leicester’s plan, who undertook to answer for AlenÇon’s acquiescence and the raising of the money by privy-seal loans and exchequer bills, but when they sent the proposal to the Queen as the result of their deliberation she was furious. Her plans were working as she intended them to work, and she could throw the whole blame for the failure of her marriage upon the King of France, whilst raising enmity between him and his brother, and pledging AlenÇon to her hard and fast without marriage. And yet these dense councillors of hers, and jealous, shallow Leicester, would keep thwarting her with their officious interference. Cecil was the only one who refused to do so, and always had a diplomatic attack of gout at critical times. Crofts gave an account to Mendoza of the way in which the Queen received the proposal of her Council. “She made, he says, a great show of anger and annoyance, saying that her councillors only thought of their own profit, wasting the substance of the country without reflection, and buying, under cover of her authority, that which suited them best. As AlenÇon thought fit to forget her in exchange for her money, she would neither marry him nor give him any money, and he might do the best he could.” Then she sent for AlenÇon and angrily told him the same, and a quarrel between them ensued. When she had thus upset the results of her Council’s officiousness, she began her own game again. Pinart had made clear to her that her demands for the restitution of Calais, a rupture with Spain, and the cessation of the old alliance between France and Scotland were unreasonable, and that if the marriage were broken off in consequence of such preposterous conditions the responsibility would be cast upon her and not upon his master. So she harked back to somewhat more moderate-sounding claims, which she knew would be also refused. She said that she had given the ring and pledge to AlenÇon on condition that he should make war on Spain in the Netherlands at the expense of the King of France, whilst she sent assistance from England in form of men. She said she had distinctly understood that this was to be the condition of the marriage; but of course if the French King could not fulfil it, there was the end of the matter. She was extremely sorry, but it was not her fault if there was a misunderstanding, or the French failed to carry out the condition, and she urged that Marchaumont, her devoted “monk,” whose letters are only a degree less loving than those of Simier, should be sent to Paris to urge this view upon the King and his mother.

Marchaumont had long been tiring of his task in England, and had not ceased to entreat his master to give him active employment, and especially to bestow a stray abbey or two upon him instead of giving everything to Fervaques and de Quincy. He assures Elizabeth that he has received nothing in consequence of his attachment to her, which had aroused the jealousy of his fellows, and he left England breathing vows and protestations of his eternal devotion to her.149 Ever since Simier left England he had maintained a copious cipher correspondence with Elizabeth, which is now at Hatfield, containing the most minute details of AlenÇon’s movements and intentions, interspersed with curious marks which presumably stand for kisses, twin hearts, transfixed with Cupid’s darts and other lover-like devices. But amongst his frantic, not to say impious, professions of adoration for the Queen he continued to complain of the machinations of Fervaques, the Queen of Navarre, and his other enemies who had brought about his disgrace and ruin. Elizabeth, for her part, was for ever urging AlenÇon through Marchaumont, and by her own letters to reinstate Simier in his good graces. Sometimes more or less vague promises of acquiescence were sent, sometimes the Prince told her that if she knew all she would not be so warm in Simier’s defence, and sometimes the revenues and favours now enjoyed by her favourite were detailed to prove that he had quite as much as he could expect, but the net result was that Simier remained in disgrace and Fervaques ruffled it more bravely than ever. At last Simier appears to have got tired of obscurity and entreaty, and finding he could get no more by serving AlenÇon, bethought him that he might employ his great influence with the Queen in the service of Henry III. The offers of such an instrument to mould events to the liking of the King were eagerly accepted, and at first an attempt was made by Henry and Catharine to induce AlenÇon to discard Fervaques and de Quincy and take Simier back again. But, as Simier writes to the Queen, this only made AlenÇon love them the more, for Queen Margaret’s influence on her brother was too strong to be overcome. So when Fervaques, Champvallon, Queen Margaret’s lover, and the rest of the crew, came over with their master to England, Simier, with the King’s connivance, followed them in order ostensibly to challenge his foe, but really to watch AlenÇon’s negotiations from his point of vantage near the Queen, and, if necessary, frustrate them in the King’s interest. With him he took a second, another fire-eater named Baron de Viteau, and when the challenge was sent to Fervaques, the latter, true to Gascon character, would only accept a pitched battle with six on each side. This was obviously impossible, as Simier had not six partisans in England, but it gave Fervaques time to arrange with Leicester, who hated Simier more bitterly than any one, to have the poor “ape” assassinated in cold blood. Simier was attacked on the London 'Change by hired cut-throats, but fortunately once more escaped. He again complained to his protectress, whose rage knew no bounds. Calling Leicester to her, she called him a murderous poltroon who was only fit for the gallows and warned him and AlenÇon’s courtiers that if anything happened to her “ape” in England they should suffer for it. Fervaques, rightly or wrongly, thought that Simier had been warned of the plot by a certain Lafin, with whom he consequently picked a quarrel in the palace itself. Lafin fled, pursued by Fervaques with a drawn dagger, into the presence of the Queen, who broke out into one of her uncontrollable rages at such disrespect for her, and cried out that if Fervaques were one of her subjects, she would soon have his head off. There were ample materials, therefore for dissensions, and by the middle of December AlenÇon had lost heart again. He earnestly pressed the Queen for an answer, and a pledge that she would marry him if the King acceded to her last demands. But she then advanced another claim which had hitherto not been mentioned, namely, the suppression of the English Jesuit seminary at Rheims. AlenÇon, anxious to make an end, asked her whether if he obtained this concession she would bind herself to marry him; but she still held back. Even in such case, she said, she would have to consider very deeply whether it would be advisable for her to change her state. This was mere trifling, and AlenÇon in despair begged her to send an envoy to discuss these conditions with his brother, but she replied that the King of France had better send one to her. Pinart was still in England, although waiting and ready to depart, and he was consequently delayed to discuss these new pretensions. In the meanwhile news arrived of the fall of Tournai, and the States, at the end of their wits and resources, sent a deputation to AlenÇon offering to invest him at once, if he would come over, with the dukedom of Brabant, which he had coveted from the first. This suited the Queen excellently, as nothing was more likely to bring about a rupture between France and Spain, but it would never do to let the future sovereign of the Netherlands leave her in dudgeon, or the control might slip through her fingers after all. So she at once changed her tone. Ships were made ready with furious haste, money, munitions, and men were promised in his aid, and every inducement was offered for him to accept the States’ invitation; whilst at the same time the Queen, with sighs and feigned tears, entreated her lover not to leave her, but if he must go to promise her faithfully soon to come back again. AlenÇon replied that he would not return unless she now gave an unconditional promise to marry him. But this was no part of the Queen’s programme, and she evaded the question with her usual dexterity.

On the 20th of December all was ready for the Duke’s departure. The vessels were awaiting him, and some of his baggage and household had started; a grand farewell supper was laid for him and the Queen at Cobham House, near Gravesend, where he was to take leave of her, and he was about to embark in the barges which were to convey him from Greenwich, when a strong north-east gale sprang up and blew continuously for many days, and prevented his departure.

Mendoza says that although she displayed publicly great grief at his going, in the privacy of her own chamber she danced for very joy at getting rid of him. One day during his detention he reproached her for letting him go so easily. He saw now, he said, that she did not love him much, and that she was tired of him, as she was sending him away openly discarded. She protested with an abundance of sounding oaths that she had only been induced to let him go for his own gratification and not for hers, and that she was sorry he was going so soon. She did not mean it, of course, but it was enough for AlenÇon, who seized the opportunity at once. “No! no! Madame,” said he, “you are mine, as I can prove by letters and words you have written to me, confirmed by the gift of the ring, of which I sent intelligence to my brother, my mother, and the princes of France, and all those who were present at our interviews are ready to bear testimony. If I cannot get you for my wife by fair means and affection I must do so by force, for I will not leave this country without you.” The Queen was much perturbed at this, and exclaimed that she had never written anything which she could not justify. She did not care, she said, what interpretation people chose to put upon her letters, as she knew her own intentions better than any one else could; and as for the ring, it was only a pledge of perpetual friendship and of a conditional contract, dependent upon his brother the King acceding to her conditions, which she was quite sure he never would do. She repeated her repugnance to entering the married state, but softened the blow by saying that there was nothing she desired more than that he should stay in England as her brother, friend, and good companion, but not as her husband.150 AlenÇon was deeply grieved at all this, but it ended in a promise that after the new year’s holidays she would see what help she could give him in his enterprise, and with this he was perforce to appear content. But withal, AlenÇon’s fresh talk of remaining in England disturbed her, especially as Cobham in Paris sent her news that the King was anxious to prolong negotiations in order to keep him there and prevent his going to Flanders. So she instructed Cecil to inflame his ambition for the great career there open to him, and at the same time sent for Simier to contrive with him how she best might get him gone. Simier had told her that if she really wished to avoid the marriage she need only stand fast to the conditions she had demanded from the King of France as a preliminary. She repeated to him her last demands, and said she was sure the King would not consent to break with Spain and bear the whole cost of the war without any contribution from her, and this would furnish her with the excuse she sought after, while she might make a show of approaching Spain, and this would ensure AlenÇon’s recall and the cessation of the marriage negotiations. Simier, after all, said he was not so sure of this. AlenÇon was such an evil weed that his brother might consent to anything to get rid of him from France. “Well,” replied the Queen, “I do not believe the King will grant such terms, but even if he do I shall find a way out of it.” And then she and Simier began to make merry at the fine gallant who would so readily give up his lady-love in consideration of a money payment. I offered him, she said, so much a month, and it has brightened him up to such an extent that you would not know him. But as soon as he is once across the sea I will tell him my Council will not agree to the arrangement, on the ground that my country cannot without unduly weakening itself provide so large a sum, and that the people would not allow it.151 Both Elizabeth and Cecil were strongly of opinion that whilst she held large sums of money she would remain mistress of the situation, and whatever promises were held out to AlenÇon to induce him to embark in the enterprise, the intention always was to dole out the subsidies to him as sparingly as possible.